Hello and Good Day to all you gorgeous people! By now you're all feeling that post Christmas bloat and are finalizing your plans for your half hearted New Years Resolutions! And while you were all manically finishing the last minute Christmas shopping, taking advantage of late night shopping hours, wrapping up yourselves and your pressies, James and I were exploring the wicked wonders of Western Australia...

Dull Darwin was our first introduction into Aussie life and with the sea infested with deadly box jellyfish and everything closed down for the wet season we had to occupy ourselves with the hostel pool to save ourselves dying of boredom! The one slice of action bestowed upon us was the tacky nightlife which tried to deny us entry because 'thongs and singlets' (also known as flip-flops and vests!) are deemed inappropriate even at the hottest time of year! But the bouncers were dressed in pink shirts, go figure?!
A brief search for a getaway vehicle brought a German guy (with a beaten up Ford Falcon) and a French girl into our midst and we all took off on our road trip to discover what Aussie life had to offer us...

Well apart from the stunning Litchfield National Park with all its amazing lagoons and waterfalls, and Katherine Gorge with its staggering limestone cliffs, these highlights only counted for 3 days of our 7 day journey down to Broome. We had to provide our own entertainment for the next four days of outback driving! As I said, Katherine Gorge was beautiful and our trusty Lonely Planet advised exploring on a canoe. Simple enough, and with signs everywhere warning of swimming crocodiles, we were on the look out for our first glimpse of a big old beast! What we got however was well and truly stuck!! Caught between two gorges with the heaviest canoes ever made and the sun beating down and the canoe rental period almost over and with the fear that a croc might spring out on us! (We need not have worried though they proved to be very allusive!)
But we managed to find our way back to the camp but from here I can say our adventure turned into more of a comedy! The German guy (Willy) whose car (aptly named Free Willy) we were driving turned out to be a little bit anal (in more ways than one!). He was so paranoid about his car over heating that we were forced to drive the thousand or so kilometers of pure nothingness (I’m telling you the only highlight of the driving was the kangaroo dodging!), without aircon and at a depressing 70 kph! No wonder the journey took 3 days longer than expected! What's more we think Willy was suffering from worms as the boy did nothing but eat! In two days our 7 loaves of bread whittled down to nothing with his constant scranage! When we did manage to find sanctuary in the outback bars, this peace was shattered when Willy asked a waitress if he could finish off the left over scraps from people plates! Oh my god the embarrassment was so much that we took off straight away!
The journey was broken with fits of hysterics from the rest of us as we tried to make light of all the disasters along the way! From breaking down in Timber Creek (the setting of a horror movie in which loads of backpackers get murdered!), to pitching our tents in the dark only to discover it was in fact a rubbish tip and home to thousands of fly’s! When we finally made it to Broome the car was obviously as exhausted as the rest of us and so it died in a car park! While Willy was painstakingly sorting out the problem we grabbed a couple of shopping trolleys and off loaded our bags and made a getaway to the nearest backpackers to mend our wounds and retrieve some of our sanity!!

While in Broome we met a guy who was transporting his yacht down to Perth and offered us a lift in this ultra glamorous mode of transportation. It all seemed too good to be true and alas it was, as this guy dashed my dreams of lazing on the deck, Victoria Beckham-style, when he turned out to be on a bit of a con!

But we did manage to find a bargain priced funky four wheel drive, with two erectable tents on the roof (you'll have to take a look at the snaps!) and 5 of us deflated deckhands took off from Broome to Perth...

Thankfully this leg of the journey was jam packed with amazing things to see and do. Our first stop was 80 mile beach and here we stumbled upon nesting turtles all along the beach! We were so so lucky to see these beautiful creatures laying their eggs, particularly because it normally only happens at night and people pay heaps of cash to see it! But the fact that we were the only ones there to see it made the whole experience so much more breathtaking!

From this amazing encounter with nature came another as camping at our next destination, Exmouth, brought an unlikely visitor in the shape of a dolphin, who apparently wasn’t disturbed by all the raucous us and fellow travelers made the previous night as we had a social BBQ and loads of casks of wine! And, if turtles and dolphins weren’t already enough for us, our next stop, Coral Bay, brought us up close and personal with literally hundreds of sharks who nurse their babies in the shallow waters! When I got in for a closer look it wasn’t only the sharks teeth I was paranoid about (think James on the beach singing the Jaws theme tune!!), oh no, there were manta rays, spotted rays and sting rays splashing around my ankles! I tried my best not to think about how indestructible Steve Irwin reached his untimely end but it all proved too much when one started investigating my legs!

This side of Australia is reckoned to have the best coral reef in all of Oz so we donned our snorkels and went for an explore. But unfortunately for us Ningaloo might be beautiful but the water is bloody freezing!! And going from SE Asia, where a swim in the sea is more reminisant of splashing around in my bath tub, we weren’t hard core enough for anymore than a quick gander at the underwater delights! We were more than happy to fill the rest of the time taking in the stunning beach and warming up under the sun!

There were more beaches and yet more dolphins in store for us when we got to Monkey Mia, where its daily visits from these slippery mammals have put the sleepy town on the tourist map and therefore money in its pockets. It was souvenir-tastic! But we’re not adverse to a bit of tack and had a lovely time in awe of the dolphins and their new arrival that was only a few days old! Bless!!But all these natural wonders were lost on one of our fellow travelers who spent the whole time with a face like a slapped arse! I mean we seriously got a bum deal with our choice of compatriots, with the exclusion of Speedo-clad Fabio who gave a much needed dose of comedy with his wild outbursts of song and his off-road driving hysterics, the two German girls, however, were enough to drive you into the deepest depths of despair!

Jana must have suffered from ADD, hyperactivity, schizophrenia and every other mental condition known to man! Which was an absolute crack at first, but after days of weird utterances, lost keys, hysterical searches, and a whole heap of random behaviour, the comedy was lost! In contrast to this acute hyperactivity, Steph was as inactive and morbid as a morgue attendant; literally the only thing this girl was passionate about was chain smoking and stopping every 100 kph to use public toilets for an hour at a time!! Not being one to keep my opinions under wraps we had a few blowouts along the way and after managing to offload Jana at a halfway house and coaxing Steph to break a smile (with the help of copious amounts of vino!), the rest of us continued on our merry way to Perth, stopping off to wonder at the wonders of Natures Window and the spectacular Pinnacles along the way. Thankfully all this hardened traveling paid dividends as we were rewarded in Perth with two glorious weeks with James’ family.

Ann and Doug had made the journey over to double check that their little boy was not malnourished after 10 months on the road and their was little chance of malnutrition staying with James’ Aunt Jolly and Uncle Ian who fed us up a treat! Their hospitality was amazing; it was so nice to have some normality after such a long time. Together we had a fantastic time visiting beautiful Margaret River, and if the high maintenance traveling companions of late weren’t enough to turn us into raving alcoholics, James’ family certainly gave us the push in the right direction as they introduced us to the stunning Australian vineyards and therefore completed the transformation into fully fledged winos!! Between all the eating and drinking and general merriment, James and I managed to squeeze in a few of the sights offered around Perth, we even sneaked into the WACCA just in time to see Australia win back the ashes! Although James and his dad secured tickets a couple of days previously when England weren’t doing so dismally, we had a great time cheering along with England’s Barmy Army before and after the game!And, after so long of being without much civilization along the West Coast (i.e. opportunities for shopping!), James’ cousin and I hit the shops under the pretense of Christmas shopping! Not that buying James’ tickets to Amsterdam meant looking in any shops! (And on that note if anyone fancies a nice break to the Dam with us at the end of April it’ll be great to get a group together!).  

But alas our time with James’ parents had to come to an end, as did our time in Perth and a few days before Christmas we packed our bags again and like the many kangaroo’s that over run this country we hopped over to Brisbane where I met up with my brother for the first time in three years!! But that exciting story, and the story of our baking hot Christmas and our mental New Year will have to wait until the next installment!...   

Hope you’re all keeping wrapped up nice and snug and you’re all preparing for this little ray of sunshine that’ll be coming your way in March…!! I trust you’re all aware that it’s only a matter of weeks until we return to England!! Can’t wait!!