Our journey around WA has come to an end all too soon, but we've definately had a fabulous time exploring its charms. We've just returned to Perth after a five day adventure road trip up the coast. We originally planned to do it as an organsied tour but realised it wouldn't cost much more to take our time and do it ourselves. So we picked up our Avis hire car from Fremantle on Thursday morning, cranked on an 80s CD, and hit the open road. And open it certainly was - we covered hundreds of miles a day and only saw a few other cars on the roads which stretched as far as the eye could see. Our first destination was Nambung National Park to see The Pinnacles. These are strange rock formations which have evolved over 20,000 years from eroded limestone. They do look other-worldly - big stumps of rock coming out of the bright yellow sand, contrasted against the deep blue sky. And our bright red car certainly stood out against them, too! On Friday our main destination was the Kalbarri National Park. Here we stopped for views of huge coastal gorges jutting out into the sea and the crashing waves below. We then drove inland to see the gorges along the Murchinson River. These are huge rock formations caused by millions of years of erosion and you could clearly see the different layers of rock which have formed over time. After a quick scramble over the rocks to see 'Nature's Window', a famous formation, and a paddle in the cool river, it was time to hit the road again. On Saturday we reached our most northerly stop and it was certainly the most exciting. We went to Monkey Mia, a tiny coastal resort which has gained international fame for its friendly dolphins. Every morning they come ashore for their daily feed and visitors can paddle in the water and see these wonderful creatures up close. We were up early to catch the 8am feed and it was brilliant. The dolphins slowly came into view and all of a sudden they were splashing around just metres from us. Three feeds take place each day so we hung around for the second one, which was even better. About ten dolphins came in, splashing around and rolling on their sides to get a good look at us visitors. A few people are picked out at each session to feed a dolphin a fish and guess what? I got picked! (it must have been my manic grin that did it!) It was all over in seconds, but basically I was given a fish which I held by its tail to reach down and gently give it the dolphin. Brilliant! It was certainly worth the long drive up there. The following day we began our journey back south, stopping off for various viewpoints on the way; such as 110km beach made entirely of shells and some strange rock formations which date from prehistoric times (stramotalites, for the science fans among you!). Today we were a bit more engergetic and stopped in a town called Lancelin where the major selling point is its huge dunes which you can sand board down. We hired a couple; Matt got a standing up one, and I got a sitting down one, and headed to the dunes. It took a while to get used to as neither of us had done anything like it before. But once we knew how to get some speed on, we were off! It was brilliant, but very tiring! We got back into Perth mid afternoon today, and tomorrow we board another plane to Sydney. Let the adventure continue! Lots of love, Nikki xxx