We spent another day on the beach yesterday, heading down after breakfast for a snorkel.

Zac is getting a lot more confident and I was able to take him right out onto the reef to see a lot more fish. His favorites where the sea cucumbers and the giant clams. I showed him how if you duck dived down to the clam and waved your hand they would close then reopen, and he spent as much time as possible doing that to every giant clam he could find!!

Tara is also loving her mask, although we ditched the snokel for the moment. She spent as much time as ever on the edge of the reef diving under and looking at the fish. She would pop up, take a quick breath and be straight back under again…. think I have a couple of new divers in the makings here.

Jess is not so confident and is happy to just play in the shallows, although even Fi is liking floating out on the reef for a look.

Now even though we are doing our best to screen up, everyone is looking a little pink at the moment, so we headed back to the van around lunch time and spent a few hours sitting and playing in the shade.

I must have been bored, as I actually took the time to wash the van!!! Don’t worry Andrew, I didn’t pull the light fittings out and clean them… but I did get a lot of the red Norseman dust off. Turns our the van is white after all!! Looks a hell of a lot better, although I can see I will have my work cut out for me when I get back and give it a real clean. At least at home I will have the high pressure hose to help!!

We returned to the beach in the late afternoon for another swim, and Zac and I must have spent a good hour or two right out on the reef. The strong winds returned in the afternoon, so by the time we got out of the water, Fi had taken the (frozen) girls back for a hot shower, and the only sign they were there was our thongs sitting in the sand!!

Today, Zac and I are going for an adventure, riding a quad bike a couple of hours south on the beach to see turtles and do some snorkeling. Should be great fun and we are both really looking forward to it. I just wish this wind would back off a bit, but looks like it will be here until Monday. We are still hoping to take the family out on a glass bottom boat and snorkelling tour tomorrow, but we will see how we go with the wind.

It occurred to us yesterday that the fun part of our trip is almost over, and sometime before the middle of next week we will have to point south east again and head home. We have had such a good time that it really has gone too fast.

Ok, now first off, Ive been a bit slack lately on uploading photos, so I will try to make up for it today.

Yesterday, we spent most of the day on the beach. Zac and I were up about 6am, so we headed down the beach for a walk so as not to wake everyone else. We were amazed at how warm the water was at that time, and wandered along the beach in knee high water. It was then that we had our first encounter….

A huge fish swam through the shallows and came right up to us, less than an arms length away!! Not sure what type of fish it was (I was never good with names) but it was about 40-50cm long, and a lovely pale green colour. Shame I didn’t have the camera with me 🙁

Zac and I returned to the van for breakfast and told everyone else, but I think they thought is was just a tall tale.

So after breakfast, we headed down to beach with all our gear. Standing in the shallows, we were approached by first one, then another and then another of these fish! This was awesome!!

Zac and I grabbed our snorkeling gear and had a great time snorklelling the reef. You literally had to kick three times and you were on the reef!! the water was warm, crystal clear and at 2-3m deep, it was an easy duck dive down to see the colorful fish and coral. I even took both the girls our there with Zac’s mask and snorkel, with a noodle under their arms. They loved it and Jess returned to Mum saying it was “Super Duper Awesome!!”. I even gave Fi my mask and snorkel and she went out for a look herself.

After a fun swim, we got down to some serious sandcastle building. At first, I thought this would be the best castle yet, as the sand was so pure with no shells or rocks in it. Unfortunatly with the hot wind blowing, the sand dryed to fast, which made it very difficult to build. We got a decent castle built, but not our best effort.


After sandcastle building and another wash off swim, we returned to the caravan for some lunch. There was a gentle wind blowing, which helped to keep the heat down, and it was nice sitting in the shade outside the van.


After our bellies were full, we thought we had better go have a look at the town of Coral Bay. That took 2 minutes!!! There really is nothing here but a couple of Caravan parks, a resort (that is also the pub) two small supermarkets and a bunch of places to book tours… My chances of finding work here and relocating are looking slimmer… didn’t seem to be any IT jobs here at all 🙁

We visited the tour operator at the caravan park, and will probably do a glass bottom boat and snorkeling tour to the outer reef on Sunday. Zac and I are also eyeing off the Quad bikes, and we may end up going for a tour on them tomorrow. Zac wants to drive with me on the back, but we are still in negotiation about that!

We also lashed out and bought Fi, Jess and Tara a mask and snorkel each, so we are a real diving family now!! Of course that meant we had to head back to the beach for more snorkeling. The girls are happy just playing in the shallows while we look at the reef. Zac is getting good now, and was starting to duck dive late yesterday arvo. He is also a lot more confident in the deeper water (with dad close by) and that means we can spend more time exploring the reef.

Not sure what we will do today. The Wild Western Wind has caught up with us again, and we had a very gusty night. I hope it dies down as the day progresses, but I am not holding my breath.

I had to sneak a few older photos into this post, so here are the kids enjoying their Milkshakes in the Cafe in Denham.


A couple of photos from shell beach.


and the view from our bedroom window at the Denham Caravan park.

We made it. Arrived in Coral Bay about 4:30pm yesterday and there is only one way to describe it….. beautiful 🙂

It is warm, the beaches are pure white and the water crystal clear.

I told Fi to put the house on the market because we have found our new home…. instead she booked us in for 5 nights… oh well, will be a great 5 nights 🙂

Not too sure what there is to see and do around here, but over the next few days I can see sitting on the beach, building sand castles, swimming, snorkeling, a dive and maybe even a glass bottom boat. Will just have to wait and see.

I guess even paradise has it’s downfalls, as we were driving North today and passed the Tropic of Capricorn, there was a big red sign warning that it is cyclone season, and to be aware of conditions ahead. I joked with Fi that it would be just our luck that we would run into a cyclone!!! Last night, I got an email from Dad saying there was a cyclone building just off the Coco islands and I thought what are the chances???? I did have a laugh.

I checked the conditions on the Internet and it appears it has already been downgraded, and there are no warnings for this area, so we should be ok.

The other thing we experienced yesterday on our travels was heat. The road up here kept winding inland away from the coast, and I could watch as the temperature gauge rose a good 5 or 6 degrees. We stopped for fuel (no fleet card…Grr) and it was a very dry and hot 43 dregrees. While filling the car, we also experienced a dust storm that came out of nowhere. I had left the windows open on the car so the kids wouldn’t cook, and had to stop filling and run around to then front to turn the car back on and put the windows up. Damn electric windows. It passed reasonably quickly, but Zac thought it was awesome. Of course he wasn’t standing outside filling the car!!

The other amazing thing was just how dry the country side is. We kept passing these huge rivers that were nothing more than a dry and dusty river bed. They looked like they haven’t see water in a long time. Although, some of the flood markers around the road were a little disturbing. You can see how with everything being so dry, even a quick cyclone would cause some major flooding. Let’s just hope I don’t have to test the snorkel on the car, as unfortunately the caravan didn’t come with one!

Anyway, that’s enough dribble from me, I had better go back to convincing Fi we should live here…. wish me luck 😉

Was another pretty laid back day yesterday, mostly because of the heat. Was supposed to be 36 degrees, but as we got into the car to drive to the aquarium, the car said it was 39!!!

We visited the aquarium and got to see lots of cool fish, eels, a sea snake and sharks!!

Was very interesting and different to your regular aquarium, as the guides are Marine Biologists and take you around to each tank pointing out the various fish and talking a bit about them.

They even had a very cool looking Stone Fish, which the guide said can be found near the entrance to the little lagoon. They are very poisonous and Fi was very clear that we wouldn’t be returning to Little Lagoon for a swim no matter how nice it looked!!

They also have a large lagoon at the Aquarium that is full of sharks. There were two types of sharks that are common on the Reefs around here, Lemon Sharks and Whalers. The feeding was very cool as the sharks came right out of the water to grab the bait.

Afterwards we headed back into town for a bite at the cafe we visited the first day we were here. The lady at the Cafe said the kids were so well behaved the two times we visited that she had to give them a prize. They all got a little Gekko magnet each, although the magnet had broken off by the time we left, so we quickly hurried the kids out before the lady could see.

Next stop was Shell Beach for a paddle in the water to cool off. The entire beach here for about 120km is covered in tiny shells. In some places they are 10m deep! We all had a paddle in the water, and scoured the beach to see who could find the best shell.

In the end we had to agree that they were all the best shells, as everyone of them was different and we all liked different things about them.

On the way back from Shell Beach, we stopped into Eagle Bluff where they have built a boardwalk off the side of the cliff overlooking the shallow water below. The water is so clear that you can spot the marine life from the cliff, and we saw Sharks, Turtles and Shovel nose rays.

The sharks were only tiny, about 50cm in length. At the Aquarium we learnt that hundreds of these sharks can be seen in the waters some days as they come into the shallows to bask in the sun.

These sharks are harmless, but when the French surveyed the area hundreds of years ago, they didn’t know any better, thinking all sharks are dangerous and named the bay Shark Bay.

We didn’t spend too much time at the bluff as we were chased back to the car by the flys, and so headed back to the caravan and spent the rest of the day on the beach, watching as the sun slipped into the west.

We have enjoyed our time here, but now we must hit the road again as we travel another 7 hours in the car to Coral Bay to see Ningaloo Reef.

Not much left to blog about this morning after yesterdays big catch up post, but I know you’ll want something to read, so here goes.

We extended our stay in Denham last night by one more night, although I could get used to camping on the beach, and it would be easy to spend several more nights here.

That being said, we do still want to make it up to Coral Bay, so I think we will head off tomorrow and hopefully they have just as good a spot on the beach.

Today we plan to visit Shell Beach and the Maraine Park/Aquarium. I expect that the rest of the day will simply be spent sitting on the beach.

I need to be careful how much driving we do around here as there is no servo in town that takes Fleet Card, and I would prefer not to have to fill up too many times here. I can always claim back what I have to fork out on fuel, but it is just a hassle I would prefer to avoid. We have done well so far, only finding about 3 or 4 places where we have had to buy our fuel and we have been through alot of fuel!

I could get used to this life on the road, we have had some great times, but I guess the next few weeks will fly by and we still have to get home by the end of the month. Not sure if we will follow the coast back down, or we may head a little more inland and cut through to Norseman from the top. I will have to research the roads a little more, as we are not too keen to hit any more gravel given the damage it did to the front of the van last time! I’m also not sure Fi’s sanity would survive another couple of hundred clicks down a corrugated road!!!

Wow… as I am sitting here typing, an emu wandered by in the scrub between me and the beach… not something you see everyday!!

Anyway, love to all the family and friends back home, would love to say we are missing you but….. the truth is we are having far too much fun!!!! hehe 😉

Oh, and so is the spoilt dog back home from the photos we have seen….

Ok, so the Blog is a little late today(sorry Judith), but it is not without good reason….

To make up for it, this will be a long one… so grab a cuppa or crack a beer and settle to read about a great couple of days…

Now, where to start…. Well yesterday was an early start as we had to pack the van up in time to get over the road for a pelican feeding in Kalbarri. We just made it as the pelicans were coming up out of the water, and the kids loved them. They were big birds, taller then the girls, but all the kids got a chance to throw them a fish which was pretty exciting.

After the pelicans, we said our goodbye to Kalbarri and pointed the car North once more heading to Denham, a little town about 28km from Monkey Mia.

Was a pretty uneventful trip and we arrived at about 2pm, finally finding the heat we were after… it was 36 degrees. We quickly dumped the van at the Denham Seaside resort right on the beach 🙂 and headed to a Cafe for a late lunch.

Now apart from this Caravan park being right on the beach, it’s claim to fame is that it is the Western most Caravan park in Australia!!! There was one downfall though in that we were told they have had 3 snake sightings in the park in the last week!! Of course they told us this after we had booked in!

The rest of they day was spent at the only place you can spend it when it is that hot… sitting on the beach. We had a great time and didn’t return to the caravan until the sun was almost on the horizon.

Now the reason why the blog is so late today…. Monkey Mia 😀

We awoke at the crack of dawn this morning…. well… 6:50am anyway… and all piled straight into the car and headed for Monkey Mia to see the Dolphin feeding.

We arrived just in time for the first feeding, and raced straight down to the waters edge. It only took a few minutes before 4 dolphins appeared. Two females with their calfs. They swam around as the Rangers talked about them for about 20 minutes while we all stood ankle deep (knee deep for the girls) in the water. They came in very close, often cruising by only 2 meters away.

We all had to step out of the water as they began the feeding, and they selected people from the audience to step into the water and feed them. Being a good dad, I push the girls a little forward in the hope that their cuteness would get them a chance to feed, but the lady picked an older lady standing right next to us and moved on down the line… most disappointing.

They fed each of the dolphins 3 fish, then held onto the last one so that they could all be fed the last one together. They were just about to feed the final fish when another of the feeders said how about those two little girls in the middle… and if that is their brother, then he can bring them down to help too. Yay!!! it worked.

They all held onto the fish together and fed it to the dolphin. Unfortunately, they all also had their backs to us…. but they were happy anyway.

After the Dolphins had their breakfast, we headed to the cafe for our breakfast… but not before a sneaky Dad booked us onto a 2.5 hour cruise on the Aristocat2 to look for Dolphins, Dugons Rays and a visit to a Black Pearl Farm.


While waiting for the cruise, the girls got a close look at an emu that was wondering around.

The cruise was great fun, with some nets at the front of the boat that the kids could lie in while Mum and Dad dangled their feet off the front. While listening to the safety briefing, an Eagle Ray cruised along the back of the boat. Unfortunately that was the only one we saw, but we did see many Dolphins and Dugons, as well as turtles, a sea snake, and apparently there was a big shark, but none of us saw it.



Zac and I didn’t see it as we were hanging off the back of the boat in the drag net. The drag net, as it sounds, is a net strung between the two hulls at the rear of the boat. they lower it just into the water, and then gun it!!! Instant Jacuzzi!!!

Towards the end of the cruise, we visited the Pearl Farm where they grow pearls. This farm was made famous recently because one of the farmers, Jaime, was on the tv show The Farmer Wants a Wife.

It was Farmer Jaime who talked us through the process of growing pearls, a most interesting process that is nothing like I thought it was. We did learn that it takes 2 years to grow a pearl, which then has to be harvested, or it will be ejected from the oyster. As they harvest the pearl each two years, they replace it with a larger ball to grow a larger pearl. Each oyster goes through this process 4 times over it’s 8 year life.

All very interesting, but what I’m sure you really want to know (not looking at anyone Kate) is that Jaime is no longer with the girl he met on the show, and is now single and looking… I kept my wife close by just in case!!!

After the cruise we played on the beach where I went snorkeling and got up close and personal with a turtle… but no dolphins unfortunately.

On the way back we stopped by the Little Lagoon for a look, but it was too hot to stop and we simply drove out onto the beach…

….because we could!!! A great couple of days 🙂

Ok my turn!! I have not posted for a while as Craig usually gets up earlier than the rest of us (surprising I know) and sits quietly posting about the previous days adventures. The only way I can post about what we have ben up to is if I do it now before he does tomorrow morning. So instead of reading my book tonight, which is getting really good I might add, I have decided to let you know about our day today at Kalbarri.
Well Anth was right, it’s lovely here.
I will start by addressing all the green thumbs and their questions about the wild flowers. We have seen some lovely colours.. They are not as widely scattered around as I expected but they are around. Maybe I expected to see more but they are lovely none the less.

We started our day by visiting the gorges. It was hot hot hot. The first look out was only a few hundred metres from the car park and by the time we came back we were fighting off the flies (you were right Jude) and really thirsty.

We moved to the next stop which was Natures Window. This was really worth the long trek over very scary narrow ledges (especially with little ones) but when we finally got there we sat for a long time just taking in the view.

We then started the long trek back to the car and again filled up on loads of cold water (bless that car fridge that often leaves us with a flat battery!!!)

After this we thought it might be time to have a swim, so back to the caravan to put bathers on and over the road we headed to the estuary. When we got there, there was a hut that rented out boats. Craig being the boat lover that he is (although these little putters are probably not his idea of a boating adventure) thought we needed to have a go.

Each child had a chance to have a steer and loved every minute of it. Their genuine smiles say it all.

After our leisurely ride we headed back to have a swim and the kids and Craig spent some time making the traditional Morton castle.

By then everyone had worked up an amazing appetite and we went back to the van for a BBQ. It’s fair to say that the guilts got me today and I was desperate to feed everyone some good wholesome food. So I plated up cucumber, capsicum, carrot, snow peas and corn (stole that from you Mrs Bates) which was yummo while Craig cooked the chops and snags which we all polished off. I felt much better after this as I am sure you cannot survive on nuggets and chips alone (although recently, my kids have given it a red hot go).

We will push off again tomorrow and see where the road takes us – after seeing the pelicans being fed across the road tomorrow morning of course. We didn’t quite make it out the door in time this morning!!

Well I always thought that WWW stood for World Wide Web, or when referring to a place, the Wild Wild West, but as it turns out it stands for the Wild Western Wind!!!

I just checked the BOM site and we are going to have these 40 Knott winds until Monday 🙁 At least the temp is good, forecast for the next few days is 30, 32, 34, 35, 35, 31, 30 🙂

We had a bit of a late start yesterday, not punching out of Cervantes until 11:30am! Everyone needed a sleep in, but given we had a 6 hour drive in front of us, that was a little ridiculas. Not to worry though, being seasoned travelers now, driving 6 hours up the road seems like a pleasant Sunday afternoon drive.

So we headed off into the Wild Western Wind and pointed towards Geraldton. Was a good start to the day, as it was at least 10 minutes before Jess announced “I’m so Hungry…” Lucky it was a well prepared Mum to the rescue with some snacks to get us through.

We thought originally that we would stop in Geraldton for Lunch, but got about 100km out of Geraldton when the hunger bug hit and we stopped for pies and sausage rolls from a local Bakery in Dongara. We also took the opportunity to throw the frisbee on the local cricket ground (despite the wind) before piling back into the car and heading for Geraldton.

As we approached Geraldton, we started to notice just how windy the place was. All the trees grew not straight up, but towards the East!!! Obviously years of strong winds from the west had meant they grow sideways. I wish we had stopped to get a picture, but we were so astounded that we had forgotten to get the camera out until we were well past them 🙁

Anyway, we arrived in Geraldton (to gale force winds…) and headed straight to the war memorial which a few people had told us was worth a visit. It is there to commemorate the sinking of the HMAS Sydney back in the late 1940’s. It is said that during the funeral service for the 645 sailors, a large flock of seagulls flew in off the water, circled the memorial once, then headed out to sea. Not a sqwauk was heard from the birds which is very eery. They therefore built this memorial with a large structure with 645 seagulls to remember the sailors that lost their lives in service to our country.

After Gerldton, we pointed North into the wind once more and headed to Kalbarri. We stopped briefly to get a photo of elephant hill. Not sure how the picture below will come out, but if you look carefully you can see an elephant lying down with it’s trunk pointing to the left.

We arrived about 5:30pm are are staying at a caravan park near the banks of the Murchinson River. Today we will explore the Kalbarri area. We booked for two nights, but may extend if there is enough around here to keep us interested.

*****update*****

I just stole the picture below off Judith’s blog (cheers Judith), this is one of the trees that grows sideways!!!!

Well yesterday we battled the wind and a little rain to make it to Cervantes, not far from the Pinnacles Desert in the Nambung National park.

We booked into The Pinnacles Caravan park in Cervantes for two nights, although after finding our site and setting up, we pretty much decided that one night would be plenty. Not sure if it is because we got spoilt staying in such a great park in Fremantle or not, but this would have to be the worst site I have seen. Even though we told them we have a large van, they stuck us on this tiny little corner site, and we can’t even put out the awning and park the car!!!

So, we thought we would do the tourist thing, and if we can get though it all then we would head off today and aim for Kalbarri.

As it is still blowing a gale, beaches are not overly enticing at the moment, so we headed of to see what else the town has to offer. First stop was Lake Thetis to see the stromatalites. They are believed to be the first creatures on the earth, and are basically bacteria that build rock like formations on the side of the lake. Wasn’t all that exciting, and the wind was almost pushing us into the water, so we didn’t stay too long!

Next stop was the interesting part. The Pinnacles Desert. We arrived there at 4:30pm and thought the entry price of $11 per car was a little steep, especially as we arrived so late in the day and the Discovery Centre had already closed! Turned out it was worth it.

There was a 4.2km track through the desert that you could drive as you wove between the pinnacles. The Pinnacles are tall Limestone rock formations surrounded by a yellow sand dessert. What was really amazing though is that they stretch as far as the eye can see, and after looking on Google maps, we only saw a very tiny percentage of the Desert!

Some of the rocks were up to 4m tall!! The kids had a ball running though the desert, and finding different shapes in the rocks. We had so much fun that we went around the track 3 times before I thought we had better head back to town for fuel.

Zac even decided that he would run the track, and probably ran for a good kilometer before getting back into the car. Luckily at the end of the day it wasn’t too hot. I think we actually picked the best time to visit.

As the sun started to sink, the light started to have amazing effects on the dessert and the rocks, and we watched a great sunset over the water to the west. Unfortunately I don’t think the camera really captured the effect.

We also spotted a family of Emu’s (another spot for me!!) making their way through the desert. Looked like a mum with her babies of for an evening stroll.

On the way back from the pinnacles, we stopped by Kangaroo point, and drove onto the beach to see the rest of the sunset. In the distant were some dunes that looked like snow capped peaks. I think Jess still doesn’t believe me when I say it is sand and not snow!!

What a wild final night in Perth. Didn’t get much sleep last night as the weather howled and shook the van to pieces.

We had packed most of the outside of the van yesterday in preparation for leaving today, and I am certainly glad I took the Annex walls down while they were dry. We had a lot of wind and rain last night, and I awoke several times thinking were were going to lose the awning!! The wind really shook the van hard last night.

We are heading North today, hopefully for some better weather, to a place called Cervantes. There is a new coastal road, The Indain Pacific, that has just opened and should take us right there. It is not on my GPS, so we are going to have to do it the old fashion way and read the road signs!!!

Should hopefully only take 3 to 4 hours, and we will spend two nights there to give us enough time to explore The Pinnacles Desert in the Nambung National Park, and the surrounding area. After that we plan to head further north through Geraldton to Kalbarri, Monkey Mia and hopefully Coral Bay where we can snorkel (and maybe Dive) the Nigaloo reef.

Right now, I’m just looking for some better weather!!!