Well Hello there everyone!! Sadly our amazing road trip is now coming to an end as we have to hand the car back in the morning! So now for the stories - but where do I begin!??! We got the car on Thursday morning - a white Hyundai Accent 1.6 - and set off to the Pinnacles at Nambung National Park. Now all the magazines and flyers that we had read said that it should take about 3 hours to get to the Pinnacles but it took us almost an hour just to get out of Perth City because of some road works and pants road signs! The Pinnacles was fun but not much to tell about them other than that they are limestone rocks sticking out of the ground like in the picture here! In that area there are also two lovely white sand beaches called Kangaroo Point and Hangover Bay which we attempted to visit but for Hangover Bay we ended up on some really shady sandy road and thought we better turn back before we got stuck! (more to come on getting stuck in sand later!!) :0) That night we drove further up to a town called Geralton to stay over. As we had the car we thought 'why waste more money on accommodation?' and decided to sleep in the car! Oh my god, it was hilarious!! At first we weren't sure where to stop - thought it would need to be somewhere a bit public so that we weren't scared in the middle of nowhere, but not too public that we would attract attention or get moved on! Anyway, after a few drives up and down we decided on the car park of a Best Western hotel! We spent half an hour putting towels and things up over the windows so that no one could see in and then when I was falling asleep Michelle was waking me up going 'what's that noise?' when there was nothing there! She was building a house, if you know what I mean!!! ;0) Next morning we went to Kalbarri National Park. Here there are lots of lovely views and gorges etc. It is spread out over a large area so there was a lot of driving about in between places and much of the roads we just sand and gravel which made it, erm, interesting! Seriously, in Western Australia you can drive for hundreds of kilometres without seeing another car! Even at all the tourist attractions you only see a handful of people! Over the days though we did share the roads with lots of kangaroos, emus, BIG eagles, and lots of colourful birds (some were gallahs, I think). At the Pinnacles I was driving along quite the thing when an emu came out from the bush and tried to header the car!! It was so funny, althought luckily there was nothing coming in the opposite direction! I also had a kangaroo run out in front of me, luckily not too close and also something else which may have been a bilby, which is like a cross between a rabbit and a rat! Oh and that reminds me, as soon as we drove into Geraldton on Thursday night Michelle got done for speeding!!! The police pulled her over for doing 92k in a 70k zone and she was fined $150, which is about 70 pounds! Luckily no points on the licence though which was good! Typical luck for her and yeah you all know that it comes in threes!! After Kalbarri we drove up to a little town called Denham in Shark Bay. Here we stayed in the nicest hostel ever!! Seriously, I would have been happy in a place like this for a 2 week holiday abroad! We had a TV, kitchen and bathroom shared between the room, which is split into 3 bedrooms and can sleep 12. There were only a few of us in the room though so it was great. Outside we had a swimming pool, pool tables and barbecue area and we looked right out onto the beach which was gorgeous!! On our first night here we noticed that there were loads of people down on the 2 harbours so we went to see what they were up to. They weren't getting drunk like we were expecting but were fishing for squid! We stayed and had a shot but didn't catch any, although we did touch them - yuck!! In the morning, after a fab sleep, we went to Monkey Mia to see the dolphins. Our timing was great as they were about to feed the dolphins as soon as we arrived. There wasn't much else to do in Monkey Mia - there was a nice beach etc in the resort but we didn't want to laze about so we drove off and done a tour of Shark Bay. We went to Ocean Park which is a natural marine park which is still kind of under construction but it was fab as you got your own personal tour and they told you so much about the sharks etc! We both even held a turtle! Don't know that the turtle was too happy about that though as he was flapping his arms about like mad! We also went to Shell Beach - yes its shells instead of sand - which was gorgeous, Eagle Bluff lookout point and to the Stromatolites (the oldest form of life known on earth, they look like cauliflower rocks in the ocean!) That's pretty much all there is to do in Shark Bay so we left on the Sunday morning and drove back down towards Perth and stopped at another town called Lancelin. We had noticed Lancelin on the drive up as it has the biggest white sand dunes which are used for quads and sandboarding etc - soooo exciting looking! We were wanting to get the quad bikes but they were really expensive so we opted for sand boards instead. I would love to say that we had a fab time but unfortunately the sand was quite damp so it didn't really work! The further we moved along the worse it seemed to get so we decided to get back in the car and go a bit further in the opposite direction. Then guess what happened - our car got bogged in the sand and we were totally stuck!!!! We ended up having to walk back to town to phone Trevor the Tow Man to come and rescue us!! We were a bit worried but as soon as we got to town everyone was just laughing and saying 'oh it happens all the time, that's part of the fun!!' So Trevor managed to get us out in his big beast but even he was like 'I'm surprised you kids made it this far in your little car!' ha, ha!! Ended up costing us $60 which is just under 30 pounds! We are laughing about it now...a lot!!! That escapade was number 3 in the bad luck stakes as I forgot to mention that Michelle reversed the car into a wall!! Fortunately there was already a scratch on that part of the car so we are hoping that we won't have to pay the $1000 excess!! Aagh!! Will let you know tomorrow! Am having to rush now as the internet place is about to close!!! After Lancelin we drove back to Perth and came back to our hostel as we had 2 nights credit each to use. Today we got up and made a 700k return trip to Wave Rock! It took us all day and was quite tiring but luckily we could share the driving! We also saw what we think was a tiny baby crocodile today, aaw!! Were suppposed to be going out with people from the hostel tonight to a place called 'Black Bettys' but we didn't make it back in time so we just went for a quick drink and a few games of pool. Last night we went out in Northbridge in Perth for Michelle's birthday. We were going out for dinner but we didn't get over there until about 9pm and half the restaurants were closed, weird!! Anyway we found a late night place called The Moon which was really cool. Tony, you would have been proud of me, I had steak with pepper sauce, potatoes and salad and it was soooo yummy! Probably the best meal I've had here yet! Then for desert Michelle and I shared a chocolate pizza!! Andy and dad, remember they had it on the menu in Puccinis - well it is definitely worth a try, yum, yum!! Anyway need to go now! Hopefully I have managed to remember everything but probabaly not so may have more to tell you later! Probably won't be able to put my photos on now until we get to Melbourne on Friday, so it will probably be at the weekend. I have so many! We are up early again tomorrow to spend another 2 days on the Indian Pacific - oh joy!!! Can you hear the excitement, not!! Catch ye later!! xx