I am writing this from Exmouth. Today we are having a bit of a chill-out day, because the next few days we are going to be covering a bit of territory. I thought I would write a synopsis of our travels so far.
We are having a wonderful trip. The weather has treated us very well. Coming across the Nullarbor it was relatively mild, with a bit of rain around. From Norseman, we went down to Esperance for a week, then to Albany for a week. Thought Albany was a great spot. When I say that to W. Australians, they say it is too cold. Mind you it has a latitude about the same as Nowra! From Albany we visited Denmark, Walpole, etc seeing some of the big forests of karri and tingle, and climbed Bluff Knoll in the magnificent Stirling Ranges.
I have a cousin in Mandurah, and we went up and spent a week and a half with them, during which time we took the bus out to Kalgoorlie, and came back on the Prospector train. Bernie did the mine tour at the Mining Hall of Fame, which was fabulous. I checked out all the exhibits above ground. Lots of beautiful old pubs in Kalgoorlie, all prospering by the look of things.
After Mandurah, we went back down to the south-west, Margaret River, up and down the coast from Cape to Cape (there is a great 135km walk there - not that we did it), out to Manjimup, Pemberton, etc. - more forests of jarrah, tuart, marri.
Then up to Perth. (I'm afraid this is a bit of a Readers Digest version - there's just so much to see). Did some of the tourist things - beautiful Kings Park of course. Not wildflower time, but still lots of fabulous banksias flowering; the Perth mint; exploring the beaches and the city; out to Rottnest - a beautiful place, but bathed in sadness at the thought of all those aboriginal men who were imprisoned there over a period of 66 years. From Perth, up to New Norcia, Dongara, Geraldton, and then to wonderful Kalbarri - one of the highlights of the trip so far for Bernie. Beautiful town at the mouth of the Murchison River, and then the wonderful gorges of the Murchison R in Kalbarri NP. From there to Monkey Mia, and the dolphins. I was impressed the way the DEC (Dept. of Envir. and Conserv.) officers supervise the feeding - no touching or interfering with the dolphins, all very well managed and only small amounts of appropriate food in the morning so that they still have to obtain their own food in the wild.
Then Carnarvon - excellent .growers markets on Sat. morning. Evidently Carnarvon supplies 70% of WA's fruit/veg. This week, Coral Bay and Exmouth. The Ningaloo Reef is very close to land at Coral Bay, so we could go in from the beach and snorkel over the coral. Also did a couple of trips out to the reef to see sea turtles and dugongs. A big highlight of this area is swimming with whale sharks, which are majestic creatures. The cost of these trips is a bit beyond our budget, however. The boats go to the outer reef, and they use spotter planes to find the whale sharks.
Our plans from here - Onslow, Karratha, Port Hedland, then down to Tom Price and Karajini NP (can't wait), back to Port Hedland, then Eighty Mile Beach, Broome, Derby, Fitzroy Crossing, Halls Creek, Bungle Bungles, Kununurra and then on into the NT and Katherine. Then we will truly have been "around Australia". To date on this trip we have travelled about eleven thousand kilometres in the car (that does not include the Kalgoorlie trip as we used public transport). We still have at least that much to go!
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