Well it has been a while since I wrote in my blog but that has mainly been because I have been way too busy and it really remote places where internet is via a slot machine type system and basically only allows you to do emails.

Anyway I left Perth and started my tour north....our guide Candy ( yes people do actually call their children this) got lost in Perth...she is also actually from Perth originally ( need I say more!) so after an hour we finally found the freeway heading north. Our first stop was to see the Pinnicles which are these ancient rock formations out of limestone that have randomly formed in the middle of the desert.

We stayed over night in Kalbarri which is about 8 hours drive from Perth. The distances here really are huge - there is nothing in-between either except the odd roadhouse. The next day we did a canoe safari along the Murchinson River. We canoed about 10km and stopped several times along the way and had this amazing cooked breakfast - just what the body needed to keep on going. I was in a canoe with a German girl and it nearly became WWIII! They have some strange ways! We left Kalbarri the next day and headed to Denham - another sleepy town. Denham is based in Shark Bay World Heritage Area and it is the only place with this designation to have all four of the requirements for a WHA. This place really is paradise. We went to two key places on the way - Hemlin's Pool and Shell Beach. At Hemlin's Pool are the stromatolites....the what I hear you say!? Stromatolites are layered structures formed in shallow water by the trapping, binding and cementation of sedimentary grains by biofilms of microorganisms, especially cyanobacteria ( I cut and paste this!). It is believed that as they take in CO2 and sunlight they release O2 and at one point they covered the entire earth. Many believe that this process increased the percentage of O2 in the atmosphere enough so that water dwelling creatures were able to evolve onto land...and hence humans were formed. So we owe a lot to these fairly ugly looking features!

Shell beach is literally as the name says, made up of all these tiny cockle shells that are washed up. In some places they are about 10m deep and they are pure white and so just stunning but painful to walk along.

We stayed two nights in Denham and experienced a really amazing 4WD drive through Francois Peron National Park. Then we went to Moneky Mia - this IS the reason I am on the west coast. Monkey Mia is a nature reserve where dolphins come in every morning to be fed. These are wild dolphins but the have been visiting over many many years. Monkey Mia is about 30km from Denham, which itself is about 200km from anything else! So I was pretty remote for the week especially not having a car to even go to Denham. The first day I was there I was a tourist and just watched as the other rangers fed the dolphins. I introduced myself to them after the 2nd feed and then got handed a bucket to help with the third feed. Talk about being thrown in the deep end! "Here you go - here is a bucket go feed the dolphin whilst about 100 people watch you!!!". It was AMAZING though and they have such character.

There are 5 dolphins which are fed daily ( if they turn up that is) - Puck, Nicky, Surprise, Piccolo and Shock. They are all proven hunters and therefore do not depend on the food given to them but are able to go out and fend for themselves. They receive around a 3rd of their daily need and will get fed up to 3 times before midday if they return. They have so much character - Nicky is the oldest at 34 years old and can get quite bossy in the water and nudges with her nose the bucket and your legs! Surprise is 6 months pregnant and this will be her 8th calf I think. Piccolo is just the teenage princess and is really fussy with her fish and likes to pose for all the cameras! Shock is just pretty normal easy going. Puck is one of the dolphins who would be at 7am every morning with her calf Samu and is often seen doing th begging pose ( tail and head out of the water aka like in Sea World). All of the dolphins currently have calfs with them and so there is a lot of action going on during the morning feed as the little dolphins swim around their mothers or out in the deeper water. On my last day one of the little dolphin called Samu had been chewing on a box fish, which are incredibly poisonous to humans but the dolphins use the venom as a recreational drug and so Samu was going crazy all morning! My main duties were to get all the fish ready, speak to the public, bring the fish out when the rangers were ready and then to feed the dolphins. It was just the best week ever for me as I have waited so long to do it! I only worked from 7am - 12pm and had all the afternoons off to enjoy the resort. Managed to blag a free trip on one of the local catamaran and was allowed to sail it for a while as we watched the sunset.

On Monday I met up with my new tour group who are just crazy and so good to be around after being pretty much on my own for a week. We headed towards our final stop at Coral Bay but on the way played pictionary on the bus windows with whiteboard markers. It is amazing how the people and the tour guide can make or break a tour. The first group and guide I was with were pretty quiet and slept on the bus mainly between stops. This group are all about fun, music, chatter and drinking. We stopped off in Carnavon (not Caernarvon!) and did a grocery shop as Coral Bay is very expensive and they brought 2 boxes of goon (which is cheap white wine) - 3 hours later both the boxes were finished!

Coral Bay is amazing magical place especially after yesterdays snorkeling experience where we went out in kayaks and then moored up and had a snorkel. We followed our guide through the coral to a shark cleaning station where the sharks go to get the parasites in their gills cleaned by the fish. I seriously thought I would freak out seeing a shark in the wild especially being in the water with it but it was ok. They were only grey reef sharks but still you can tell they own the water world. There were a few little screams from us girls initially but more due to excitement than anything. The coral here is really pristine compared to the Great Barrier Reef apparently. We saw so many fish and they just swam around us without a care in the world. We then kayaked to another spot where the water was even clearer and did another snorkel. Here we found a huge logger head turtle just swimming along and it was like being in the middle of the film Nemo. We then found some more sharks but this time they were white tip reef sharks. You don't even really need to leave the beach to see the fish as the water is so clear so some of us are planning on heading out this afternoon to see what we can find.

I leave Coral Bay tomorrow and head to Exmouth for a couple of days before heading to Broome on a 19 hour greyhound bus! Will add some pictures to facebook shortly!