The winter rains were approaching so it felt good to say goodbye to Perth, but a little bit sad to leave the Quinton family – we had such a good time hanging out together, living in the ‘burbs’. We hit the road and made Jurien Bay our first port of call. This was a cray fishing town situated close to one of WAs’ scenic wonders – the Pinnacles. At the time most of the state was being hit by rain, with Exmouth getting their annual drop in 24hrs. Jurien Bay didn’t miss out either, being wet and windy the three days we spent there. Nevertheless, we celebrated Wendys birthday in grand style by visiting the ‘Lobster Shack’ just out of town, and purchasing a crayfish for dinner that evening. Bursts of sunshine through the days meant we got out for some bike riding along the coast, while one afternoon was spent walking around the Pinnacles.

 

We were going to spend a couple of days at Sandy Cape free camping but with the bad weather we decided to quickly head north and find the sunshine. We examined the weather map and saw that Kalbarri, a few hundred kilometers away was looking more tropical. In any case, there was not much in between, something we had to get used to in the North-west – with long distances between sights. We split the drive up by staying at Coronation beach along the way and witnessed the first of the many desert sunsets that were to come. Once we hit Kalbarri we soon realised that this place suited our lifestyle pursuits, and with the good weather we settled in for the week. Not only does this place have beautiful surf and fishing beaches but a nice little community in a very relaxed atmosphere.

 

As it was getting hotter later in the week we visited the Murchison River gorge that cuts its way through to the ocean just outside of town. Due to the earlier big rains the river was now in flood, but we lucky we got to see it looking pristine for one day before it all turned coffee coloured – at least there was now water in the gorge. We did a couple of fairly strenuous hikes into the valley floor and really enjoyed the change of scenery from the coastline. We were definitely entering the red dirt scenery that WA is so famous for.

Once the weather got hot we hit the beaches for a few swims, some fishing and to check out the beautiful coastline nearby. Chris’s birthday was also at the end of the week and all the family celebrated by doing a quad bike safari amongst the dunes. Chris also got a chance to break out his new birthday toy – a GO PRO. It really was a fabulous relaxing week in a beautiful coastal town.

 

 

Time to move on and head to Shark Bay. It was a couple of hours detour but seeing the dolphins come in to feed at Monkey Mia is on most peoples bucket list. Big distances between towns meant we free camped again at another rest stop. It was here that we had our first real camp fire for the trip, as they are banned in SA and WA up until May. At Shark Bay we stayed at Denham for a couple of nights in a caravan park. It was quite windy here but that did not bother the dolphins coming in at Monkey Mia. The kids were lucky there were not many tourists around at the time and therefore picked to feed a dolphin. Although this place is a bit of a circus the National Parks people do a great job in ensuring the health and safety of these animals.

 

 

Before leaving Shark Bay we decided to ditch the van for a few days and head up into Francious Peron National Park.  We heard that it had some beautiful camp spots and plenty of beach driving. So we dropped the tyre pressures and explored most of the peninsular. We stayed at Bottle Bay for three nights and what a gorgeous camp site it was. Best of all we were pretty much the only ones there and each day we found a beach to ourselves for some snorkelling and fishing. At many of the cliff tops we spotted al types of fish life and turtles, while the girls spotted a 2-3m tiger shark swimming not far from where we were the previous day. As always we worked the fishing out on the last day and had a great session on the run in tide at a beach called Cattle Well. This time the kids stole the show and caught the majority of decent sized flathead and bream. While Mum and Dad were casting far out,the kids were catching all the fish in the first couple of metres of broken water. Needless to say Dad was relegated to bait boy – he was not complaining, just proud to see all that training paying off.