Day 9: Carnarvon to Coral bay

We got up fairly early this morning and headed to the information place to see what there was to see in Carnarvon as we only had a little bit of time and still a long ways North to travel! While at the info place and lady was overly eager to help us and tell us about all the "amazing" sites it had to offer. The lady goes onto tell us all about this '1 mile Jetty' that represents so much to the community and is very significant historically and blah blah blah….. then she got very serious and began telling us how someone had started a fire on it about a year ago and now there was a large part of the Jetty that had to be torn down and the town cannot afford to rebuild it. I asked where abouts on the Jetty this hole was and she told me its about 1km out.. and well me being as smart as ever I mentioned that it would possibly be cjheaper to just switch the name to the '1km Jetty' for some reason this lady didn't see my sense of humor and told me "No! it's the 1 MILE Jetty and we will raise money to fix it!" hahaha Kat and I left the information centre giggling.

From there we went on to Coral bay where we purchased our snorkel gear!! We quickly set up camp and headed to the beach!! The best part about the West Coast has to be the fact that the coral is only a couple hundred meters off of the beach! Meaning you can sit on the beach and relax then snorkel for a bit then return the to sunny beaches! Kat had already snorkeled before on the East Coast so she gaves me a few pointers then we were on our way! But just as we were about to swim out to see the corals we heard someone yelling "Canada!" and we knew instantly that must be towards us! Hahaha and it was! It was the guys that we had met while we were stuck in Denham!! After a quick catch up on everyone we'd done over the days the boys went off to pester the locals and we went off to explore the Nigaloo Reef!! It was really incredible! And I decided that was my new favorite thing to do!!! Its so peaceful and relaxing! And the things you get to see!! Its incredible!!!! We spotted a turtle and followed him around for a little while, until he got bored of us and left. Later that night Kat and I grabbed a pizza and headed to watch the sunset with all the other couples! Hahaha

Day 10: Coral Bay

Well this day was very relaxing! And I can sum it up pretty quickly; snorkeled, tanned, snorkeled, tanned, burnt, snorkeled, rained, sat in car again (but luckily this time it was time for bed anyways; plus the cool rain helped the burnt skin!!)

Day 11: Coral Bay - Exmouth - Cape Range National Park

It was a long drive from Coral Bay to Exmouth but we were getting use to the fact that everyone seemed closer on the map! Haha Eventually getting to Exmouth we did a quick tour around, boguth some groceries, and headed into the National Park. Along the way we saw a shipwreck and a lighthouse. Then we stopped for lunch under the tarps to hide our burns from the sun and found a few lizards!! They were sooo wicked!! They were up along a wooden fence and they would run along it on their two hind legs.. then stop and watch us.. then jump up and run again!!! It wassoooo hilarious to watch them! And I took plenty of pictures while I got Kat to chase them downt he fence hahah

From here we head onto the Oyster Stacks for some more snorkeling. We snorkeled for about 1.5hrs and I got tired so I headed back into the beach. I tried yelling to kat that I was heading in but she was enthralled with the fish-ies and didn't hear me… eventually she came and told me she got lost! Hahah there was a small mound of rocks that jutted out in the waters and apparently she swam around it without realizing, and when she came up for air she didn't see one! Haha but eventually she realized what she had done and came around the side of the rocks to us hahaha When we got out we met up with the guys from Monkey Mia again… but no one was up for naps in that kind of heat haha

From here we wanted to drive back to the Turtle place so we could go on the night tour to see either the turtles laying eggs or the baby turtles coming out of the sanddunes and heading for the waters. Luckily we had left the Oyster stacks early cuz it took us forever to go down the road a few kms!!! There were sooooooooo many kangaroos everywhere!!We would drive a few feet then have to stop as they crossed the road! Or they just sat really close to the edge of the road so you weren't sure what they were thinking; run or stay!! Hahah we came close to hitting sooo many of them too! And there was even the crazy ones that tried to commit suicide!! They would leap in front of the car from the middle of no where!and id have to slam on the breaks! Haha andone time I stopped so quickly that the table in the back of the car came flying forwards but lucky for me Kat put her arm up and caught it!! Lol or else I would have been knocked out! After that we decided the table should be put on the bottom with our bags securely ontop of it! lol

Finally arriving at the Turtles, with just 2 minutes to spare, we go to watch a movie on the turtles and learnt a lot of interesting facts… one being I don't wanna be a female turtle in my next life! WAY to hard!! Haha After the movie we headed to the beach and walked along the shore by the guide of the moonlight. Eventually we spotted a turtle coming from the watch and our guide told us we had to crawl along or else we'd scare her back into the water… so there we were a group of 10 adults crawling along at nighttime in the sand in singlefile hahaha and we got sand everywhere!!! Lol we were covered init as it was a little damp out and it was down our shorts and everything! Haha eventually after sitting and watching the black blob (we had to keep our distance) move its way towards the sanddune we carried on crawling closer in hopes to get a closer look at her digging the sandpit to put her eggs into… but unfortualty after a long time waiting it was no use, the turtle was very picky with where she wanted her eggs and we had to leave without seeing anything. So home we crawled and got our shorts filled with sand again! Haha

By the time we got back to the car it was about 11 at night and it was sooooo dark that we had to crawl home cuz of the kanagroos! Lol it probably took us an hr to get to our campsite when normally it shoulda taken 20 minutes haha but it was worth it as we didn't take any kanagroos lives that night.

Day 12: Cape Range National Park

We spent the day snorkeling and sun bathing at Lake Side and Turquoise Bay. Then we did a short walk through the Mandu Mandu Gorge. But it was so hot out that we couldn't imagine walking around the entire gorge and soon deicded to go back to the shaded areas of the tarps and read our books for the remainder of the day. Later that night back at our campsite we settled into make supper on our little stove. But just as the water started to boil we ran out of fuel!!!! We had plenty of food with us but most of it required to be cooked so we rummaged through and found some items that didn't . the items were: canned corn, tuna, mayo, onions and 2 slices of bread!!! Hahaha many giggles later we decided we could make a salad and put it on our slices of bread! And shockingly it was a great meal!!!!! Haha

Day 13: Cape Range National Park - Northhampton

Today was the end of our trip North! We now had to start driving back South towards Perth and return the car. As we left the Cape Range NP we got to do a driving tour of the Kings Canyon Gorge which was spectacular and a much better option to our previous day of walking a gorge!! This tour included A/C!!! haha

We decided we would drive as far as possible South today and hopefully find a place to stop over in. And we did find a free camping site just before dark so we decided that it was perfect and would be our site for the night. When we pulled in there was no one there! We had the entire place to ourselves!!! We exciting got out and started setting up camp and got supper on the go (we had stopped and bought more fuel) as we sat around waiting for the water to boil and started getting harassed by some flies… at first we just shooed them away and didn't think about it… but soon we could no long just shoo them away as there were hundreds of them!! And they were everywhere!! Trying to crawl up your nose, in your ears, even trying to get into your eyes!!!!! It was horribly gross!!!!!!! We jumped around like lunatics and quickly shut the car doors realizing they were now swarming into our bed!!!! Kat had a couple of silk scarfs so she brought them out and we wrapped them around our heads and eventually the fly situation was getting better; but they were still crawling all over our bodies… once our dinner was cooked we counted to three and each jumped in on either side of the car and slammed the doors shut! We swatted a few times but most of the flies seemed to have gone to the front of the car to leave us alone to eat… but there was soooo many in the car all you could hear was the bussing of them running into the windows!! Eeeewww!Finally after supper I decided to step out and assess the fly situation. I wrapped the scarf around my head again, jumped outta the car, slammed the door and then stood and waited to be bombarded. But nothing! The flyes had given up and left!!!! After doing a little excited dance we opened the car inhopes to rid of the remaining flies that were captured in the car. As we started cleaning up from supper Kat started smacking her arms as if she was getting biten… then I started smacking me arms too!! Now there were Mosquitos!!!!!! Hundreds and hundreds of them!!! And we were getting eaten alive!!! We quickly grabbed some clothes and started piling them on in hopes to stop the bites! But poor Kat seems to have the kind of blood that bugs love the most and she was getting biten wayyy worse then me! And I had a lot of bites! Eventually we thought we'd get in the car and try to go to sleep even tho it was only 9pm… back into the car we went around and tried to kill the hundred or so mossys that followed us in but it was no hope! There were just too many!! And it was starting to get extremely hot in the car!! But we didn't want to open the windows in fear of what bugs would come in!! eventually we gave up on the idea of having scored a free campsite, jumped outta the car, moved everything around jumped in the front seats and took off with the windows rolled down!! Finally the bugs were gone and we were sooo excited!!! But then we realized now back on the roads at night time that there were bigger things to worry about… Kangaroos! We looked on the map for the next town and saw it was 120km away and it took us 2 hrs to get to it! hahaha but eventually we pulled into a campsite, found out there weren't any bugs and soon fell asleep from our big day..

Day 14: Northampton - New Norcia

We arrived in Geraldton that day and walked around the malls for a bit then went for lunch in the park before we had to get back in the car and drive formany more hours. Back on the road we headed to the small town of New Norcia. This town is Australia's only monastic town and it was very cute. There was really old buildings and churchsand it was super quiet.. we found a free camping spot right in the middle of the small town and started setting uo camp, but then we were informed that it was suchadry season and the use of our camp stove was prohibited! We really didn't want to eat our corn and tuna salad again so we opted into buying meat pies and a bottle of pop (which cost more then the pies!!!) from the corner shop. After supper Kat went to use the outhouse and came back laughing uncontrollably! Once she caught her breathe was finally told me that when she got into the outhouse she found a cardboard box on the floor for a dildo!! Hahaha so much for a religious little town!

This was our last night with our car and were heading back to the big city of Perth in the morning. So we spent the night sitting around reminiscing and chatting about our 2 weeks of adventures.

Day 15: New Norcia to Perth

We got up early and packed our lives back into our backpacks and headed for Perth. What was only suppose to take an hour or so ended up taking us a few as there seemed to be construction from the door step of New Norcia right to Perth!! And there was one part in the road where everyone had to practuically sit in the ditch for about 15minutes while they moved machinery that took up the entire road! But eventually we arrived back in Perth! Found a hostel within walking distance of everything; and then dropped off our car. Somewhere along the way we got a rock in the windshield and it made a fairly big crack however when I brought up the fact they forgot our tent and the guy just dismissed the crack, took the keys back and said goodbye! Lol

We were back to walking through the streets of Perth….

Once back in Perth I checked my bank account and realized I had to get a job asap! So I went to a small agency and told them I wanted to work outside of the city.. somewhere South of Perth… I thought I wouldn't get a job for a week or so and was planning to just start travelling south and stop whenever they contacted me about a job… but 3 hrs later I walked out with a job!!! The job description was to be a live -in nanny for 2 little kids under the age of six 4 days a week and to do some light housekeeping. And we all know how much I loved kids (although I hate housekeeping) so I took the job right away and went back to the hostel to say my goodbyes to Kat (we had been travelling together for 6.5 weeks at this time) and to re-pack my bags. The next morning Kat and I went for breakfast and hungout before we said our final goodbyes and I left to catch my bus to the small town of Pemberton! Arriving there I met the family I was to be living with…. There was Brian (Irish), and Maria (Danish) and there two kids Soren (6yrs) and Saoirse (4yrs).. the kids were amazing!! Sooo adorable! The main reason I was hired was because the little girl was born deaf and had since had surgery and had implants that allowed her to wear hearing aids. However not having heard things for a couple years she was still trying to learn to talk. She said common words like hi, yellow, bye. But she was just the cutest little thing!! And she immediately became my little shadow! She'd follow me around the house helping me with everything and just yammering away! Hahah it was so cute cuz she couldn't say all the words she wanted to but she would just talk and talk to me hahaha

I stayed here for 2 months and really enjoyed it. It was a small town like Consort and I got paid every well and had everything included. I had my one part of the house with a huge bedroom, bathroom, living room with computer area.. and all my meals were included! So I managed to save a lot of money! But only having to watch the kids 4 days a week meant I had a lot of free time so I got a job as a waitress at a local restaurant and had an amazing time there!!! The people were so nice and just a blast to work with… and I learnt a lot seeing as ive never waitressed before.

I worked a lot with Alice at the restaurant and her and I became very good friends… and I spent my last week in Pemberton living at her house while her and the family went on vacation.. so I had the entire hosue to myself and had the company of a dog and cat! It was great! I spent my time lounging on the couch catching up on tv shows but alos had plenty of shifts at the restaurant to top up my bank account.

From Pemberton I caught the bus back into Perth, and went to the airport to fly back to Melbourne to see a few friends before heading onto Cairns to meet up with my sister!!