We drove to Coral Bay and on the way we crossed the Tropic of Capricorn. We also stopped at a road house were some people drove off without paying for their petrol. The shopkeeper tried to get the number plate but the car stirred up all the dust so he couldn’t see it. There were fat red anthills on the way, that were different to the tall yellow ones we saw in the NT last trip. We arrived at our camp site, set up and went to the beach to do some snorkelling on Ningaloo Reef. We saw lots of fish as well as a sting ray. We went for a walk to look at the town then came back and had dinner.The weather was warmer and even mum got in the water!

Tess

We left Monkey Mia reasonably early this morning, and then started the four and half hour drive to Carnarvon. We stopped at Shelly Beach, which is was about an hour out if Monkey Mia. Shelly beach is literally covered in small shells. It really was quite spectacular! The water there was even calmer than the water at Monkey Mia!

Our next stop was at the Stromatolites. There was a short walk out on a boardwalk to go and see them. While we were walking to the boardwalk, we heard a bird thats ‘call’ sounds like it is saying “did you get drunk, did you get drunk, did you get drunk, did you get drunk…” That was quite interesting to listen to, however we were not able to actually see the bord unfortunately. There were a lot more stromatolites there than at Lake Thesis, where we saw some about a week ago. It was rather engrossing and fascinating. We learnt that the stromatolites are actually made of layers of microbial mats. There is a certain type of slime that encases the stromatolites, protecting it from the sun and also drying out. The stromatolites are about three billion years old which is about 75% of earths geologic history. Cyanobacteria inside the microbial mats has influenced Earth’s evolution by breathing oxygen into the atmosphere.

After the stromatolites, we pretty much just drove straight to Carnarvon. After setting up the van in Carnarvon we went for a drive around to all of the fruit and veggie stalls/shops. At one place we actually had to wait for them to go and harvest some more corn and lettuce, because they had run out. You can’t get much fresher than that!!
We went for a walk along the Mile Long Jetty. That was nice, but a bit windy. We made our own pizzas for tea, they were rather scrumptious I have to say!!

Tara

An amazing thing happened today.
First we went to see the dolphin feeding again, there was more than last time but they took longer to come in. We went to the Ocean Park Aquarium to have a look at the sharks and fish. When we got back we hired some stand up paddle boards and had a go. This is when the amazing thing happened. Dad and I were on a paddle board and we saw two Bottle Nose dolphins swimming towards us. They swam right under our board. We thought they might knock the board over but they didn’t, we fell off just after that any way. I got back on fast because I had just seen a stingray. We had a great day.
Tess

Today we went down to the beach quite early in the morning to watch the dolphin feeding! At first there was only one dolphin, then a few more came. In the end there were about eight. Apparently the most they have ever had in one feeding is 26! It was very exciting to see the dolphins up so close, we were allowed to stand in the water, but just not touch them. We learnt lots of interesting stuff about them as well. Dolphins, like humans, need eight hours sleep, but instead of one big block they sleep for a few minutes or seconds at a time through out the day. When they sleep, they only shut down half of their brain, because, unlike humans, they have to think about breathing. This is also why you can’t put a dolphin under anaesthetic, because that shuts down both sides of the brain, that mean that the dolphin would not breath. Dolphins can also sleep with one eye open, to watch out for sharks. The people here only feed the female dolphins, because the males can be too aggressive with each other, and also humans. The people here feed the dolphins three times a day, and they have named each dolphin. They can tell who is who by their fins, often it is the scars on the fins from shark attacks. Dolphins live for about forty years.

This is Nikki.

This is a photo Mum took of a Pelican…

After breakfast we went on a boat tour. The tour went to a Black Pearl Farm, and went around the bay where we got to see lots of sea creatures. It was all very interesting!

At the front of the boat, they had some nets that you can sit in!

This is the Pearl Farm. It is quite fascinating how its just a building in the middle of the water! It is quite an intricate and involved process that produces the black pearls. It takes seven years in total to grow the coloured pearls. While we were at the pearl farm, the people there caught a small shark, we think that they were going to eat it for their lunch!

This is the shark.

We saw some more dolphins on the boat! Notice how this dolphin is carrying some sponge in its mouth, this is so that it can dig down under rocks and things on the ocean floor with out hurting its nose! Apparently, only female dolphins here in Shark Bay do this and if a mother has a boy calf, she won’t teach him, but if she has a girl calf, she will teach her.

At the back of the boat they had a boom net! At the end of the tour, we were allowed to go in it! It was very fun and the boat was going rather fast!

After the tour, we went into Denham to have a look around. On the way back we stopped and had a walk around the Peron Homestead. It was started in the 1880s, operating as a sheep station until the 1990s when low wool prices made it uneconomical. The government then purchased the station and turned it, and surrounding areas, into the Francois Peron National Park.

Here is another road sign!

There was an Artesian bore hot tub at the homestead, that was free to use, and open to the public! It was a bit unusual, being out in the middle of nowhere.

This is inside the old shearing shed.

This is also inside the shearing shed.

On the way out, there were two emus, one was crossing the road!

There was another nice sunset tonight!!
Tara

We left early to get a few hours of driving done before breakfast. We had breakfast after 3 hours of driving, we stopped at a cafe along the way, in the middle of nowhere, called “The Red Car Cafe” near the Billabong Roadhouse. We had a surprisingly very tasty cooked breakfast then finished the drive to Monkey Mia. We got there and set up before having a look at the beach. Dad, Tara and I waded in a fair way, we saw lot of little fish (3 different kinds) I even saw a crab! We had a lemonade at the restaurant in the caravan park while we watched the sun set and we also saw some dolphins. We noticed that the water was so still you could only just see the line of the horizon. We had a great day. Tess

After breakfast we headed off to go on a walk. The walk was situated about 30km out of Kalbarri. The walk went along the Murchison River. It was a very nice walk, that went for about 9km. It took us 3.5 hours to complete, because some parts were quite steep and rocky. There was one part that was actually a little bit scary, we had to crawl along some rock that was right above the water! We also saw a very cute Wallaroo!

The Murchison River

This is called Nature’s Window!

Wallaroo

Murchison River

Scary ledge!

On the way back from the walk, we stopped at some lookouts.

Castle Cove

Natural Bridge

Murchison Rose

There was a very nice sunset tonight.

Tara

We had breakfast at the Farmers market that was supposed to start at 8:00 but people were still arriving at 8:30 to set up. They were very disorganised, we thought they must have only been going for a few weeks but they had been going for 5 years every week. We got some fruit a veggies then had to leave before all the stalls were set up. We had a quick stop on the way to Kalbarri at an old convict hire depot. It only ran for 3 years but this was were they came and stayed until they were hired out to help on farms and mines. Our next pit stop was a pink lake in Port Gregory. The lake was actually quite pink because of a type of Algae. Then we drove on to our caravan site in Kalbarri which was on someone’s private property and it had great views to the Indian ocean. We then walked down to the beach to see leaping giant waves, we had to walk through lots of sand dunes to get there. The waves were wild and crashing. We came back and had nachos for dinner on the BBQ.
Tess

this is a Kestral flying off!

We made pancakes for breakfast, they were delicious!! After breakfast we had a lazy morning around the caravan. In the late morning we drove to Mullewa. Mullewa was about an hours drive. (To get a better idea of where we are, Drummond Cove is about 10 minutes away from Geraldton.) On the way to Mullewa, we saw two trains pass each other. One train had 91 ‘trailers’ with three engines, the other had 61 ‘trailers’ with two engines, and it was full of Iron Ore on its way to the Geraldton Deep Sea Port.

At Mullewa we talked for a while with the Tourist Information lady, who was very excited about the upcoming Rodeo, and the Flower show which takes place in August at Mullewa. We went to a little cafe called Jonesys (without the apostrophe). The whole cafe was coloured red, black and white, so we think it might have been a local football team, or something. Even the cupcakes had red,white and black icing!! The cafe had no windows, but the food, and interior of the cafe was very nice!

After lunch we went on a small walk around the town, following the Monsignor Hawes trail that ended at a lovely old church. The church was actually designed and partly built by Hawes himself, who was a Franciscan Priest (he was an Anglican Priest before he turned to Catholicism). Monsignor Hawes was born in England, and when he was young he showed promise as an artist, which led to him studying architecture in London around 1900. We found his story to be overwhelmingly fascinating, which is why I cannot recount it all here. But here are a few things that he achieved in his life: He owned and breed race horses, which led to him actually riding one in a race when a jockey was not available, he came second; He designed many of the churches and other Catholic buildings all around the world, and even in Werribee, Victoria. His crowning achievement in this area was the Cathedral in Geraldton. He designed it, helped build it, and purchased most things for it! It took 22 years to complete. Before coming to Australia he was a missionary in the Bahamas, and in his life, he travelled to many other places around the world. Despite designing many fine buildings, when he was a Parish Priest in Mullewa he was content to live in a simple hut, until the Bishop insisted that he should build a proper Priest house; He also designed his own cave attached to a church in the Bahamas where he was to to be buried, he also gave detailed instructions on how his body was to be laid out.

This is the church in Mullewa

This is the Cathedral in Geraldton.

Afterwards, we had a little look around Geraldton, before going back to the caravan for dinner.

Tara

We got up early to go to the Pinnacles. We left our van at the park as we had to backtrack to the National Park. The Pinnacles are lime stone outcrops and beautiful in the early morning.

This is Dad trying to get a good angle for an artistic photo.

This is the photo he took.

There were lots and lots of the lime stone shapes.

This is Kelly our Pud mascot climbing the stones even though she was told not to!

We had a short stop to see some of the earliest life forms at Lake Thetis. The stone like blobs are the Stromatolites which are colonies of bacteria. This colony is 3500 years old!

We stopped at the beach at Dongara for to make our lunch. It was a very nice view. We saw a seagull carry a puffer fish on to the sand and drop it there. It was lying on the ground, and then we watched the water come up and it swam away quickly.

We had a look at an old town called Greenough which is now a tourist attraction. There was a old gaol there that you could look in which had court room and a charging room were they would have arrested people. You could also go in the old cells.

There were 3 churches 2 were still running and the other one was not.

We saw a strange animal that looked like a alpaca crossed with a horse. We looked it up on the Internet and we think it might be a Guanaco which it strange because we also found out there is only one breeder left in Australia so we don’t know how or why there was one there.

In Greenough there are lots of trees that are leaning over, they grew that way.

We got to Drummond Cove and walked over the sand dunes to the beach at sunset. We got a bit lost on the way back but found our way eventually .

Tess.

When we got up we packed up our wet chairs and caravan, because it had been raining. After leaving Perth, we started driving to Jurien Bay. We stopped at New Norcia, which was established in 1846 by some Spanish Benedictine Monks. It was a Catholic mission that tried to help the local aboriginals. The town is Australia’s only monastery town. There were lots of big, old buildings, which were inspired by Spanish styles, and were very grand. It was a reasonably long drive to Jurien Bay afterwards.
Tara

Mum and Dad tried some ale that was brewed by the monks.