G'day Campers, 3987 K's later and the most amazing two weeks ever here is our Camper Van blog........ So on Wednesday the 7th of November we picked up our Camper Van, a Mitsubishi van with funky writing and pictures on the side. Very Girly and she was called "Sanity", although we changed her name to "Bess" woo hoo! The Inside had been laid out fantastically, there was enough room to seat 4 people comfortably and a table which at night folded away into out bed, there was plenty of room for sleeping and enough storage space for our stuff, we had a sink, heaps of covers, a stove, and outdoor furniture aswell! So we hit the road and our first stop was the supermarket for a shop, we didn't want to be running out of supplies. So we stocked up on the essentials....Beer for Marc and Red Wine for me, MMMmmmm. And of course pleanty of fruit, veg beans and bread for toast!! After the shop we hit the road and headed north to "Lancelin", its just a small village a few hundred K's from Perth, its famous for Windsurfing and Sports but also for the massive sand dunes which you can take 4 wheel drive tours through, if you book them. We decided to park the camper up beside the beach for the night, got the camping stove out made our tea then had a few beers. Making tea was brilliant fun, we were like a couple of kids on school camp! The next morning we were up early, had breakkie by the beach and then headed into the village, visited tourist information and obtained some info about a few places to stop then hit the road again the next stop was the "Pinnacles Desert", it was about a 2 hour drive from Lancelin. Before we left we got a shot of Swankies Tom Tom just so we never got lost, this turned out to be a massive help so cheers Swank dog!! Anyway we were told to stay on the main road at all times, the main road is just single track road....yikes. So we left Lancelin and the Tom Tom told us to take the next left, so we did. We drove about 5 k's then the road ended it was just a blaze road which as you can see from the pics wasn't the smoothest....for about 70k we drove this bumpy, deserted road, however it felt like 170 k.....we laughed soooo much as it made us realise that we were finally in REAL Australia. After making it off the blazed road where we never seen another vehicle, and nothing apart from brunt bush, dead grass, Lizards and road kill, (its just so flat and empty its hard to imagine) we hit the Pinnacle Desert around midday. So on this desert rising mysteriously from the dune sands are thousands of limestone pillars, its a strange contrast from the surrounding heath, some are jagged, sharp edged others resemble tombstones and others are small and dinky like boulders, it was very interesting to see. It felt rather eeery and surreal when we were there, not for long thought back into "Bess" and off to the next destination.....Over to Markie! We stopped off at Jurien bay for lunch then hit the road again to our next destination which was "Geralton" a seaside town which was just a pit stop for the night, we were told not to drive after dark as it was the worst time for animals on the road. And hey you don't want a big ROO hitting your van... So we parked up beside the beach, got out or camp stove and made tea (think it was a nice stew Jamie made that night) . After tea we had a few drinks with the couple who had parked next to us (Will and Leanne) Good night had by all and this time it was Jamie who had a few vino's too many! On Thursday morning we were up early and headed to the swimming pool to use there shower, it beats Paying $25 for a caravan park...ha ha, Before we left Perth I bought what i thought was a connection for the i-pod so we could use it on the road, after about 2 hours trying to tune it in to the radio turns out it was just a charger, Muppet! So we went into town to buy a "proper" i-pod connection, tuned it into the radio, then with the tunes pumping we headed for our next destination which was "Kallbari", about 800 K's north of Perth. When we arrived in KILLBARI all you could see was turquoise water and White sandy beaches. We booked into a campsite for the night and headed to the beach for a lazy afternoon of sunbathing and playing the guitar....can't beat it! Saturday morning we were up earl and headed out of Kallbari along the coastal road to check out a few costal cliffs (mushroom rock, rainbow valley, pot alley, Eagle Gorge, Island rock and Shell house) with spectacular views and one of the best surf sites in WA...Bluff creek, the waves were huge, it was good to see some surfing although they made it look very easy. So early afternoon we headed to Kallbari national park, which was down a very ropey, bumpy, road, not sure if you can even call it a road!! We probably went at the wrong time the sun was beating down, I think it was about 36 degrees with no wind and probably the most flies we have ever seen which made it slightly uncomfortable, never the less the views were amazing, the river gorges were huge, but the river was dry no water at all. We had a peek through natures window which is a rock formation happened by erosion over the years and left and amazing window on top of a gorge....check out pics! Once we left the National park we hit the road again and headed towards "Monkey Mia". The further North you go the less there is its just flat, straight road and all you can see for miles is red blaze, burnt trees and grass oh and did we mention heaps and heaps of road kill, Dead Roos, Emus and goats....yes Bri we said goats, you would love it! On the drive from "Kallbari" to "Monkey Mia" which took about 5 hours!!! We seen about 2 cars on the road, we know it sounds crazy but honestly there is nothing at all on the roads. We decided to stop at "Denham" for some lunch, Denham is the most Westerly town in Australia, again just another small seaside town with amazing beaches. We re fuelled got some food and headed to our destination which was about 50k's away. Then we hit the road again....after a great sing song with the tunes pumping we hit "Monkey Mia" (Jamie obviously chuffed at the name of the place!!) Monkey Mia is a small resort in the "Shark Bay" areawhich was opened about 40 years ago! All there is at Monkey MIA is some apartments a caravan site a museum a restaurant and bar and the main attraction being the WILD dolphins. Evey morning wild dolphins come to the beach to be fed. It started about 50 years ago when a lady stayed there went out on her boat every morning and fed the dolphins, after doing it for a while they started to follow her back to the shore. People heard about it and a few people started to come and see them, but because at that time there were no sealed roads it made it very inaccessible. Once they built a main road from the highway they turned it into a tourist attraction. They only get fed a few fish every morning so that they still have to fend for themselves and remain wild...There are about 900 Dolphins in the waters at Monkey Mia and many of them are being monitored and tagged for research purposes. The dolphins normally turn up between 8am and 9am, all of the tourists stand in the water and the dolphins swim round you and you can take photos etc. Then when its feeding time the people who organise it make everyone goes back on the beach, then they pick out at random about 12 people to go in the sea and feed the Dolphins... Yeah am sure you have guessed it...JAMIE got picked! As usual....so she was extremely happy to say the least, and babbled on about how in touch she was with the Dolphins feelings, and how happy they all were!!! (yeah I'm thinking about getting her sectioned). The rest of the day we relaxed on the beach and waited till it cooled down before we hit the road again. Driving with the air con on was proving very expensive on the fuel and we never wanted to run out of gas, so we decided that we would try and leave later in the day, so around 3pm we hit the road, although slight problem it was still about 35 degrees....hot hot hot. We stopped over at a place called "Shell Beach", a massive beach on the way out of shark bay which was amazing, made up of purely shells which have been getting washed up to the shore for thousands of years, creating a shell beach, the water was roasting, It was like lying in a bath of warm water. You can walk out for at least 100m and never be more than knee deep. So we stayed there for an hour or so, and Jamie had to be dragged away.... From Shark bay we headed to "Carnarvon" which is famous for its Banana plantations. There's not much to see in Carnarvon it was more of a pit stop for the night. On the Monday morning we were up really early and headed out for a look at the Banana plantations, there was loads of trees and plantations growing everything, Bananas, Tomatoes, Oranges, Pineapple, Grapefruit, Chillies, Sweetcorn it was huge for a few miles down the road all you could see was Banana trees, pretty cool. We bought some Bannanas of course and a few other fruits before heading our to the "Blowholes" which were about 60 K's out of Carnarvon. The "Blowholes" are along the coast, the water has eroded the rock over the years and created holes in the rock, the water goes under the rock and shoots out of little holes in the top of the rock depending on the size of the waves it can shoot up 15-20 meters. Some of the waves are massive, it can be quite dangerous as people have died here before, its called "King Waves Kill".....so we stayed away from the edge and took a few quick snaps! We left the blowholes and headed for "Exmouth" stopping off at " Coral Bay" on the way for some snorkeling, I cant say the water was the warmest in the world, still warmer than the "soothie" we suppose. "Exmouth" was going to be as far north as we were going. We dried off by taking a stroll along the beach and then had some luch before making our way to Exmouth. The Scuba diving in Exmouth is fantastic there's a reef the called "Ningaloo Reef" which some people have told us is better than the Great Barrier Reef and the "Navy pier" dive in Exmouth is not accessable so no authorised people can go, so theres no fishing or boats just thousands of fish and marine life....woo hoo we were very excited about that. When we arrived in "Exmouth" we headed straight for the dive shop to book 2 days diving. When we booked the girl asked to see our PADI cards which we got after diving in Thailand, we had left them back in Perth, DUH DUH....we thought it was ok as our dive master in Thailand told us we would be registered on the PADI website and any dive company could look us up through that and make sure we were certified divers, so the lady in the shop checked the PADI site and we weren't on it. Unless we could get our cards the only way we could dive was to do all the training again, but we really didn't want to. The only other option was to get Kate back in Perth to fax our cards through to the dive centre. We phoned her and she said she would try, we gave her the dive centres fax number mean while we went snorkeling at "Turquoise Bay", which is a bay about an hour away from Exmouth, it has a drift current, so you get in the water and let the current take you the only problem is two currents meet at a sandbar and if you don't get out the water in time its bye bye...off into the sea never to be seen again.... There are signs up saying its very dangerous and a man has actually died here, not the most reassuring thing in the world, anyway we got in the water swam out to the reef and the first thing we saw was a White Tip Reef SHARK, it was pretty scary. It was really good and lots of fish. After a few hours snorkeling we handed our gear back minus a mask which we somehow managed to lose, but the kind lady still gave us our deposit back, and went back to the dive shop to see if there was any luck with the faxing of the PADI cards, Result.... Kate managed to fax them through so we booked our dive for the next morning and were well chuffed. That night in the campsite there was an open air movie on so we just chilled out watched it then hit the sack as it was an early rise for the diving. We were picked up at 8am taken to the dive centre, got briefed on what the dive site was like and what we were gonna be doing then got all our gear ready jumped on the bus and headed to the Navy Pier. Its the 8th best dive site in the world.....how exciting. After a half hour drive we arrived at the pier which was probably 500m long, we were meant to drive the bus out onto it get our gear on then get in the water. but when we arrived there was a crane doing some repair work so we had to enter from the beach and swim out, getting a wetsuit tank and all your gear on then its 42 degrees and millions of flys on you ain't the most pleasant thing ever, Jamie was a bit nervous but once were in the water it was amazing, sooooo many fish its unbelievable.... We seen 4 White tip Reef Sharks, a 3 metre Gray Nurse Shark (which is an endangered species) an octopus, blue spotted mantary, massive fat groper and loads of cool colourful fish. Many schools all shapes and sizes. The dive lasted about 50 Min's which was quite good for me as my air consumption in Thailand was a lot more. We boarded the bus very happy people and headed back to Exmouth. On the way back we got speaking to a guy, he asked where were from, I just said a small town between Dundee and Aberdeen, "not Brechin by any chance" he replied, his mother in law stayed beside the springer. Crazy little world..... After the we got dropped off we got the camper and hit the road again for the long journey home...boo hoo!! It was impossible to drive it in a day so we drove to a place called "Northhampton" and stayed there for the night, before getting up early to head back to "Geralton" for Breakfast. We were meant to return the van on Sat morning but we had booked whale watching for the Sunday morning so decided to keep it till the Tuesday Secretly thought neither of us wanted to part with good old bess...... We then decided to go with Bess to Freemantle for a few days, blog on Freemantle to follow..... We have had the best time ever, WA Rocks..... Until next time folks, Jamie and Marc xxxx oh and Bess!!! vrooom vroom