December 11th

They threw all our food away in the communal fridge because we wrote an incorrect date on the bag (wrong by 12 hours)… damn those prison guards! We didn't care… well we did but held our heads high, for we were off into the outback in our new chariot; a well stocked and equipped Toyota Landcruiser.

And so the next 8 hours of driving to Port Headland went as follows…. dead kangaroo…dead kangaroo… dead kangaroo… dead kangaroo… dead kangaroo… car… dead kangaroo… dead kangaroo… dead kangaroo… car…dead kangaroo… and so on.

In fact we counted 43 cars in 5 of those hours. I've ever seen so much red dust in my life. Thousands of miles of the stuff. Crazy.

Highlights included the roadhouse we stopped at half way down which reminded us of a horror film loation - the map said "shop, campsite and accommodation"; our trading standards would have a field day with that description! A red dirt patch is not a 'campsite' and rotting toilets in shacks are not 'accommodation'! Scrapping all future ideas of maybe camping at a roadhouse later on in the trip we headed off.

Dead kangaroo… dead kangaroo… dead kangaroo… dead kangaroo… car! 612km later we found Port Headland. We'd been told don't bother stopping apart from to stay over night… again trading standards would have loved the restaurant description at the caravan park. We didn't swim in the pool and we didn't eat the food but we did laugh when 40 adult magazines fell on me in the petrol station shop… it WAS the wind that knocked them all on me!

December 12th

Waking up at 6am partly forced by the bin men stomping around (fancy driving for 9 hours through empty space then having to camp by bins!) We made a hasty exit, only stalled by trying to work out why someone had thrown 6 full beer cans at our tent in the night, bizarre. Driving out we realised it wasn't our definition of a caravan park, people live here, permanently! The vegetable patches, personal, sprinkler systems and weeds growing over the caravan tyres gave it away. Someone had even parked up a coach and converted it into a house… a coach?! We sped off. A short way up the road we saw lots off smoke, which half an hour later turned into a proper little bush fire, almost crossing the road. Driving through it was quite strange and although relatively small gave us an idea of how powerful and dangerous these things can be. But interesting soon turned back to the usual….dead kangaroo… dead kangaroo… dead kangaroo… car! Dead kangaroo… dead kangaroo… dead kangaroo… car!

757km of that is enough to make any person cry with happiness when they finally find Coral Bay; an oasis of coastal calm in a red raw desert. We checked in at the hostel and ran to the beach, which was awesome. Great sand and crystal clear sea. The stingray coming right up close to the shoreline did make us jump, as did the naked old German guy, but we behaved far more sensibly than Steve Irwin and they simply swam a little bit further away from us, rather than attack us (the sting ray that is)!

December 13th

No beer cans had been thrown in the nigh which was a promising sign. Up early we headed to the beach to pick up our snorkelling gear and board the glass bottomed boat. Coral Bay is famous for being the entrance to the Ningaloo Reef, which stretches up into Exmouth (the more popular destination), and boy does it have amazing fish. The reef starts 10 metres off shore and is booming with wildlife. Having taken more than enough photos of them and not finding Nemo, we threw ourselves in for a swim. I tried to catch a few fish but luckily didn't; I was later told there is a fishing restriction there so I would've had to of thrown them back over board. The next stop for swimming was described at the Snapper hole. The other three watched me jump into a school of huge Snapper and then laughed as the entire school started ramming and pushing at me. One even nibbled my back! What a set up, but not as bad as the guy a few weeks before who had his nipple chewed by the Snappers! Having used me as bait we all went for a swim.

Back at shore I had to get my revenge n those damn Snapers so ordered fish and chips for lunch… mwah hahahahaha, he who laughs last, laughs longest. Sun bathing was the only way to spend that afternoon, along with burying Nikki in the sand, what with another big drive ahead.

December 14th

7 hours of driving later; 557km of red dust, dead kangaroos, a few scenic photos with me jumping on the car, and we reached Denham, just outside of Monkey Mia; home of the Dolphin encounters. "Don't stay at Monkey Mia" they said. "There's nothing there. Stay at Denham". So when we arrived at Denham and there was pretty much nothing there, our expectations of Monkey Mia; the great destination on the West Coast, were getting worse and worse! This place was quiet and smelt of rotting sea weed but having been assured it was closed down until the tourist season we gave it the benefit of the doubt and pitched our tent by the beach.

Making friends there was easy - everyone was desperate to break the monotony of everything being closed, and the wind! We got a few pointers on the rest of our trip in the communal kitchen and had an early night… tomorrow was dolphin day and the little b*****s get up early!

December 15th

Yup… up early! And off to Monkey Mia. When we arrived the dolphins were in for their first feed (they have three a day) and were right up on the shore - almost beached they were up so close. So we watched the feed with about 100 others (where did these people come from all of a sudden!) and were pretty impressed by their intelligence;

• They know only the adult females get fed, so the rest of the pod don't even come into shore and ask for free fish, they simply play around alongside those getting fed (apparently only feeding the adult females maintains the pods ability to hunt; if they fed them all they'd not bother hunting and the young would never learn from their parents, so they'd all become dependant on humans That said they have been feeding them three times a day for over thirty years so it must have some impact!)
• They know when the buckets get tipped upside down in the water that the fish is all gone so they swim off to play.
• They also know the exact time the staff will be there to feed them, smart fish! Ahem mammals.

Dolphins fed, we set off to feed ourselves. As we were doing so the greedy critters came back for their 2nd and 3rd feeds of the day - all within 25 minutes! We saw the final feed and almost got to take a fish out to feed them ourselves but were piped at the selection phase by a little girl - damn it she's got more time to come back and fee them another tome - let the older people in! Dolphin dramas over we spent the rest of the day on the beach fighting off the sand crabs that emerged from all the holes around us each time we sat still for a few minutes - they have big claws! The hurricane hat met us back at Denham campsite was apparently simply the West coast wind, but still meant we had to move the tent behind the car, which was fun in the wind, but once again our survival skills shone through and we survived.

December 16th

On the 400km drive down to Kalbarri we stopped at the famous stromalatites to witness the beginning of evolution; where all life on Earth emerged from, the great spectacle that saw organisms exit the sea and survive above water… the phenomenon that leaves distinctive rock formations… damn they were dull and un-photogenic! Some of the other scenic stops like white sand beach were cool but don't go too far out of your way to visit them!

Luckily The Hutt River Province made up for the other disappointments. Declaring themselves independent from Australia in 1970 due to disagreeing with new farming legislation the folks at Hutt River never got a rejection from the authorities and are now a separate legal entity recognised officially by many countries across the world. Chasing UN approval these guys have diplomats across the world attending formal events, their own currency, passport stamps and even appear on some world maps. Declaring war on Australia in the 80's with no reply form them also means they are officially undefeated in war… all pretty impressive for a 100 acre farm, population 10 (the family)! They are wacky but we had the pleasure of a 'guided tour' of the government offices by her Highness, the wife of the legend himself …….. In her late 70's it did feel more like going to meet your granny but the two hour detour was worth it! Arriving in Kalbarri, we were very relieved to see the caravan park actually had grass and a nice pool… things were looking up!

December 17th

My lord pelicans are huge! Witnessing the ranger feed them that morning really made you realise these boys can do some harm if they wanted to - and they did to the seagulls trying to get I on the feeding action. Birds fed we headed off to the Kalbarri National Park to walk the loop and see Natures Window. 8km in 40oc heat we didn't give a damn how beautiful Natures Window was, we can appreciate it later in the photos, all we wanted was water! The walk took us down into the gorge and gave a insight into how harsh conditions get and how isolated the place can be… deserts are dangerous! Back at the car and litres of downing water later we popped off to several view points of the gorges and surrounding views (by pop I mean hours of driving!) It may sound like we were unappreciative, but when you walking in the desert and you look up and all you can see is huge spiders with their fangs hanging out the car does become appealing, especially with it's air con!

That evening we went to a locally famous seafood BBQ, only to find out it was BYO alcohol, damn! The food was good though and piled high so who cares! On the way back we had to pass a pub and felt it rude not to spread our wealth so tried a tipple. A Scotsman, who's name I will never know as I never actually understood a word that came out of his mouth all night, befriended us at the bar and told us stories bout angering the park ( from the odd word I could understand). Eventually the karaoke drove us, out but the trophy and claim of having had a Scotsman buy us a drink will never be forgotten!

December 18th

A quick 200kms down to Geralton (or Gero as I've been taught) and we parked up in the tourist centre looking for things to do. When the local tourist information centre can only circle three shopping malls as things to do in town you know that once again you are in trouble on the West Coast! So off to the campsite to enjoy the windy beach and then retreat back to the pool it was. That night we had the most amazing take away pizzas outside the tent, which is what will probably stick in my mind more than anything else Gero had to offer!

December 19th

The final leg.Listening to our $2 Christmas Crooner Carols CD (bought to enforce the festive spirit we felt was missing in the car) we trundled our way through the final 424kms / 5 ½ hours of driving and made our way into Perth. Civilisation! But drivers coming the other way don't wave at you, which I did miss, a quirk of the country. Final negotiations at the Britz check in desk saw us deliver a very dirty car (the contract said clean) but we used the fact that both tents were broken as bargaining tools and won. Waiting in the office for our new friend/landlord/tour-guide, Pete, I was quite sad to see the Landcruiser driven away - it served us well. Even if it did have shocking tracking so for the past 32 hours worth of driving I had to tackle the constantly drifting wheels, and even though it was a beast to change gear, it didn't break down once or even splutter a complaint regarding the overtime it did on air con duties!

Pete an Rob took us for a scenic tour of Perth that evening showing us all the sights and sounds of Perth, which was fantastic, but it did seem strange not driving despite my body now being permanently stuck with my arms out in front of me holding a steering wheel that was not there.