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G'day!!
Where to begin... So we left Perth on Thursday & hired a car to drive up the West Coast along the Coral Coast to Kalbarri.... But it all seemed to go wrong from the start..
First, I went to the airport to pick up the hire car.... But didnt have my bank card when I got there, so couldnt get the car..and didnt have the money to get the shuttle bus back into the City... So jumped in a taxi & dipped into our cash savings!! So I arranged to pick the car up from the city and managed to cancel my bank card.. so where ever it is - it cannot be used!! Then I got the free Perth bus into the city to pick up the car.. They TRIED to charge me an extra $200 BEFORE tax, for the car.. so spent ages whilst they amended the rate to something alike what I was originally quoted. One thing I dont understand is why dont they include the tax when giving you a quote?? Us travellers are watching our pennies!!!
Anyway a couple of hours later than expected we were on the road, Vrrroooom Vroooom!!!
The journey was expecting to take between 6 and a half hours, and 7 hours, which would have been fine if we had set off on the original time, but because it was not lunchtime by the time we left Perth, we were racing against the sun going down.... We didnt want to be knocking down any Kangaroos ( and then aving to foot the car insurance bill of $3500 excess!) or put a tent up in the dark... so it was pedal to metal ALL the way there. Not only this, but we were driving through a blooming storm, it was gale force winds and torrential rain, apparently this is to be expected on the Coral Coast at this time of year.. but we only found this out WHEN we were there!!
There wasnt much to see anyway other than loooong roads and barron land to the side, so this journey was pretty uneventful!
So with about 70 KM to go the sun was going down fast & the rain had picked up, Luke was driving 140KM an hour, which on a single lane road, at dusk, and in the rain was a recipe for disaster!! But somehow luck was on our side & we didnt run down and animals or come off the road... Although, whilst we were driving through the Kalbarri National Park our visibility was next to nothing & we saw a heap in the road a little in the distance, we slammed on the breaks & managed to avoid the freshly run over kangaroo, there was blood all over the road, so it must have JUST been knocked down, because within seconds the blood had run from the road. I had heard that if you knock a kangaroo down you should check their pouches to try and save any Joeys, so was tempted to get out & at least pull it off the road... the the hit & run driver SHOULD have done... but it was just about to get dark & it was still pouring down with rain that we chose not to... I may have been a Mum right now, if we had have, a mum to a baby Joey!!!!!
We did see one kangaroo - Alive, and it watched us drive past him then he phopped off over the bushes....
We got to the campsite and it had just stopped raining. We struggled to put up the tent, we had never used before.. somehow we managed & once it was suitable, the rain started again!!!! Weird.
It was a pretty cold night, and werent really prepared for camping, so the next morning we awoke to aching bodies which were frozen!! we got up to have a nice warm shower to warm up, then to go visit the Murchison Rivers main attraction.... the daily feeding of the Pelicans.
We hung around the spot for about 20 minutes, the local fisherman who comes to feed them was astounded that they werent here "they are here every day without fail"..... Guess what? .... Not today!! Not the ONE day that im in town, not on Friday the bloody 13th!!! We went away with our tails between our legs and accepted that we werent going be visited by the Pelicans, so packed up the car & drove back into Kalbarri National Park, to go and hike through the gorge, and climb up to 'natures window'.
Kalbarri National Park, is very much like the grand canyon in my opinion, but it is alot more accessible, and like everywhere else in Australia, you are expected to make your own mind up about whether or not you can / cant do it - unlike in England or America, you cannot do anything or go anywhere without a full Safety inspection!! Here in Australia you can walk on a cliff edge, and your expected to use your own judgement.. which is pretty nice. Anyway... I had been looking forward to coming up here since I learned about the place when we first arrived in Perth. But as we approached the dirt track which takes you into the park so you can get set on your treck... the road had been closed!! Because of the bad weather the night before!!!! AHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!
Nothing we could do would change the park rangers decision, and walking to the starting point was a no go anyway, it was a 25KM drive to the starting point, so we just couldnt do it!!
So we got back on the road, and took a more scenic drive heading south now. The coastal drive was very jagged and had plenty of stop off points to view the coast. We stopped off at Eagle Gorge for our picnic lunch.
After Lunch we headed down to the Hutt river, I had heard of this place where some guy had been upset by some Australian Politics and decided to rebel against it, so made his own 'country' The Hutt River Province', only his family live here, Him & his wife, his children and their families. They have their own currency, with this guys head on & he calls himself the Prince of the Province too!! Pretty lame to be honest, but I wanted to go to get the stamp in my passport!!! (No joke!) But the same problem occured as at Kalbarri, it was a durt track which led you to the Province and our little Toyota Corolla just wouldnt make it up the track!
So we pulled in by the Pink lake - you may not believe me but the water is pink!! I dont know how, or why, but it was pink!!! But my photographs make it look brown, but it was definatley Pink!! it was named the pink lake.. and it was in Port Gregory if you still dont believe me! After here we joined the highway again and were looking for somewhere to camp up for the night.... then we found PORT DENISON!! So we pulled in and found a camp site, it was a Big 4 camp site, they're all over Australia. It was right on the beach, and our camp site had a sea view!! A million times greater than the campsite the night before!!!
We checked out the town of Port Denison, its a sleepy little town with absolutely nothing happening, we sat down on the beach and watched the sun set. Then headed back to our luxury living quarters... as we were just getting into the tent, an Aussie who was astounded that we were camping "in this weather" came over to check out our tent & couldnt believe we were camping... he was in a huge motor home, which I imagine had a spare bed he could have offered to us! He went away chuckling to himself, and we went to bed!! We had some beers to try warm us up first!
The next morning.... another uncomfortable night!! this time it was warmer, but there is nothing comfortable about sleeping on the ground anywhere on earth! So up we got, had a shower to warm up AGAIN, then packed up and went! because we had travelled a couple of hundred KM yesterday, we only had about 450 KM to get back to Perth, so we took a detour & went to the Pinnacles desert. Again the roads were long and boring, not much to say about scenery, because once you have seen the vast outback and got over the "WOW Im in Australia" it became very very boring!!! The odd kangaroo at the side of the road made me really sad!! The poor things!!
We arrived in the Pinnacles desert and it again looked just like barron desolate desert, so we paid the park fee and drove into the car park & went to the visitor centre before getting back in the car and going on the 5KM drive through the pinnacles!! Once we turned left, the whole scenery changed, it was bright yellow sand and all these limestone pinnacles popping up from the ground, like statues!! I got the feeling it wasnt all natural, and was a tourist attraction... because why would a huge sandpit be in the middle of grassland?? I dont know, It was an amazing sight non the less, and was fun getting out of the car and walking amongst them pinnacles. And lucky for us, the clouds disappeared for the 40 minutes we were out in the desert, so it was beautiful blue skies, against the bright yellow sand.
From here we had our lunch in the car, and the rain started again!! So we spent the rest of the afternoon leisurely driving back into Perth, we did stop off at a Road-house to fill up on petrol, and everyone was really wary of us, i didnt like it too much - Ive seen too many horror films out in places like this.. Put it this way, I would not accept directions from one of those locals!!!
Back in Perth for our final few hours, we went up to Mount Lawley, to the area we had been staying in, had some food then went to the local park. Luke was in his element, there were Gym equipment there, so he had a go on the exercise bike, and two other machines for your back or shoulders... or something!?!?!?!?!!? After Lukes little fix, we went over to East Perth to drop off the tent we had borrowed, and managed to gatecrash our friends BBQ!! Mick & Charlie who we worked with, they introduced us to this supermarket place, which sold hughe joints of meat for cut prices, so luke bought a fillet steak which cost $25, but he cut about 12 nice steaks off of it! and it was good meat! Anyway they were Barbequeing their rump steak, it was gooooood food!!! Afterwards we said our goodbyes, and we ended up sleeping in the car!!!
We pulled into a carpark & camped up for the night, reclinded our chairs and got in our sleeping bags!! I HATED IT, I woke up whenever anything made a noise, Luke said e had a good nights sleep, but I was grateful when it was time to leave the following morning!
To the airport!!.........
So with 13,100 KM covered in 2 and a half days we dropped the car off in one piece and boarded our flight to Ayers rock....Maybe our luck will change now??
We are here now in Ayers rock, and I will write my blog for here tonight and add the pictures from the last week or so.
Hope all is well at home! Lots of Love J & L xxxxxxx
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