32 to 19 degrees in 2 days

Something surprising happened around Kalbarri:

The edge of the road suddenly became green. This may not seem like much, but after months of spinifex, mulga, red dust and desert it was initially quite startling for Cem and I. It was round about Kalbarri that the journey felt like it was changing for me. There were a few other signals for this change; our first traffic light since Alice Springs in Geraldton, digging out the long pants and jacket as the temperature dropped and the Kalbarri National Park; the walkways were PAVED!!

Coronation Beach was a nice place to stop and lunch, it had a great little campground too, but we pushed on and stayed at Cliff Head south of Geraldton with another waterfront position, although the beach was about 1 metre deep with squishy seaweed. That night was extremely windy and it poured rain. We all woke at 2am and were happy to be dry as we listened to the roaring outside.
The Pinnacles are a couple of hours north of Perth. One theory for their existence is a petrified forest, they are certainly quite striking. For anyone who knows the kids book 'Are we there yet?', we are attempting to mimic the author and family in the following shots.

We threw in our lines at a little fishing village called Lancelin and finally caught two fish! But .... they were 'blowies' or blowfish, which are pesky little fish stealing the bait and distracting fishermen from catching real fish. We are getting closer though! A final rough camp before Perth on the picturesque Moore River. We could walk along the river, it was very lush and green with nice flowers which Ayla enjoyed collecting. (This was before we learnt that picking of wild flowers anywhere in WA is illegal...tut tut)

And this is our movies, tea and chocolate set-up in the van that night. Tomorrow is Perth.

Dash to the western most point of Australia

We ended up doing this little excursion far too fast, could have been done over numerous days, not only because it was 6 hour return journey of driving with at least half of that really rugged, but also because it was just spectacular. We started off with the van which we deposited at Carrarang Station. Oh my goodness, I can't believe a station could be so spectacular. It is its own peninsula. Mind you I have no idea what they are running on their station; apart from one horse we saw no other signs of anything agricultural. We had a waterfront campspot, our own private beach.

Then we continued on our way to Steep Point, the western most point of the Australian mainland. The journey was extremely lonely, hardly another car, as Steep Point is simply very remote. The road got narrower and sandier the closer we got. It was a bit freaky because it was literally single lane and with blind crests and I couldn't get head-on collision out of my mind. Amazingly when we were 10 km short of Steep Point there was a home. And we had to register at this home with the lady who has lived there for 18 years. The final 10km passed beachside campsites where we finally saw people again, and tents, only tents, you could not tow anything up here. The final few kms were a maze of sandy tracks with a few wrong turns....aghh, where is that point. I'm sorry that we flew past all this and didn't get out to explore and swim at the beautiful beaches (the sun was getting low as we arrived and we still had to get back). In hindsight we should have bought our tents up.

We finally made it back to Carrarang just after the sunset. Leaving Shark Bay yesterday, we had equipped ourselves with some fishing gear at Denham. Our first fishing attempts were here at Carrarang.

and again the next morning. Sadly neither attempts were at all successful.

As well as maths mentals, we did a bit of music practise here at Carrarang Station.

And inflating and deflating tyres has been a common theme over the last few days, trying to get the kids versed on these sort of things too...

Dolphins, sharks, rays and turtles

That's what we saw at Shark Bay. Especially dolphins. Ever since we left Sydney the kids have been looking forward to going to Monkey Mia and have asked when we will get there. Well, we finally arrived. Monkey Mia itself is nothing but a beach and a resort but is famous for its friendly and tame dolphins. Originally, in the 60's, the fishermen started feeding the dolphins. In the 80s anyone could feed fed them and they started to rely on the food and forgot how to hunt for themselves and a huge percentage of calves died. Now it is all very controlled and survival rates are back to normal. The 'interaction experience' is therefore also all very orchestrated. Between 8am and noon there is maximum 3 feeds, depending on the dolphins. We had crowds of about 100 people which seemed a lot, but at Christmas it apparently gets up to 700...yuck. Anyway, we hung around for most of the day, dining in the lovely waterfront restaurant (because we were free camping) and in the afternoon EVERYONE, including the rangers, cleared out except the dolphins, so it seemed we had them to ourselves which was also far better than the orchestrated 'interaction experience'. We took far too many photos of the dolphins, here are just a few.

We had tried to book into the Monkey Mia Campground but it was fully booked, so we were quite happy to spend a few rough nights tucked away in various places and drive into Monkey Mia during the day. We caught wind that rangers came round in the morning and fined you for this, so we all took great delight in performing a few 'Great Escapes' by rising very early and escaping before the ranger was up. In this way we saw continual sunrises and breakfasted in interesting places and got the most out of the days (although even with that there didn't seem to be enough hours in the days). This is Shell Beach at Shark Bay as the sun is rising (note kids still in pj's!). It is made up entirely of small cockle shells.

Eagle Bluff at Shark Bay was another place we enjoyed, this time at sunset. We saw continual sunrises and sunsets for a while there, and we were constantly reminded, every information board we read, of the areas world heritage status!

And in the same area, at Shark Bay, we had a day up in the Francois Peron National Park and headed right up to Cape Peron which, if you look at a map of Australia is right up the tip of the peninsula at Shark Bay. That was a long, rugged, sandy journey to the top but it was beautiful and that's where we spotted the turtle as well as the shark annoying some dolphins and rays in the crystal clear waters and causing some commotion.

Apart from the sandy roads where we really had the feeling we were four-wheel-driving, the other novel thing about this National Park was the 'hot tub' in the historical precinct that we stopped at on our way back. Its was HOT; 40 degrees - natural artesian water. We were glad there was a cold shower close by.

Wild Quobba and Red Bluff

We made a detour north of Carnarvon out to Quobba and then a further 65 km along a dirt road, uncannily reminiscent for us of the Tanami (we had the shakes when we finally arrived) out to an isolated and beautiful surf spot called Red Bluff. Its great to go to places that the general caravan parade just bypass. Another fabulous campspot on the ocean front where we spent a lot of time watching the whales migrating south, breaching and spouting and displaying themselves as they went. It was magnificent.

The kids really enjoyed some waves and Kai in particular became quite confident. However we had to be careful because it was very rough and dumpy, obviously not patrolled and we were told an 8m swell was on its way for the weekend. Quobba, on the way into Red Bluff has some blowholes which were starting to really go off in preparation of the 8m swell. We stopped there twice, once on the way up to Red Bluff which was spectacular enough, but then on the way back when the surf had picked up even more....

On our way up:

And on our way back:

The ferocity of the waves was captivating and the crash of the waves on the shoreline at Red Bluff was a great way to fall asleep that evening. After the calm turquoise waters of Cape Range it was a welcome change to have this movement and action. We headed into Carnarvon and booked into the Coral Coast Tourist Park for a night for a much needed proper shower and some washing after 5 nights 'out bush'.