Wow, it's been so long since my last update! So be prepared for this to be a long blog, probably written in several installments.

So, I think the last thing I wrote was that I was in Perth, it was hot, and so far I was having a good time. I spent my first day here just wandering around really. Perth's easily small enough to let you just walk around on foot, or they have fantastic free buses in the city centre that take you all over. As cities go it's safe and clean, but just seems to lack a bit of atmosphere. I guess I'm just hankering after some historic character, and of course Perth is a pretty new city. So on my 2nd day I hopped on a train down to Fremantle, which is just lovely. It has a wonderful cafe culture and lots of small, unusual shops to browse through, and of course, ocean views. They also have a shipwreck museum there which is really well done and contains the salvaged parts of the Batavia wreck. Then in the afternoon I went to Cottesloe beach, half way between Perth and Fremantle. The beaches here are beautiful, just long uninterrupted stretches of golden sand. I stayed and watched the sunset then headed back into Perth.

The next day I went with some new found friends for a stroll around Kings Park. Well, we really only strolled around the botanic gardens part as the whole park is huge, and mostly just been left as wilderness. They've built a treetop walk in part of the gardens which gives really good views back over Perth. I also saw some baby owls nesting in a tree which made my day! Then on Thursday we tried another Perth beach, Scarborough, which was in the opposite direction to Cottesloe. Beautiful beach again, but it was really windy! I spent most of the time there in my jumper!

Friday morning was the start of my great 10 day tour north. Over the 10 days we would travel all the way up to Exmouth, through Karijini, and then back down to Perth. Day 1's first stop was the Pinnacles. I was expecting to see just a few pointy rocks scattered here and there, but there's a whole field of them! They stretch out in front of you as far as the eye can see, a bizarre sight to see. After alot more driving we stopped to have a go at sandboarding. I loved this! The only bad part is trying to climb backup the dunes, but I won a beer for my skill, so it was alright in the end!

Day 2 saw us head off the Kalbarri gorge. It was incredibly hot that day, so after tramping around the bottom of the gorge, and then clambering back up out of it everyone was pretty exhausted. We all decided to veto going to Natures Window and just headed straight to Monkey Mia. On the way we stopped at Shell Beach, which is a beach entirely made up of...SHELLS! Veyr pretty to look at but quite painful on the feet.

Day 3, and (most) of us were up early to see the dolphins. The dolphins are wild, but they come into Monkey Mia beach regularly to be fed. It was great seeing them so close, espeically as there was a baby dolphin, but there were alot of people and it did have a bit of a feel of a glorified zoo. Still, the beach is stunning, and almost deserted when there isn't dolphin feeding happening, so we spent the morning chilling out and making up for lost sleep. Then it was time to head off to Coral Bay. On the way we stopped to see the stromatolites. Although they look like just lumps of rock these tiny things are actually producing oxygen and made life as we know it possible on earth. Pretty cool really. They also had the most fantastically cheesy information signs along the boardwalk (see photos).

Day 4 was spent at coral bay where I went off on a Manta Ray trip, which was brilliant. Though the woman seemed intent on trying to scare us as much as possible before we left by warning us the water was very choppy, and continually checking that we were very good swimmers. My expectations of very choppy was sizeable waves, so it was pleasant to get to the first scuba site and see that what it acutally means is more a large ripple affect. But the water was cold. Incredibly cold. Despite the amazing coral and fish I was seeing it wasn't long before I realised I'd lost all feeling in my arms and had to get out the water. The second site was where we actually got to swim above the rays. It's quite an operation even locating the rays, let alone then getting close enough to swim with them. They use a spotter plane to find them and then the boat goes chasing after them. Once they get close a guy goes in the water to try and find them and swim above them. As the rays are always on the move the boat can't be anchored anywhere. This means that when it's your turn to get in the water they kill the engines for a short as time as possible and unload you off the back of the boat almost like when you see parachutists being told to leave the plane in old war moveis! Then you just have to swim as hard as you can to catch up to the ray, and it definitely sounds easier than it is! Once with the ray you snorkel above it and just hope it doesn't decide to swim too fast. I had no idea they were so huge, and yet they move with complete ease through the water. It was a truly amazing site. Then we got to have one last snorkel at a third deep water site. Here there was a shark cleaning station which we got to swim over and were lucky enough to see a large reef shark directly below us. Then it was back to shore for some sunbathing to try and restore feeling to my frozen fingers and toes!

To be continued...