Driving, driving, driving. A quick stop at Port Headland. Industrial town. Big port. Big salt hills. Long trains. Start heading south towards Karijini National Park. Night stop at a dry creek.
02/08/2005
Karijini National Park is as good as we’ve heard it should be. (Our first day is spent at Dales Gorge.) The gorges and the waterfalls are different from all others we have seen. A deep turquoise water. Amazing cliffs and rocks. Green bushes and trees. The water is freezing but we still take a dip in one of the pools to refresh. Lucky us – there’s a gas barbecue at the camping ground – so we have a feast of steak, potatoes, onion, tomatoes. Yum!
03/08/2005
Off to Weano Gorge and some amazing walks. Narrow cliffs. Pools. We have to do the “spiderwalk” between narrow cliffs above the water to come to one of the rockpools and waterfalls – it’s pretty cool but you have to be careful so you don’t slip. On our way back to the coast we stop at the mining town Tom Price for lunch, some shopping and filling up on fuel. It’s a surprisingly green and good-looking town but we guess it’s because it’s a mining town. We spend the night at a rest area.
04/08/2005
Through Exmouth. A pretty boring looking town - but as you head out of Exmouth and towards the Cape Range National Park the coastal drive is gorgeous. Turquoise water. Big sand dunes. As we enter Cape Range National Park we are lucky to get the last camping spot they’ve got. The spot we get at Kurrajong Camp doesn’t look like much but as you walk over the sand dunes you are in paradise. Beautiful crystal clear water. We spend the afternoon on the beach. Reading. Sunbaking. Swimming (a bit chilly). You can see the reef and walk out to parts of it at low tide. Gorgeous sunset. Whales and dolphins going past in the distance.
05/08/2005
We like it so much here that we decide to stay another day. Relaxing. Reading. Beaching. At sunset we join the camping hosts and the other campers for a drink watching the sunset. Another gorgeous sunset. More whales.
06/08/2005
We wake up to a windy day. Time to hit the road again. We’ve heard Coral Bay is supposed to be nice but are pretty disappointed when we get there. We end up at a dodgy caravan park and compared to the beaches in Cape Range National Park the beaches here doesn’t seem to be as nice. We do our laundry and dishes etc…
07/08/2005
No point in hanging around a place if you don’t particularly like it, is it? Although we are a bit hesitant to head down south as it’s getting colder and colder the further down you get. But what the heck we have to get used to the cold, don’t we. We have a lunch stop at the old jetty at Carnarvon then we continue to Denham where we spend the night in a caravan park. The drive here was pretty nice as the wildflowers were stunning – yellow, purple, pink, red. Green fields. Nice for a change.
08/08/2005
We get up early in the morning so we can watch the dolphins being fed at Monkey Mia at 8am. Tourists line the beach and the jetty to watch the dolphins come close to shore. Funny, beautiful creatures. The caravan park at Monkey Mia is full so we head to nearby Francois Peron National Park. Driving in the national park we see lots of lizards running over the sandy roads. This is a world heritage area so there are plenty of unusual animals around. At Cape Peron we are totally alone on the beach. Nice for a change. The scenery here is spectacular. The rend sand dunes and mountains meet the white sandy beaches and the clear blue water. The water is pretty freezing. We can see dolphins jumping around in the distance. At the lookout at nearby Skipjack Point it’s like looking down into an aquarium. Below us we can see stingrays and dolphins. Amazing!
We camp on the beach at Bottle Bay. Ocean views and sounds falling asleep. Since it's a cold night we climb into the car pretty early.
09/08/2005
Ocean views and sounds waking up. Lunching at Denham, a little town on the water. Driving. Sleeping at a rest area by the Murchison River.
10/08/2005
Too freezing to sit down outside to have breakfast so we drive 130 km to Geraldton and have brekkie there instead. It rains a little - first rain we have seen in months. The landscape is getting greener and greener. Nice! We check into a caravan park in Cervantes and go and check out the Pinnacles at sunset - remarkable limestone pillars!!! It starts to rain heavily at night so we have no other choice but to climb into bed.
11/08/2005
Time to hit the city. We are really looking forward to see Perth and experience a bigger city. Yesterday we booked into a hotel (over the Internet - through wotif - you can get some cheap rates) so we are really excited to see what the hotel is like and really excited to sleep inside, in a real bed for the first time in a couple of months. We stroll the streets of the inner-city, before checking into the hotel, and we visit a foodcourt for the first time in ages. We feel very civilised. The hotel turns out to be great. It's so great to be able to spread out and have some space! It's so comfortable to have a shower and toilet nearby!!! We stroll the streets in Northbridge, where our hotel is, and find a nice Italian restaurant. Wine. Pizza. "Please don't disturb."
12/08/2005
Walking around the city. Doing some shopping. New books. Daniel is looking for a new digital camera and as we are talking to a salesman at JB Hifi about our bad luck with walking into the water with the last camera - and showing him the camera, how it's broken and so on - the camera miracolously starts working. The screen is working perfectlt. We crack up laughing and can't believe that the camera is working!!! Wow, how cool is that. Maybe we are having some luck again! Lucky we saw it before we bought another camera. Daniel feels $600 richer. We start snapping away immediately! See how happy we are!!! We check out a LEGO exhibiton at MYER and feel like kids.
We go and book a trip back to Sweden (in November) and then we go and have coffee and some traditional Swedish pastries and cakes at Miss Maud, a Swedish pastry place. Yum! Even though it's very windy and rainy we are very happy!
13/08/2005
We like the comfort of the hotel so much so we decide to stay another night. We stroll around the streets of Perth and have some really nice Vietnamese soup for lunch (perfect food for a rainy day). On the way back to the hotel we pick up a bottle of red wine and lots of chocolate. Cozy night at the hotel with wine chocolate and the Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy.
