Western Australia seems to be the kind of place where no matter how many hours you spend driving, you never seem to make proress on the giant map.3,400 km on the odometer since we bought the Beast and we're not even halfway up the coast and the roads are promised to get much worse.

Since we last wrote, we've passed through Perth once more to stock up on supplies for the wild west.While in Freemantle (just outside Perth) we helped an Irishman celebrate his birthday in our caravan park and managed to drag ourselves into the city early the next morning for Jo's Hair appointment (it will be the last city we're in until Singapore so we needed to make the most of it).Once the Beast was busting with all the extra diesel / drinking water / food we could load in her we thought we'd check out the vast coastline Perth boasts.We enjoyed a pint on the deck of a pub overlooking Cottlesloe Beach with all the families enjoying what was left of the sunlight.It's easy to see why 1.5 million people choose to make their home in the most secluded large city in the world here in Perth.That ight we successfully slept in the Hilux in a parking lot just beside Scarborough Beach.We were awoken Sunday morning surrounded by dozens of surfers eager to catch a few waves.For a city with little surf to speak of it's certainly not short on surfers.We counted over 100 surfers on the beach during a morning stroll and not a single one of them able to catch a decent wave.

Our first stop heading north would be the Pinnacles in Namburg National Park.Getting to the area rather late we decided to make camp in Cervantes about 15 min from the park entrance and head in at first light.The problem with camping just beside the beach there is the gale force winds blowing our little home over.We strategically parked the Beast partially block8ing the wind and stacked up any diesel / food / water containers to stop the wind blowing underneath the car.Morning came quickly and we overslept a bit but the Beast kicked right over and we made it to the Pinnacles quick enough to still enjoy the golden sunlight hitting the majestic tall rocks and casting incredibly long shadows across the desert sand - it really was quite a site.

Out next main target on the map was Monkey Mia, but to make the drive bearable we split it in two and headed first to Kalbarri National Park about halfway up.The park is known for its immense gorges and most notably for a lookout through a huge hole in a rock cleverly nicknamed as Nature's Window.It was at theis lookout that we both decided that flies are the worst of all species contained on Earth.Literally hundreds of flies surrounded each of us as we attempted the 1 km stroll to the lookout.We could only muster a few snapshots at the impressive view point before we decided if we don't leave now our next stop would be the mental ward.Foolishly we thought these flies only resided in the remoteness of the park and sought refuge from them in the nearby town of Kalbarri - no luck.The remainder of the evening would be spend in the comfort of our flyless tent.

The next morning as the campground caretaker was helping the Beast start up with a jump, I inquired as to why a normal enough seeming man like himself would choose to make residence amongst all the flies - his response: " Ah ya git used to the flies - it's the mosquitos that git to ya."This didn't seem very rational to us so we headed up to Monkey Mia.For those who don't know, Monkey Mia, for the last 40 years or so, is a beach where wild dolphins come in daily to interact with humans and five of these female dolphins get fed by the staff there.It's one of the few places on Earth you could be standing in the shallows waist deep and have 2 or 3 dolphins come join you for a swim.The feedings (3 of them daily) are all done in the morning so we enjoyed the beach and calm waters of the bay in the afteroons.

We awoke prior to sunrise our first full day there and watched the sun rise from the beach along with about 100 other spectators and about 10,000 flies.The first feeding at 7:30 is a bit of a circus with the number of people watching but it's still quite a site to watch the dolphins come in from the horizon all the way to the knee deep water.The second and third feeding are a bit less formal with fewer people and the two of us were lucky enough to be selected twice each to hand feed the dolphins whole fish throughout the 5 sessions we attended.The second morning we were the first ones at the beach and Jo was fortunate enough to be standing in the water as 3 dolphins came up to say hello just as the sun was rising on the distant horizon - couldn't plan it much better.

All dolphined out, we took the Beast to a 4WD playground called Francois Peron National Park in the peninsula north of Monkey Mia.The tracks here were deep and sandy only this sand was a blood red color.On this cape we could see the red sand dunes give way to white sand beaches and then to turquoise shallows before hitting the deep blue of the vast ocean - unbelievable.It was in the National Park that we stumbled on our own little piece of heaven named Harold's Blight on the west coast of the peninsula.From the moment we got there until we left late the next morning the only thing we came in contact with was a sea turtle that came within armslength of us to see what was up, two manta rays playing not 50 yards from the beach and countless fish swimming in the shallows.That night we finally got to enjoy the night sky without a single light within miles of us.The Beast was even nice enough to start in the morning which with no one close by to help was quite appreciated.

We thought the day would be a long 600 km drive up to Coral Bay but when we stopped in Carnarvon to load up on diesel and food, we discovered that this place was seafood heaven so we changed our plans to stay there the night and treated ourselves to dinner - creamy garlic mussels appetizer, chilli seafood pasta and garlic prawns over rice accompanied by a bottle of Chenin Blanc.It was easily the best meal we had in Western Australia.We made it up to Coral Bay early enough to enjoy some fun in the sun.Took our snorkelling gear out for a test run but it was too windy to enjoy properly.We were hoping to go snorkelling with some Whale sharks here but we arrived too early in the season so instead we booked a deep sea fishing trip for the following day.

We watched the sunrise for the third time in four days as the boat set out to sea.It was a rocky, bumpy, wavey hour and a half out to sea and I was one of 2 passengers that lost our breakfasts on the voyage.The fishing is just spectacular out here, we fished 6 spots in total and we dragged up 7 large fish in total (8 if you count my poisonous blowfish we had to chuck back).Jo was the big winner with 4 total (including 2 at once with 2 hooks on the line) and also the 2 largest.All I managed to catch is my pinky finger with one of the hooks (didn't go all the way through though).Just after this a lady on the opposite side of the boat pierced her middle and ring fingers with a single hook.As she fainted, a scream came from a girl at the front as she managed to get a hook right through the webbing between her thumb and index fingers.The screams heard as the captain used his surgically clean (fish gut covered) pliers to unhook the girls sent shivers up our spines.Hook incidents aside, our boat hauled in 63 fish in total.They even filleted all the fish for us right on the beach afterwards.Our haul was about 8-10 lbs. of fish flesh - no idea how we'll keep it all cold though.For dinner that night we had spicy breaded goldie perch with a side of lemon parsley pan seared snapper.We've been discussing menu ideas for the remaining fish ever since: crumbed fish, fish fritters, fish sandwich, fish gumbo, fish and chips, fish salad, fish stir-fry, fish on the barbie….