hello everyone,

The weather improved enough the next day to really look around coral bay and we treated ourselves to a spot of quad biking around the sand dunes just before sunset! What fun we had! We thought the dunes would be undulating but were horrified to be faced with enormous hills! We were very lucky to be the only ones with the instructor, so we had his full attention. He must have wondered what he had taken on, when Jan lost it on a corner and we ended up in the bushes! She soon got the hang of it really well, enough for us to tackle the highest dune without losing Pam off the back (she had her eyes shut!)

After Coral bay, we headed to Monkey Mia and arrived in time for cold beers and another beautiful sunset, whist watching dolphins playing in the bay. Another early am saw us watching dolphins swimming right up to our feet in the water, waitng to be fed. An amazing sight! On the same peninsula, we visited Denham, a pretty fishing village, the stomatolites (the only living rocks in the world) and shell beach, made up of metres deep crushed shells, which used to be quarried to make houses!

We then travelled on south to Carnarvon, still on west coast of WA. This is the centre of the fruit plantation area, where you can drive around buying fruit and veg from little shops on each one. Needless to say, we bought far too much, as it all looked so good! This is also the place for prawn and crab fishing, so we decided we had to "do the business" and visit a lady we were recommended to see. She was great and when Pam asked if we could try a bit of crab, we ended up eating a whole one and having such a laugh in her kitchen! We then felt obliged to buy a couple and some beautiful prawns but were already full from eating the free one! Still, we ate it all later, as we never waste a thing!

Onwards south to Kalibari into a lovely caravan park on the beach. Visited the sea horse sanctuary,which was amazing, and the NP where we again did lovely walk over the rim with gorges on both sides of us. we passed the Hut river province, where the "Prince " has his own passport stamp, but we had to keep going to Geraldton before dark due to "Roo alert". We were beginning to feel sad, as we would soon have to give up our van!

South to Dongara and the amazing pinnacles, rock formations 2million years old (see picture above and our photos when we get them on!)

Another roadside stop on the way to Perth (really getting into this now!) and then decided to head south of Perth to Mandurah, as we had some spare time before giving up the van. This area is very up and coming, full of beautiful marinas and VERY expensive waterside properties.

We are now in the Perth YHA, where we have our own en suite room (very different to my teenage YHA stays!) We have said goodbye to Sam and feel very strange without our home on our back!

We are now reflecting on our whole trip so far. We have travelled over 12,500 km, through some of the most beautiful scenery imaginable. So many animals have crossed the road in front of us, roos, cows, sheep, emus, horses, rabbit, goats, pigs, king brown snake, goanna, bustard, wedge tailed eagle, and only one large red kangaroo didn't make it! We still feel really bad about that but prefer to say that he hit us (which he did!) More later!