Perth to Esperance After an overnight stay in a hotel in Perth - including a roast beef dinner with Yorkshire Pud and horseradish sauce (bliss!), it was another early start to pick up our bus to take off for Esperance and lots of places in between.MondayFirst stop, Mandurha for tea stop.The town is a marine paradise and about to be utterly spoilt by the building of two tower blocks on the marina.Bottom floor apartments start at 1.5 million bucks so not for the p...

Monday 3 December Left Joondalup at 0800 hours to start seven-day trip up to Exmouth, north of Perth. First stop was the Pinnacles,limestone formations covering acres of ground. If it weren't for a marked track through them, one could get lost, big time. So many of them look the same. Found a gecko, or a 'Bobtail' lizard as it is known locally. Blue tongue- very attractive…. Passed through Julian Bay, a very quiet seaside village but the developers are on their...

Adelaide to Alice Springs - Saturday 17th NovemberSpent Friday in Adelaide -33 degrees plus so spent most of the day in the shade in the Royal Botanical Gardens, the Art Gallery or the Library.Not really a culture vulture - just like the air con.!Good start to our trip to Alice.Stopped almost as soon as we started to stock up on drink and snacks - despite all this walking I shall be about three sizes larger when I come home.Really good wine over here for not much...

Melbourne to Adelaide - Tuesday 13th November Desperately early start from Melbourne that involved a thirty minute taxi ride for me to get to the pick up point, only to discover an hour later, having driven all around the rest of Melbourne picking up passengers that we picked up more people within ten minutes of where I was staying!Never mind. Drove out to Torquay (just about everywhere in Australia is named after an English town - I wonder why?!).Then on to Be...

Just had my first introduction to two of Australia's spiders.As you probably all know Australia seems to have collared the world's supply of dangerous spiders, snakes and other creepy crawlies.I am told that they are not all fatal, just give you a nasty nip and leave you feeling a bit yukky… My granddaughter calmly told her dad that there was a 'redback' spider by the rabbit's hutch.Being a bit of a cowardly individual I didn't know whether to jump on the sofa,...