Hi, we left Perth on the Easyrider bus tour and saw the Pinnacles (lots of sand-rocks sticking out of the ground) on the way to Kalbarri. The weather was greatly improving and we enjoyed a bike ride to see the cliff top gorges in the sun on our first day there. However, the next day was grey and cloudy and we just relaxed. Our driver took us to the Kalbarri National Park to see the river gorges before we headed up the coast to Denham. We came across a little rain, saw Shell Beach and the Eagle Bluff cliff top boardwalk. We went to Monkey Mia really early and saw dolphins - Lisa even got to feed a pregnant one! The skies had cleared but the wind made it really cold - I got simultaneous goose-pimples and sunburn :-(

After another windy day in Denham, we left for Coral Bay, stopping off again at Monkey Mia and Ocean Park aquarium on the way. We played bus bingo and I won a free glass bottom boat/snorkelling tour worth $39 (the exact one which we had decided to do anyway)! It started to feel like a real holiday as we passed the Tropic of Capricorn and arrived in Coral Bay. We re-met a guy called Jamie - having previously met on The Rock Tour in Alice Springs. The beach was gorgeous and really close by - it was really sunny every day and perfect beach weather (about 28 degrees so not TOO hot)! The other people staying here have been really friendly and fun and we have been snorkelling a lot. The reef is only about 10 metres from the shore and we've seen lots of ocean life, including stingrays and sharks amongst the many fish. One day while we were sunbathing, a small tornado/cyclone started up on the beach. It was swirling small items around of flip flop size, but wasn't big or strong enough to pick up a person! It only lasted about a minute before disappearing out to sea, but was highly unusual and great to see!! Another day we saw a green and orange snake eat a lizard! This was my favourite place in Australia so far and we decided to stay another two nights :-)

We got the bus to Exmouth on Tuesday and saw a thorny devil (see pictures) on the way. We were the only people on the bus and it was even hotter there! We hired a car on the first day because the national park and Ningaloo Reef snorkelling beaches were 75km away. We went to Lakeside Beach for some snorkelling and it was really windy and the current was strong. Lisa didn't go in the water but I saw a huge fat fish. We then made our way to Turquoise Bay which is the most popular place in the Cape Range National Park where we did more snorkelling (Lisa went in this time) and sunbathing. We really liked the holiday park we were staying in and had a BBQ each night. We stayed around the pool the next day and had the luxury of sunbeds, although Lisa wasn't too happy about losing her $22 suncream!

We flew back to Perth today and are here for a few nights before flying to Cairns overnight on the 15th September. The weather was 13oC hotter yesterday (31oC). We wish we were still in Coral Bay - hope this didn't make you too jealous :-)

Paul