I am now back in Perth after a brilliant 2 weeks travelling around the South of Western Australia. My friend Sasha, who I met travelling in Europe a few years back, lives in Perth and kindly took 2 weeks off work to drive me around. Another friend Vicki, who I met in Cambodia, joined us!

We started off heading from Perth down to Albany, right down the bottom of the Australia. The drive took about 6 hours but was so nice, beautiful scenery. In Albany we did lots of walks and went whale watching. The first day we went out we didn't see any whales, lots of seals, but no whales! We got to go back on the catamaran the next day and this time we saw 7 whales and a pod of dolphins! They were all humpback whales and we saw 3 calves! Was so cool being up close with them in the wild! The coastline and beaches around here are stunning, shame it was too cold to swim! Some of the sunsets we saw here were gorgeous. The beaches are just perfect white sand and the sea is a beautiful blue! So picturesque.

After Albany we headed along to the coast to Walpole. Here we were met by Sasha's boyfriend who brought his campervan down to we could park that up somewhere and sleep there. We stayed in some good camping spots, completely out in the bush, surrounded by kangaroos. Walpole is home to the Valley of the Giants and the Tree Top Walk. Here you do a walk on a 40m high suspension bridge through all the tree tops. It was excellent, the trees were huge! You can then walk around the Ancient Trees, the circumferences of these trees was incredible. There are pictures up of trees with gaps through them and cars parked in the middle of them! Photos don't do justice to how big they really were! We did lots of hiking through the bush around here which was good fun too. Tiring though!!!

After Walpole we rewarded ourselves and headed up to Margaret River, home of the wineries!!!! To say I had fun here is an understatement! You can go from winery to winery just wine tasting as much as you want!!!! You are under are no obligation to buy anything but I think we managed to buy a bottle in each one, to be drunk that night! These few days were a bit of a haze. The wines here are the nicest wines I've ever tasted! We also visited a cheese factory and then the chocolate factory! I was in my element here and stocked up on all the free samples!!! We visited lots of breweries here aswel. There is so much to do here, loads to see! We also visited some caves which were really cool. The Jewel Cave is the best cave I've ever been to! Margaret River is also situated on the coast and we spent one night in a beach cabin with a sea view which was really nice. Would definitely recommend Margaret River to any wine lovers, or anyone who likes a free drink :-)

We headed back into Perth today and it's a quick turn around for me as I am starting a 10 day tour tomorrow up the West coast, visiting all the beaches and National Parks on the way before arriving in Broome. The temperature is about 15° hotter up there than here so will be spending most of my time at the beach. I also arrive in Broome the night before my birthday so I'll get to spend that at the beach which I'm very much looking forward to

xxx