We flew into Perth and couldn't find anywhere to stay at all so after searching for a couple of hours we ended up an hour or so out of the city that night. We decided the next day to head north to Cervantes for a couple of nights and explored the Pinnacles Desert in Nambung National Park. It is a bizarre and eerily quiet place with hundreds of sandstone pinnacles scattered throughout the desert landscape. Some are up to 4m tall and look spectacular at sunset. We drove to Jurien Bay which has a beautiful white sandy beach but unfortunately it was too windy to stay there too long.

We returned to Perth for the weekend and met up with Jim Collins who Martin used to work with and now lives in Perth. We were invited for a meal at Rhoda Verbaan's, her daughter Lois and husband Jake Denherder were there from Alaska as well as a number of other friends. We spent Sunday with Rhoda, Lois and Jake and were invited with them to their friends for lunch. Yew Kwen, Choo and their daugher Hwee Ching are from Malaysia and we had a wonderful Asian lunch with them. It was this weekend that we learnt of the terrible Victorian bush fire disaster in which over 200 people would be declared dead in the coming weeks.

After the weekend we started heading south. We stopped first at Bunbury and visited the Dolphin Discovery Center, from the beach we could see dolphins swimming close to the shore! At Busselton we walked along the mile long jetty - the longest in the southern hemisphere. We wanted to go out to Cape Naturaliste but the road was closed due to a bush fire, so it was on to Margaret River. Western Australia has some beautiful beaches and we found one here getting sunburnt after only two hours despite using suncream!

We continued south, stopping at Pemberton and climbed the 61m high Gloucester tree which has rungs set in the side with a platform on the top. It used to be used as a bush fire lookout. Next we stopped at Walpole and did the treetop walk, a 40m high metal walkway through the tops of the tingle trees. A brief stop in Denmark was followed by spending the weekend in Albany where we met up with Jake and Lois again after their road trip to Esperance, and we all had a lovely meal with Jack and Ruth Palmer. The following afternoon we drove down to Frenchmans Bay with Jake and Lois and had a picnic lunch before going to the coastline lookouts of The Natural Bridge and The Gap, followed by a swim at one of the beautiful nearby beaches.

The four of us headed north after that, stopping at Stirling Range National Park for a hike up Talyberlup before staying at Gary and Mee Ra Shepherd's for the night. Gary is a sheep farmer and has 10000 Merino sheep, he took us out on the back of his Ute that night to shoot Kangaroos as they flatten crops and are a huge nuisance to farmers. Jake shot three and Martin got one. We went the next day to stay with Lois' sister Janice in Collie, her husband Mike Glenn and their four lovely children Mitchel, Jeremy, Fletcher and Bradley. We said goodbye to Jake and Lois the next day as they had to head back to Perth and after staying another night at the Glenn's we visited Honeymoon Pool and Wellington Dam. We took a detour across to Cape Naturaliste as the road had re-opened and took a walk as the lighthouse was still closed for cleaning after the bush fire. The surrounding bushland was severely burnt but we found another beautiful beach near here with turquoise water, it was a bit too rough for swimming but there were lots of surfers there.

We stayed between Dunsburough and Busselton on the way back and had lunch in Yallingup with the whole Verbaan family the next day who were in Busselton on holiday and together with all their husbands for the first time ever. We met Lois' father Bernie who was away on business when we were at their house and also her other two sisters, Eunice and Frances and their husbands and Eunice's two girls. We spent Sunday in Bunbury and had lunch with Syd and Penny Graham and three children Alex, Ben and Saffron. Sisters Raine Siebel and Ann Maree Sylvester were there also. We had tea that evening with Rob and Heather Graham and family.

So after another 3150kms it was time to return to Perth in time for our Flight to Alice Springs.