Western Australia

I've been having sososo much fun on the west coast, I didn't even get a chance to write.  Honestly I've had such a great time and I met such great people on tour that I really didn't want to leave Perth this morning.

I flew to Perth from Sydney last Thursday, the 21st of February. We were told by the airline people that it was about 37 degrees outside (found out later it was actually closer to about 42).  So it was very hot, very humid, very windy (the west coast is subject to REALLY strong winds in the summer especially, I'll tell you more in a bit), and I was wearing carpis and a black tee - far from the best thing to wear in such a hot place.

Anyways, after checking in I found out about King's Park, the botanical gardens. It is also a great view of the city and river.  And it was on a big hill. But totally worth seeing, as it is complete gorgeous.

The morning after, my tour started.  The first stop we made was the Pinnacles Desert. You would not believe how incredibly cool that thing is. It's a bunch of stones - limestone, I believe it is, correct me if I'm wrong - sticking up all over the place. There are thousands and thousands of them. AND the sand is yellow, whereas everywhere else, it's whiter or it's dirt and it's red (the red desert dirt, ya'know).  So that's pretty cool, too (and really soft. Unbelievably soft). We went around taking pictures with some of the Pinnacles, remembering to keep "one foot on the ground at all times!", as they have been broken by people climbing on them.  Haha, that was fun. (Like one kind of looked like a camel, with two dips and a hump, so two of us at a time sat on it, haha.)

We stayed at a ranch that night in Kalbarri. In the morning, we went to the national park to do a hike. On the hike, we could try abseiling (or repelling down a rock face) twice. And so I did, along with most of our group. And while it was kind of scary those first few steps off the cliff, once you actually get to the bouncing off the wall, it is incredible! Apparently, I could hear as I was about to take the big step before the jump, I was doing to walking pretty quickly, haha. So glad I did that! :)

The walk was pretty cool, too, as were the other places and views we stopped at.  After lunch at the beach in Kalbarri, we drove up to Shell Beach (really cool, completely of shells!) and then to Shark Bay and Monkey Mia. Beautiful.

That night, we went to an aboriginal thing, where we learned a lot about digeridoos (or however it's spelled...) and, while most of us weren't allowed to try out the digeridoo - traditionally, only men play those - we got to play their female counterpart - a huge conch shell with the end cut off to blow into.  Some of the girls got some sound out of the shell, some didn't as it was pretty hard. I was in the former group, getting a nice long and loud sound from the shell. Afterwards, he explained how the shell was traditionally used, which was interesting. It was a great night.

In the morning, we got to see the dolphins of Monkey Mia (pronounced like MY-a, not ME-a, just so you know).  Let me begin here with this: these are wild bottle nose dolphins, they come in for a snack and just like showing off. The dolphins were really pretty and were really close. All the dolphins to come into the bay had babies, so we not only got to see the adult dolphins (here, aged 18 to 37), but their babies, aged 3 months to about 3 years. The 3 month old dolphin did some jumps for us, too. It was great. Two of the girls in the group also got to feed one of the dolphins a fish. It was all great.

We continued on to Coral Bay in the afternoon. There, we played a night game of water volleyball/Polo. It was a lot of fun and while it was a little chilly, it was still a great night for a dip in the pool.

The next day we could do whatever around Coral Bay. While half of the group opted for a three hour snorkeling adventure thing, the rest of us decided to head down to the beach and do some snorkeling off the shore. Before the snorkeling, we rented so kayaks and headed out to a sand dune where we could see some more wildlife there. (By the way, off the west coast is the Nigaloo Reef, vastly different from the Great Barrier Reef.)  And we did, as we saw a ray of some sort. Really cool. And pretty big.  After kayaking back, we got our snorkeling gear, directions to a great spot, and off we went. And it was absolutely incredible! We also rented a GoPro to get pictures and videos in the water, and I had my camera with me as well. It was a great day.

Exmouth was next. We went snorkeling in the morning at Turquoise Bay. Can you guess what colour the water was?  The current was strong, so we had first make sure to pay attention when we were going along, it else we end up drifting to Madagascar, as we were told (we spent the rest of the trip saying we'd either like to all float to Madagascar together to extend our trip and time together, how we'd never been and wanted to, or how we'd send for the coast gaurd to get them once they start drifting away to Madagascar, haha).

The afternoon, we spent by the pool, which was just so relaxing. Some guys there were throwing around a ball, and a bunch of us joined in mostly for something to do.

Day 6 was spent driving back to Kalbarri, about 1000kms. We went to a karaoke night at the local and then tried sleeping in our room without an air con or fan, fun times.

The last day, we went to a wildlife park, where they take in injured and orphaned kangaroos, in particular, in hopes that they'll be able to send them back out in the wild once they're big and heavy enough (for the joeys) or well enough that they won't be in danger as soon as they leave.  Not only did we get to see all the great animals, goats, a horse, a donkey, a llama, a crocodile, fawns, birds like a parrot (talking and all!), an ostrich (with at least three giant eggs, and a pair of emus, we also got to feed the kangaroos. In addition to that, for a small fee, we could cuddle a joey! Oh my gosh, have I told you how beautiful and cute joeys are? Because it's a lot! :3 Such a sweet little baby. 12 month old Francis is who I held, and she was just so precious.

In the afternoon, we went to the sand dunes where we went sand boarding! Oh gosh, was ever fun! At first, we were all going down on our butts and then some us decided to try standing up. Haha, on the last go, I went from the top-top and... fell off instantly.  After getting back on, I went quite a ways down before landing in my butt. Haha, it was so much fun! I loved it and am sososo glad I tried it.

When we got back to Perth a couple hours later, that was the end of our tour, but most of us still got together and went out.

Friday, I went to Fremantle for the markets. It was good, got some things I'd been looking for and got some good deals.

In the afternoon, we went to the beach. And that was just a nice and relaxing afternoon.  The water was great, the sun was hot, the wind was refreshing!

Oh, I also forgot about the wind. Okay so when we were enroute somewhere, Monkey Mia I think, we stopped to see some trees called 'leaning gums' because the winds ate so strong on the west coast that the trees are unable to grow properly and end up leaning on the ground. Really cool. And also, when they were sailing to Indonesia and area a long long time ago, the used to sail around Africa and then up. One sailor gut decided to stay lower, trying to find a quicker route there. That's when the 'Roaring 40s' were discovered. And this really helps with the amount of wind all along the coast.

Anyways, that's the highlights of my trip. Or the outline. We did sososo much and had sososo much fun, it's actually kind of hard to remember it all and tell it all.  I'm currently enroute to Sydney and should be there really soon (it was delayed about 30 minutes, and they were going to try to go a little faster than they're supposed to, so I don't know when were landing now).  Got to see Adelaide for the first time, as I missed it on the way to Perth, and we flight right over. Didn't see much, though, haha.

Well, they just announced that we're starting to make our descent into Sydney, so I should probably go. Ta! Xxxxx