Day 72 - Exploring the great OUTBACK, sleeping under the stars and swimming with MANTA RAYS!

AHH ONLY 1 DAY LEFT WITH HOME COMFORTS!! After that it's the backpack again, don't know how i'll cope without home meals! I'm off to the East coast of Oz on Tues, but truthfully can't wait to get exploring again. I had to put a nappy on my nephew Joel the other day, an experience so traumatic (for both of us), it made me realise I had reached my limit as a child carer!

In the meantime I have LOADS to tell you. Probably best to start with the introduction of this bloke...

TREVOR! The amazing tour guide.

Trevor was the tour guide on my 1300Km journey up north to Exmouth. Born and raised in 'The Bush' with lots of aboriginal influence, he never went to school but learnt more from his surroundings anyway. I couldn't think of anyone better to show us the real Aussie outback.

The tour itself lasted 8 days, the minibus stopping at various points along the West coast until we reached Exmouth on Day 5. The return journey was mostly driving as we made it back to Perth in 2 days.

Sleepy tour group, haha!

To catch the minibus on Day 1, I was up at 5am, urgh! So there I was at the bus stop at 6.30, feebly trying to make small talk with a couple of German guys to take my mind off the fact I could not feel my legs, it was FREEZING. The bus ambled up eventually, and I hopped on. There were 19 passengers, 16 of which were girls! Which was obviously just AWFUL. Ha... There wasn't much chat to start with understandably as the picture shows, we were all nackered. Moreover, our first impression of Trevor was general terror. It was easy to see he was not a happy fella that morning, his face closely resembling the colour of a beetroot. Luckily this was a rare mood for Trev, and all was forgotten as we eventually got going (turned out the minibus was missing lots of things so we had to drive around the city picking things up, spare wheel etc).

The "straightest road in WA". 'Nuff said really, I saw lots of this!

The group were brilliant, initially a bit shy but the 11 Irish girls soon sorted that out! Also met Laura, another gappy traveller from Hull and we got on super duper. The driving wasn't too bad, only a few hours a day at most. First stop was sandboarding at Lancelin, awesome fun, although being my usual competitive self felt the need to try standing up...That was a bit silly, after successfully riding for all of 2 seconds I promptly took a nose dive and found myself chewing sand for the rest of the day, mmm!

Oh yeah watch this baby go.....face planted about a second later.

Baby python, apparently the grownups can eat pigs, mmm.

Day 2 we stopped off at Trevor's mate Rick's wildlife park, basically an Aussie bloke whose back garden doubled as an animal haven, including a saltwater croc and variety of snakes! Rick proudly told us that Australia is home to 9 of the world's 10 most deadliest snakes. I smiled politely.

Horizontal tree, grows like that due to the wind!

After stopping to see some horizontal trees (does exactly what it says on the tin) we were off to Kalbarri, home to some amazing scenery. On the way to our hostel we stopped to sit on a clifftop and watch whales playing in the distance, pretty cool. Overnight was in a typical backpacker dorm, me and 7 girls in the room, which I'm told makes things very inconvenient! I was fine, although quickly found situations like this render the communal shower very much inaccessible for the entire stay...

In the middle of nowhere - Bowling with watermelons in the outback, random?!

This rock reminded me of the Lion King, so here I strike my best pose! Imagine the big roar...

Day 3 was an early start of 5.30am, but was completely worth it to trek the gorges in Kalbarri. Then headed to Shell Beach, which was just as I remembered it from 5 years ago. Amusingly, my t-shirt and shorts that I wore that day were the same as those that I had on last time I visited! (Yes, you should send me money to buy some new clothes, email me and I will be happy to give you my address).

Shell Beach, guess what it's made of.

Saw some dolphins at Monkey Mia on day 4...

Dolphins at Monkey Mia

All around the campfire, beer flowing freely!

And overnight we stayed at an outback sheep station, really rustic with no electricity from 10pm, and hot water supplied by our campfire! Dinner was a feast, then we sat around the fire singing and toasting marshmallows. Then we dragged out beds outside and slept under the stars, cold but stunning!

Sleeping under the stars at a sheep station

Dinner at the sheep station, in the outback. A python lived in our kitchen...!

Friday we arrived at Coral Bay, I took a boat trip and swam with some wicked 2.5m manta rays, turtles, sharks and all sorts! I really regret not buying an underwater camera, so I'm afraid you'll have to imagine it, but the manta rays were definitely the coolest thing i've seen so far.

In the evening we made it to Exmouth, and on Saturday went to a beach to do snorkelling. Lovely beach, except the bloomin' flies are everywhere - about 50 on you at any one time, AH! There was an area of patchy reef to explore, saw sharks, rays, octopus and another turtle! That was amazing as it was a lucky find, and it was only me and Laura following it around for about 30mins, it just didn't care we were there!

Shells on Shell Beach

OK, I'm going to be completely honest here. Right now it's 1:10am in Perth. I'm up at 6 because I'm flying to Cairns in the morning, and although I thought I'd be able to finish this tonight my head keeps dropping forward and I keep jumping when I wake up again (you know the feeling don't you?!). Soooo, I promise to finish the news about the rest of my stay in Perth soon! There are more pictures on here if you click to view all of them.

Kalbarri coast

Hope everyone's doing brilliantly, more news asap!
A.xxx

written by

Ayglesia on June 24, 2007 from Exmouth, Australia

from the travel blog: Alex's round the world adventure

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