Perth to Broome - 20th April - 29th April

I took a 10 day tour up the west coast from Perth, finishing in Broome. Travelling by bus we took 10 days to explore the sights of the west coast in a group of 24. The age range was from 18 - 50 with most people around the 24 mark. I became very close with two girls, Leila, 18 and Kim, 21, both from England. Almost half of the tour were from England with a vast mix of german, dutch, danish and swiss. A really good mix all with very good english too.

Day one began with an early start and a long drive north towards Namburg National Park and the famous formations of the Pinnacles Desert. Sandstone erroded away has left hundred of upright stone figures jutting out of the sand. I didn't expect there to be so many. Lots more driving and we arrived close to Geraldton to try our hand at sandbording. Having failed miserably at this once before on Kangaroo Island i decided to save my legs from all the bruises! We arrived early evening in Kalbarri.

Day 2 and our first stop is the Murchison Gorge in Kalbarri National Park. In the Park we also saw Natures Window, a rock balancing on a cliffs edge with a hole in the middle. As you look through the whole you can see the beautiful landscape in the distance. This was one of my favourite places i've been to in oz. The land stretched on for miles and the green of the hills constrasted with the water and sand below was really stunning. The national park also holds The Loop and the Z-Bend Gorge. At Z-Bend Gorge we had a tiring 150 metre descent into the heart of the gorge. Worth the effort to get down their with the stunning fresh water polls but bloody hard to climb back up the hill afterwards! The heat and flies were beginning to gradually get worse by this point. 30+ degrees and it was only 9am. After time spent in the park we made our way towards Monkey Mia stopping at the Stromatolites first. Here jutting out benethe the surface of the waves are small rock formations covered in living, breathing bacteria, making them some of the oldest rocks in the world. Another short drive and we arrived at Shell Beach, very self explanatory. A huge beach covered in very tiny shells, all across it, no sand, just shells, out to sea the surface under the water was the same, each wave bringing in more and more shells to the beach. Beautiful but quite uncomfortable to walk on. We stopped at Shark Bay for the night.

Day 3 and we made our way down to Monkey Mia, one of my favourite stops on the trip. Monkey mia is a small bay which is famous for the fact that everyday, wild dolphins will come into the bay and be fed by humans. Several feedings take place each day, and each time tourist will line up along the beach front, ankle deep in water. Waiting patiently we watched as the dolphins slowly made their way closer to shore. Cautious at first, the know they will be fed here but new faces every day means they like to take their time and get used to those stood infront of them. It was amazing to see these wild creatures come so close to you. They really all such playful, beautiful animals. The feeding is conducted by staff at the bay ensuring people don't scare the dolphins away and for general safety purposes. After all, they all still wild animals. Feeding of the dolphins is limited to the public, if you get picked you get to feed one, if not, you don't. Luckily for me i got picked and slowly had to walk towards the dolphin and take a fish, hold it firmly in the water and wait for the dolpin to take it from me. Very exciting as well as slightly nervewreking. Spoting the odd pelican and emu running along the grass we had the morning to chill out by the beach and the dolphins before making a quick stop at Ocean Park. A family owned and run small aquarium with rays, sharks, turtles and several variety of fish. Very strange for such a place to exist in literally, the middle of nowhere but pretty cool nonetheless. The turtles in particular were ever so cute! Tonight we stayed in Coral Bay.

Day 4 and we stayed here in Coral Bay. A very small place but with beaufiul blue ocean and plenty of ventures out to sea on offer. I chose to snorkle with the Manta Rays - a brilliant experience. They took us out on the boat early morning where we were kitted out with flippers, snorles and rash tops. A quick snorkle to check equipment before we were back on the boat on the hunt for the manta rays. It wasn't long before we found one and off we set to follow. One of the crew would jump off the back of the boat and swim to where the Manta Ray was, swimming on their side with one arm raised in the air. This signal meant they could visably see the Manta Ray. So off we all jumped off the boat and swam towards the crew member. Looking down under the water it was pretty hard at first to spot where the Manta Ray was. The water they swim in tends to be quite murkey due to the algey etc that they feed on so visability was quite poor. So there we are desparately looking around to try and spot the Manta Ray and then suddendly out of no where I saw the Manta Ray, huge thing, slowly very gracefully floating along just under the waters surface. Even more difficlt to see due to their black coloured top but as soon as the Manta began to turn (this is how they feed) their while bellies made visability much clearer. Small gills on the underside of their belly would help identify them later as apparently every Manta Ray's underside is totally unique to them. So surreal watching this creature slowly turn 360 degrees over and oevr again. It was as if they loved having us there watching them, slowly swimming along with them, trying to show off to us. We swam with 3 differnt Rays on 5 separate occasions. At one point we had two Mantas swimming along, turning in succession with one another. After swimming with the Manta Rays we got chance to go for a snorkle along the Ningaloo Reef. The reef wasn't really very colourful but some of the fish were pretty and we spotted a turtle which was brilliant. We drove the short distance to Exmouth arriving early evening and staying here the night.

Day 5 and still in Exmouth we were given the opporunity to swim with Whalesharks - one a grabbed with both hands! Similar to the Manta Rays, we were taken out on a boat, got to test out equipment and then spotter plans searched for the Whalesharks. Swimming just below the surface and their huge scale makes them easy to spot from above. They do swim down below visability to feed and if they get scared but they happily cruise along just under the surface. Once we get word that they've spotted the Whalesharks we race towards the site with several other boats alongside. The boats take it in turn to take their groups out towards the shark to swim with them, the boats hanging back and by law, only alowed close to the site to pick up swimmers. So off we jump again swimming towards the crew member who has their hand raised in the air. Again, before you know what you're looking for the first sighing is hard to see and then, you think to yourself how on earth did you miss it as this GIANT Whalesharks comes swimming by. They're much faster than the Manta Rays so i'm kicking away trying to keep up with the shark and swim along side it. Needing to keep your distance in order not to scare it or get hurt (by the tale for example) and not to swim infront of it either. Amazing really to be swimming so close to this 6/7 metre shark who doesn't seem to have a care in the world that you're there! We got about 5 swims with the sharks, swimming with 4 different ones in total, ranging from 5-7 metres. One time i got in and was busy looking for the shark when all of a sudden i see this giant head coming right towards me! It didn't flinch for a moment and its wide kinda grinning face was even pretty cute! This meant however that i managed to get a lot higher up on the shark than before and just didn't want to stop swimming with it, it was so amazing. Hard to describe the feeling of being so close to this beautiful, huge, graceful animal. Like the Mantas, the Whalesharks each have unique dots to them just on the side of their bodies next to their fin. Apprently if you take a picture of this part of the shark and send it to the conseravtion people they will track your shark and let you know when it is spotted again. I am yet to discover whether any of my disposable underwater camera pictures came out....hope so. We spent the night in Exmouth again.

Day 6 and a long day of driving from Exmouth to Karijini National Park. Literally didn't see anything except the outback road. We arrived in Karijini late afternoon to set up camp. We had huge tents to sleep in here and even had a red back on the tent to welcome us!

Day 7 and 8 were spent exploring the National Park, famous for it's many gorges. We were there at a great time, as the wet season comes to an end, the grass and trees were still green which made a beautiful constrast the to dark red earth and rocks. Soon as the weather dries the green with turn brown and yellow. Karijini hosts The Hamersley Ranges which were formed more than 2,500 million years ago and contain some of the oldest rocks and formations on the planet. Karijini itself is the oldest national park in Australia. Inside the Hamersley Ranges we explored Hamersley Gorge, Oxer's Lookout, Hancock Gorge and Handrail pool which is hidden deep within Weano Gorge. The gorges are classed in different levels acording to their difficulty. Public members are only allowed to go as far as level 5 gorges, level 6 required a guide and usual abseiling equipment. The gorges we saw took a bit of getting down into, steep decents, walks through water and some swimming through water too! Luckily the weather was beautiful and the swim was a refreshing break. Through many of the gorges we were lead to beautiful rock pools, deep enough for you to jump off small rocks jutting out of the cliff side. Lots of climbing involved too. We spent time exploring circular pool in Dales Gorge, Fortescue Falls which hosted giant paperback trees, high canyon walls and a beautiful waterfall. Hidden close to hear is the stunning fern pool, my favourite pool from the gorges. Legend has it from the story of dreamtime set by the aborgionals that a giant serpant lives in these waters, asleep at the bottom of the pool. Should anyone make too much noise in the pool the serpant will awake and eat them. In respect to this history, people are asked to be quiet in the pool if they choose to swim their. This means the place is generally very quiet and a lovely peaceful place to be. We camped both nights here in the national park.

Day 9 and now that everything is covered in the lovely red desert rock of Karijini we make our way towards the coast and the iron ore port of Port Headland. Literally in the middle of no where the town is very rich but very industrial and not that pleasent. Luckily we don't spend very long here before another long drive to our nights accommodation at a full working cattle station. Doesn't sound very appealing but the owner of the staion is the owner of a half a million hectors of land of which sits a campsite and this is where we spent our last night. My favourite night of the trip as we camped outside on swags (a thick leather bound sleeping mat with the option to unzip and sleep inside) around the campfire. It was so lovely and to lye watching the stars was brilliant - I saw my first shooting star of many. The stars look so different over here in the pitch black of the outback with no orange haze coming from street lights. Amazing.

Day 10 and another long drive until we finally arive in our destination - Broome. A very small place indeed with not much to it besides a few shops in the town centre, expensive shops at that too. We stayed at Cable Beach, by the beach about 7km from the town centre. The beach itself is lovely with a nice grasses area looking over the beach and perfect to watch the sunset from. Camel rides are a daily accurance on the beach and very popular at sunset. I stayed here in Cable Beach for 4 nights before boarding a long 28 hour bus ride to Darwin.