After Coral Bay, we said goodbye to the coast and headed 500 km inland to Tom Price, a small mining town. It was a lovely drive with beautiful scenery of the Pilbarra and stayed the night in a small camping with a beautiful view of Mount Nameless.

The next day, October 13th was my birthday and I had the most perfect day. We woke up to find a kangaroo on our doorstep and it was so friendly that it came right up to us...it was so cute. Then Max made breakfast and I had a cake and candles which was lovely. It was a very hot day so we headed out early to Karijini National Park, about 50 km down the road. The park is beautiful. Lots of off road driving and spectacular gorges.

We headed to Circular Pool, which was just lovely. Clear plunge pool and waterfalls. Once the crowd had gone Max and I had it to ourselves and the most amazing thing happened. Max asked me to marry him and I said YES! It was just perfect and so romantic under the waterfall...the rest of the day flew by in a daze and after finding a phone to call my parents and to tell my mum to buy a hat, we camped at a bush camp, had dinner and looked at the thousands of stars in the clear dark sky....the perfect day was topped off by me seeing a shooting star...just the most perfect birthday :o)

From Karijini we headed north for a long trip to Broome, stopping half way at 80 mile beach and the temperatures are getting higher. On arriving in Broome, it/s humid, tropical and about 37 degrees.....can we cope??! So far so good....we haven't fainted yet! Broome is a pretty non-descript town, famous for Cable Beach. We stayed in a nice campsite for a couple of days and relaxed before swapping our car and camp kitchen for a resort for a weekend to celebrate our birthdays and engagement.

It was fantastic...and even better as we managed to get a villa for half price! We had a lovely open plan villa with kitchen, lounge and bedroom as well as an outdoor Balinese style bathroom and outdoor dining area. It was just perfect. We stayed at the resort all weekend relaxing, swimming, watching TV (shock horror) and having treatments in a private spa that I had booked as a surprise...then reality hit and we checked out and had a drive to the garage where we had new tyres and a general once over for the car.

The next day we left Broome and started a look inland journey taking in Derby, Fitzroy Crossing, Halls Creek and ending up in Kununurra. En route there were lots of areas closed due to bush fires including part of the Gibb River Road and the Bungle Bungles which was a shame! Kununurra is a furnace. It is the hottest place we have visited so far! The only respite was a storm that came one evening and it lashed down. We just managed to get everything in the car before the heavens opened and we were surrounded by thunder and lightening. It didn't last long but rocked the car and decreased the temperatures a little. At this campsite which was on the banks of Lake Kununurra I saw my first freshwater croc!

Kununurra was our last stop in Western Australia before heading over the state border in to the Northern Territory.,....