The Amazing Wave Rock W.A.

 

Perth

Headed down to Perth on Friday – weather getting worse by the day!!!!!! Checked out the Swan Valley Breweries and the Chocolate factory (of course!!). Left on Sunday and headed down to Margaret River for a little R&D. Booked an apartment at a beach resort as the weather forecast was dreadful!!! SOOOOOOO glad we did as it has been miserable weather since we arrived. We all slept well in real beds (with walls around us!!!) and the kids had a lovely time in the spa bath!!

As miserable as the weather has been it was a perfect day for beer tasting!!! Checked out the local establishments along with the chocolate factory (again) and the cheese factory. Completely stuffed full now and ready for bed.

Heading off to Wave Rock (Hyden) tomorrow and then Esperance after that and hopefully we will hook up with the others for the trip back across.

Till next time love to all!!

xxxxxxx

Kalbarri & Murchason Station

After our delayed departure from Monkey Mia, finally made it to our next destination just after sunset!!!! Always fun (not!!!) when you have to set up in the dark, especially on a river bank with lots of dry sand (i.e. bog!!). Luckily our brothers in arms were already set up and ready to assist with torches and a bowl of spag for the kids. Our actual camp site was Murchison House Station – a small sheep farm of some 750,000 acres!!! You just pay them a small sum and set up camp on the river bank and have the use of their abolution block and camp kitchen. Lovely to have a camp fire again (along with the marshmallows) and get back to a bit of bush camping.

Kalbarri is a fabulous location as it has both fabulous beaches for fishing and surfing, as well as the national park which has some fabulous gorges, wild flowers and of course the Murchison River. First day we explored the town, bought a crab net (as you do) and went fishing!!!! All the kids caught something (all except the biggest kid of all – poor old James!), but of course none of it was big enough to keep.

Next day, left camp at the crack of a sparrows fart to head off on a canoe expedition down the Murchison River. Goes something like this – catch a bus up the river, row down for 4kms or so, stop off for a massive (and I mean MASSIVE) breakfeast and then row another 8kms to your final pick up location. All went well, kids loved it, Tristy sat back and sipped his drink as Ben and I paddled, Cam and Goose were in the other canoe (cam doing most of the paddling!!).

Spent the afternoon checking out the National Park – Natures window and Z bend Gorge – quite stunning and we saw 170 million year old bug footprints!!!! Wild flowers everywhere (and lots of elderly folk to go with them) and it is just the start of the wild flower season.

Headed off to Jurien Bay on Wednesday (we think – must be on holidays because we can’t remember the days!!). Windy, windy, windy – what more can we say!!!!!!! Checked out the Stockyard Gully caves and the headed down to the Pinnacles around sunset – oh my goodness they are stunning!!! We had no idea what to expect but they are just fascinating and they go on forever – it really is a desert. As we checked out these ancient fossils Angus’s first comment was “this is a great root dad!!!”. To explain – the Pinnacles are fossilized tree roots.

Shark Bay and Monkey Mia

After 7 weeks of favourable weather conditions we are finally experiencing a little unsettled weather. Yesterday started off sunny, clouded over, rained a little, cleared a little and continued in that pattern all day. Woke up and headed to the dolphins at 7.30am for their first feed of the day. Only had two mums and their pups but they were so close and very graceful. Then we headed into Fransoir Peiron National Park for a bit of 4WD adventuring but had to cut our trip short as we had booked to go out on a 60ft Kat in search of Dugongs! Although the weather wasn’t great (yes, windy and bloody freezing!!) we were not disappointed when it came to the Dugongs. There were plenty to see and the kids had a great time spotting them.

Kids went down to the beach at 8.30am this morning for the second dolphin feeding and all (Ben, Angus, Thomas and Elliott) got to feed a dolphin. There were five adults dolphins to feed today, so more opportunities to feed. They are very excited they got to feed them.
Would love to spend another night here but it seems all sites are booked out so it is off the Kabarri National Park.

Coral Bay W.A. (the place to stay)

Oh my goodness – what a well kept secret this place turned out to be. Only 150km south of Exmouth, we nearly didn’t bother going there but decided to leave Exmouth early and check it out. We are soooooo glad we did because within 15 minutes of arriving we had decided to stay for 5 nights.

The town consists of two caravan parks, half a dozen shops, a couple of restaurants and a small resort which includes the pub. There are no houses and the 100 or so staff/permanent residents all live in the permanent part of the caravan park. You don’t need your car because you just walk everywhere!!!!

We did quad biking along the sand dunes at sunset (Bill and Vettie looked after Tristy) and the following day we sailed on a 40ft Kat out to the reef and did some snorkeling. The water was just amazing, you could have been in your back yard pool, it was that clear!!!!! The kind of water you always see on tourism brochures but never seem to find on holidays. The kids (big and small) had a fabulous time and we were very sad to leave!! But we had a booking at Monkey Mia which couldn’t be changed!!!

Tom Price, a mining town...

Also stayed in Tom Price (mining town just south of the national park) and went on a tour of the Tome Price Rio Tinto mine. Very interesting and my lordy those trucks are big!!!! Tooke the 4WD track up to the top of Mt Nameless (girls at the wheel!!!!) and were rewarded with magnificent views of the mine, the town and the surrounding range.
Just arrived in Exmouth after some very boring driving (not much variety in the landscape out here). Set up camp and having a bit of a catch up now before heading over to the reef for a few days.
Catch you next time around

The Travelling Taylors XXX