I moved on from Perth on Monday and headed to a beautiful beach-side town called Kalbarri, which sits exactly where the Murcheson River joins the ocean. Absolutely gorgeous, and the hostel had a pool so I was one happy mama. I immediately purchased myself a rather exciting looking hiking and canoe tour and began flexing my biceps in preparation (yes, I do know what biceps are... or at least roughly where they might be).

After a stupidly early start - I mean honestly, pickup at 7.45?? what is this, work?? - the 4wheel-drive tour bus took us (the fated tourists) on a bumpy bus ride to a series of stunning lookout points over the Murcheson Gorge, showing where the river carved its way through the rock over millions of years. Did you know that the Grand Canyon isn't actually a canyon, it's a gorge? Yup. You learn lots of exciting facts on the Murcheson Gorge Tour. Stay tuned for more. ... although I think that was it actually, so don't keep your hopes up. I also saw dinosaur footprints in the rocks, saw some fab scenery and found a child's flip-flop. It was all go.

Then we trundled down to the river for some swimming (after much reassurance that there were no crocs, sharks or man-eating piranha lurking within), canoe-ing and lunch eating. Most people had sandwiches - I was the only one who ate their lunch out of a can with a spoon. I'm not so good on the old packed lunch planning. Also had my first encounter of having to pair with the tour guide (the wonderfully Australian 'Davo') on the canoe because I was the only solo traveller. I did, however, learn some interesting views on 'Australia' the movie from him, as well as a rather long list of people he knows who have died. They don't like it over here. The movie that is, I think dislike of death is pretty universal to all nations. He didn't react when I said I felt like I was in Lord of the Rings, probably because it was a Kiwi film and he felt a bit bitter, I don't know. Or maybe he thought I might be likening him to a dwarf or elf and found my comment mildly offensive. Either way, we both agreed that Shrek is a good film and sort of left it at that.

Davo even let us scramble us some rocks and shout offensive things into the gorge so that we could hear our chosen words echo around the high rocks and trees. It was really cool - I've heard echoes before but there was a good couple of seconds between making a sound and hearing it come back to you. I felt a bit like Steve Irwin or Crocodile Dundee except paler and slightly more refined. Oh, and no crocodiles, obviously.

So after a great day in the Murcheson River area I prepared myself to move on once again. I've been travelling by bus mostly, and have realised that the Greyhound is far more expensive and runs far less frequently than I would have imagined. Still, gives me a great opportunity to wander into the depths of my ipod and sleep. It's especially exciting if the bus isn't full and you can stretch across a couple of seats, which luckily I've been able to do most times. So it was a 5 hour journey this time to Monkey Mia (don't be fooled by the name, I didn't see a single monkey and shall be writing an angry letter to the Western Australian Government immediately).

On the way up I heard tale of a series of tragic budgie incidents which had plagued the area. Basically, thanks to a series of cyclones the year before (!) which meant more rain, all the wildlife had flourished and breeding had gone exceptionally well. So huge flocks of wild budgies began to swarm over the area this year, I mean hundreds and thousands of budgies. However, sadly, they hit a heatwave and all began to die.. as in they literally dropped from the sky in their thousands. Apparently it was like something from The Birds. The local roadhouse had huge binloads of dead budgies to sweep up and the lady that ran the place actually seemed quite distressed. She tried to put water out for them so they could cool down but the budgies were so exhausted that any who tried to use the water drowned almost immediately. So terribly tragic. Anyway, I got some photos of dead budgies if anyone's interested. A young boy and his father who were in my dorm room tried to save a few, so I spent the night in a bedroom with a bucket of budgies in the corner. One survived, the lucky little blighter.

Anyhow, moving on from the budgies, Monkey Mia was absolutely beautiful, with calm, shallow, bright blue oceans and dolphins that visit the shore daily to be fed. Was great to see dolphins up close, but they obviously only came for the fish, and actually got a bit aggro when the lady didn't feed them quickly enough. I was hoping for some kind of dolphin/human stand off that would result in human being devoured by dolphin, but alas it was just a feeding. And the dolphin nearest me refused to eat any of the fish - the ungrateful swine.

Stayed in MM for a couple of days and went on a catamaran cruise to see more dolphins, turtles, sea snakes and dugongs (look it up, it looks like some kind of floating cow). Got on well with the boat crew and enjoyed some drinks with them on the beach in the evening, along with a gent from Brighton who's over in Australia windsurfing. And then the weather went mad. Like, HOT, mad. I'm a delicate flower and am not meant to be subjected to extremities and 50 degrees is certainly an extremity. It's unreal. Scorchio! So I had to protect my precious self by hovering in shadows and jumping into cold showers as regularly as possible. Oh, and complaining of course. I am British after all.

Thanks to the infrequent Greyhound buses I've had to skip Coral Bay, which is supposed to be beautiful, and have moved straight up to Exmouth (which they pronounce Ex-mouth, silly Aussies). This involved a delightful 12hour bus journey (with just one bar left on my ipod for the whole thing, it was concerning), involving 2 changes, which brought me and a scuba-diving lad from Colorado into Exmouth at just after 4am. Armed with the knowledge that our hostel didn't open until 7am we settled ourselves onto some benches for some much needed sleep. Even at 4am it was insanely hot. Was woken up rather impolitely at about 6.45am by some peckish mosquitoes and swiftly scurried to the hostel.

So here I am, in Exmouth, the bustling hive of the Nigaloo Marine Park. Okay, less bustling, more peaceful and relaxed (aka there's b***** all here). I thought it was a town but it's mostly a couple of scuba shops with emus wandering down the road. And did I mention that's it's ridiculously hot? Well it is. Luckily I've discovered the first decent Internet computers I've seen in a couple of weeks AND the Internet place has aircon. I may just move in here. Plans are to rent a car and see the local area - there are some stunning looking beaches around here with some great snorkeling and reef views so I'm going to tackle those before thinking of moving on. The next bus isn't for 6 days, so it looks like the start of a beautiful relationship between Laura Wilkins and Exmouth.