I am now in Broome after a fantastic trip up the West Coast from Perth. It involved lots of driving but the stuff I have seen and things I have done has made it all worthwhile! I also met some great people which made the trip even better! The beaches here are amazing, nicest I have ever seen and the sunsets are just fantastic. Have never seen such beautiful sunsets, could watch them every day!

From Perth we headed out to the Pinnacles, loads of limestone formations in the desert. Was quite interesting to see. We then visited Kalbarri National Park and did some walks here in the gorges and along the river. Was really pretty. We then headed up to Shark Bay. From here we went to Monkey Mia where the dolphins come into the shore to be fed. You literally have dolphins swimming around your ankles. Never been that close to them before and I got picked out of the crowd to feed one, was so happy :-) After here we went to Shell Beach which is made up of the tiniest white shells, billions of them. The beach stretches on for miles and the sea is lovely here. Gorgeous greens and blues.

We next headed up to Coral Bay. Here a few of us opted to do snorkelling trip with the Manta Rays. On our first swim of the day we saw turtles, sharks, a sting ray, an octopus and so many fish, all colours and sizes. We fed the big bomber fish off the back of the boat and we were surrounded by them! One even tested my finger to see how that tasted, actually had sharp teeth and broke the skin!!! Nice fish!!! On the second swim we went to a shark cleaning station where the little fish eat off all the bacteria from the sharks and clean them. We saw so many reef sharks here, really cool being so close to them. We then sailed out to a turtle sanctuary where the boat was surrounded by turtles, all coming up for a breath and to have a look around. On the way here our boat had been surrounded by a pod of about 12 dolphins, all jumping and circling the boat, playing in the wake! We then went for the big swim and found two huge manta rays to swim with. We were lucky to find 2 together as they are solitary animals but the male manta was hoping to get lucky with the female manta that day. They were huge, approx 4.5m across! They were so graceful gliding through the water and we swam with them for ages. It was an awesome experience, so worth the money. I loved it!!

After Coral Bay we headed to Exmouth where we did more snorkelling. We went out to Turquoise Bay which is a nice enough beach but you only have to walk about 10m in from the beach and you are in the reef surrounded by so many fish. Here we saw lots of turtles and so many huge and colourful fish. I hadn't manged to see a shark and we eventually found a huge 2.5m one. After that I scraped my leg on the reef and then, surprisingly, we saw 3 more sharks! I, at this point, panicked and was convinced they were only around as my leg was bleeding so I got out the water at this point, felt it was probably safer!! Was so cool snorkelling here though, really liked it and saw so much.

After all the stunning beaches and snorkelling we set off for Karijini Natioal Park. Here we spent two and a half days hiking around the gorges and climbed a mountain (6 mile round trip, I enjoyed it when I had finished, not during it). The gorges are incredible though and you have to swim through some of them to get to the next bit, was really good. We also spent one night sleeping outside in a swag. The sky was incredible with all the stars so that was good.

After Karijini we headed off to Broome. I have now been here for a week and love it. The beach here is stunning, 22km or pure white sand and a gorgeous ocean. I have been very lazy since I've been here, using this as my 'holiday' part though and relaxing a bit before the next leg of my trip starts! I spent my birthday here and just chilled at the beach and then the people I was with organised a lovely sunset picnic on the beach for me (complete with a chocolate cake of course). I have mainly just been chilling at the beach and at the pool since I've been here, hard life really! I did do the sunset camel ride the other night which was cool, most amazing sunset so far. We also went to the world's oldest outdoor operating cinema, weird watching a film and then looking up and seeing the stars, was good though.

I have another 3 days here just chilling out and topping up the tan before flying down to Melbourne for a few days which will be cold :-( So definitely making the most of the sun whilst I have it.

I hope all the photos do some justice to how stunning the West Coast is

xxx