The Final Frontier - Western Australia

We spent a couple of days in Perth where we managed to meet up with one of my school friends and checked out what seems to be one of Australia’s most relaxed cities. Setting off from Perth in our second campervan of the trip we knew we had some very long drives ahead of us. Bearing in mind that Australia is pretty much equal in size to the whole of Europe, with the state of Western Australia taking up almost half of that, we embarked on a mammoth 10-day jaunt. 

The long open road

Any idea what these animals are?!

One of our overnight stops

First highlight was a world heritage area called Shark Bay which is home to a small bay called Monkey Mia. We knew that the area was popular with wild dolphins living off the west coast in the warm Indian Ocean and were lucky enough one morning to arrive at the bay in time to feed them. Actually seeing the dolphins up close and personal was incredible as they paddled in the shallow water waiting for their morning snack of fish. The rangers in charge were really informative telling us about the different families that the dolphins were part of and how they get themselves out of tricky situations with the not so friendly Tiger sharks - nearly all the dolphins had scars from shark attacks and sharks regularly come into the bay and swim around the snorkelers!

Our next port of call was much further up the coast, a town called Exmouth. We’d already booked ourselves onto a Whale shark tour as it’s currently the season for Whale sharks to feed off the coast before they return to Asia. Unfortunately what could have been a highlight of our entire trip - swimming with the largest fish in the sea - was actually a huge disappointment and to cut a long story short the day was a disaster! Firstly everyone (us included) suffered from terrible sea-sickness and then every time a shark was spotted by one of the overhead planes, our boat arrived too late and just as the shark had dived down into the ocean therefore impossible to swim with. So as we were both thoroughly disappointed we checked into a holiday park and treated ourselves to a hot shower (bliss!)

Our next stop was a couple of hours back down the coast to Coral Bay, a cute holiday town (village) with a stunning beach fringed by the Ningaloo Reef - a rival to the Great Barrier Reef. We collapsed on the beach, slept, read and swam with the fish which was just what we needed to boost our spirits!

Our final destination was a good full day’s drive away - the Karijini National Park. Karijini is similar to the Ayers Rock area, bright red soil and nothing other than wide open scenery that spreads for hundreds of miles.

We headed to one of the park’s camping sites in time for sunset and spent the following two days adventuring into the wilderness. The park is known for its huge gorges, waterfalls and watering holes which were all picture perfect and certainly kept Tom snapping away.

Piffy on a rock bun...

Lazing around on the rocks, wading and swimming through the water pools we really had time to enjoy a more off-the-beaten-track side of Australia.

My very own natural hot tub!

Unfortunately we did encounter a flat tyre (which neither of us really knew what to do about what with Tom only having passed his test before we left home and me, well being me) but of course there was a helpful Aussie trucker who guided us through the process (and probably had a good snigger about how useless the English are!)

and finally...!