Exmouth

We loved Exmouth, it was a great combination between fantastic snorkeling and spectacular beauty as well as a great little, coastal town- complete with a great sea food restaurant that was so yummy the first night that we had to go back the second night.

The thing to do in Exmouth is snorkel, so we kitted ourselves out and headed to Cape Range National Park, we'd been told Lakeside was a good spot. You can just walk out from the beach and the reef is there 30m out, we saw amazing fish and great coral as well as a turtle.The only downside with Exmouth was that we weren't staying longer, we will definitely be back!

Natures Adventure Playground

Karijini National Park is awesome. We had a fantastic couple of days there in the eco tents(road too rough to get our van in -shame!)

We explored Dales Gorge on the first day which was a beautiful walk, we also found one of the best natural swimming pools we've seen -Fern pool.

The next day we had a great time doing some more adventurous wallks. Hancock gorge involved descending a couple of ladders then wading through knee deep water, scaling sides of rock walls ans at the end straddling canyons(the spider walk) before ending up at a magnificent pool , Kermit's Pool.

we then explored the next adventurous gorge, Weano Gorge to Handrail pool. This one started off with a deeper section of water you could either wade through and get wet to your chest, or wade across part of the way at knee height and then do some scaling along a very narrow rock wall. We all went for the last option except for Harry who had remembered that we still had boogey boards on the car roof and thought it would be a good idea to paddle across.

We then walked a bit furteh on rock scrambling, crossing streams on stepping stones before you come to a tricky narrow chasm you have to climb through and you get to a handrail which you climb down to get to the magnificent swimming pool that awaits you. That wasnt quite enough excitement for the kids so they decided to climb some of the rock walls that were surrounding us.

If you look carefully you can see Emma's head right at the top of the left hand column of rock, Maddy is mid-way, Pete is on his way to help Emma - not that she needed it but she was giving me a heart attack!

We all finished the day with that exhausted feeling of contentment you get after having a physically demanding but fun day.

Port Hedland

Now this place probably isn't worth a blog, I don't even have any photos of it but I think it's worth a quick mention because of its weirdness.
We stayed there purely for a stop over between Eighty mile beach and Tom Price.We arrived at the caravan park to a board declaring they were full, lucky I'd pre-booked and strange as Port Hedland is no tourist mecca.As we soon discovered, this was probably due to the fact that they don't have many caravan sites available for tourists due to the fact that there are a lot of mine workers living in the caravan park permanently.
 Port Hedland is predominantly a mining town, the only real tourist thing to do in town is to take a tour of the mine.
We then were very surprised at the price of real estate. Whilst looking through a local paper, the average price of your average (very) brick suburban house was well over a million dollars- we couldn't believe it. That probably also explained the caravans parked in numerous front gardens because real estate was so expensive people had to live wherever they could find a spare bit of land. We also noticed the price of a very average unit to rent, $2300 per week!!!Let me tell you this was no Toorak!
Some other strange things we noticed were the security grills on all of the house windows at the front, the bins full of beer bottles and last but not least the breathalyser on the wall of the laundry in the caravan park??????Do you have to be under the limit to wash or perhaps the mine workers who dominated the place need to be sure they were under the limit to go to work???Hmmm Port Hedland- don't rush there.

Cable Beach (because I needed a photo)!

Eighty Mile Beach

After a bit of art shopping and the best mango smoothie we've ever come across we ended up leaving Broome quite late. As a result we arrived late, but in time for the sunset, at eighty mile beach. Wow, it was beautiful, just over the dune miles of white sandy beach covered in millions of beautiful shells. It was great to watch the colours change as the sun set .

We were back in the morning for some shell fossicking, the kids have planned a stall at the local market selling shell necklaces and anklets! As for me a mobile for Blairgowrie would be great.

Staircase to the Moon

We were lucky enough to be in Broome for this spectacular, natural phenomenon. Lucky because we'd changed our original itinerary so we could do the Gibb River Road and by putting everything back a week it meant we were in Broome at the right time to see the Staircase. I'd tried to see it last year when we were in Broome but we left a couple of days before it was happening, I'd tried to change flights so we could stay and see it but there were none available. Anyway so we were in luck this time.

The Staircase to the Moon only happens once a month for three days on a full moon at low tide. It happens when the full moon reflects on the mudflats and gives the illusion that there is a staircase connecting the moon to the earth.

So we made our way down to Town Beach along with hundreds of others who'd come out to see this amazing spectacle. We found a good viewing point , standing room only and waited for the moon to rise. It was beautiful and just as awesome as I'd hoped, just as spectacular as the postcards and the hype had led us to believe- definiely woth the effort in getting there.

Unfortunately my camera doesn't do it justice, but you'll get the idea....

After the main attraction was over we had a wander around the night markets which they put on to co-incide with the "Staircase". Had a great home-made ice-cream and made our way home to bed very contented as the end came to another fantastic day.

The Horizontal Waterfalls

So we're having a little holiday from our holiday in Cable Beach Resort for four nights. We just couldn't resist as we were going to Broome and we stayed at Cable beach last year and loved it. The van is parked out the back in the car park, it does look a little unusual.

Anyway on our first day in Broome we had booked to go on a tour of the Horizontal Waterfalls in the Timor Sea.we were picked up and taken to the airport where we boarded a sea plane, imagine the excitement of Harry, going in a plane that was going to land on water!!

We had a flight for about one and a half hours over the coast of Broome and up toward the Buccaneer Archipelago, very beautiful flying over those aqua seas with islands dotted around. We then landed in the Timor sea and got off the plane and onto a pontoon in the middle of the sea, to which a huge, houseboat was moored.

As we walked along the pontoon which didn't have any railing we noticed numerous sharks swimming around, this made me a little nervous as Harry in his excited state was running around quite recklessly.It it would have taken was one little trip over the uneven surface and you'd be in with the sharks!

After a cuppa we came downstairs from the houseboat for the shark feeding session, where Timmy a young guy with bandaged fingers hand fed the sharks fish.We could elect to swim in cages alongside the sharks or view them from above as they were fed.They were hungry and frantic.

We then had a delicious lunch of grilled barramundi and salad, in which Harry had three pieces of fish and would have eaten more if we didn't have to get on the boat for our trip through the Horizontal Falls. We boarded the boat which was a little unusual because you sort of straddle this rounded seat. we then went for a little cruise through Cyclone Creek , a little side trip which was also very picturesque. We then went to the Horizontal Falls, which are created by the fast changes in the tide which cause a huge displacement of water through a narrow rock space which cause a rush of water, like a waterfall except its horizontal.

It was great fun, as you go very fast and it's quite a bumpy ride , the girls' likened it to a ride at the show. the kids loved it! after our action packed day, we flew home , the return flight being more direct and thus inland. There was burning off being done and the smoke and the fire trail looked quite spectacular from the sky. We were dropped back to our resort, complete with a DVD of our experience, so if any one is interested we can show it to you when we get home!

Once we got home we headed straight back out to Town Beach to see The Staircase to the Moon....but that's a whole other blog!

The Birrells at the Bungle Bungles

We actually explored these magnificent "rocks" last Thursday. We opted to go on a tour to the Bungle Bungles as we'd heard the 50km road in was quite rough, it took about 2 hours and there was also a few things to see so we'd thought it would save time being taken, also meant it made it easier on the planner and you could just sit there and absorb all of the info they told you.
It was great. The truck trip in was very rough, I'm glad I didn't have to worry about flat tyres and Pete could sit back and relax for a change.

We first went to Picanninny creek. On the drive in to the Purnululu National Park you drive through and can see quite a few mountains but its not until you get right in that you can see the striking orange and black striped domes that are typical of the bungles.

Hmmm photos (mine anyway ) don't really do these magnificent structures justice....

We then went to Cathedral gorge which was also beautiful, there was a natural amphitheatre which made music sound unbelievable and yes someone played their ipod..even more impressive though was when a German guy started singing (his national anthem I think) the sound was just like a cathedral.

We then drove to the other end of the Purnululu Range to Echidna Chasm, this was the side attraction of the trip for me but when we got there ans started walking through it was beautiful. I hadn't expected it to be so magnificent, it was surrounded by cooling palms and the chasm provided a natural cooling system which made it great to explore and get out of the 35 degree heat.

After our great, exhausting day and two hour bumpy, rough ride home we were fed vege soup and damper and beef curry for tea. Fell into bed exhausted. Another amazing day in the Kimberley.