Tales from the West Coast

I know I know, its been ages since I've updated. I'm just having too much fun to bother with turning on the computer and writing! The good news is that I have lots of excellent things to write about so settle in for some serious reading.

When I last wrote I was about to get on the Easyrider bus on my way up the west coast and I have to say that was probably the best decision I've made so far. Easyrider made everything very simple and we had a lot of fun as well. They picked me up at my hostel in Geraldton and then we were on the road to our first destination, Kalbarri. In Kalbarri we went to a restaurant called Finlay's in the middle of no where and had the most amazing fish and chips ever. That night was mostly spent getting to know everyone and the next day we headed out bright and early to go canoeing on the Murchison River. Canoeing was pretty ridiculous as we were all really hungry for the first bit (breakfast was provided after the first section of the river was travelled) so all we could think about was food. I canoed with a lovely Canadian girl named Lauren and aside from our boat not turning right we did pretty well. Rachel and Andrea had a bit of trouble though and spent a fair amount of time doing donuts in the middle of the river. After canoeing we hit the pub and found out who the drinkers in the group were!



Andrea and Rachel giving it a go!



Rachel and I at the pub in Kalbarri.


The next morning we were up bright and early to head to Denham with a few stops on the way. The first stop was at Natures window, basically a naturally made hole in the rock that looks out on some absolutely stunning scenery.



Nature's Window

Next stop was to look at the stromatolites which look like a bunch of rocks in the ocean. They are actually living organisms that act sort of like trees in turning CO2 into oxygen. They're not much to look at but the walk was a welcome break from sitting in the van. Last stop before Denham was at shell beach. Shell Beach is exactly what it sounds like, a beach made entirely out of shells. It was very beautiful and would have been an excellent place for swimming if it hadn't been threatening rain the whole time. Then we finally made it into Denham and had a quiet night since we had a 4wd tour in the morning.

We started out the morning by going to Ocean Park with our very good looking tour guide. I would definitely recommend a stop at Ocean Park for anyone that's in the area. The guide was very knowledgeable about all of the animals they had, which included baby turtles, sea snakes, eels, lots of massive fish, and of course what they are known for, sharks!



Sharks!

Then it was time for the 4wd drive tour. It was a pretty long and very bumpy drive but we had good music and good people. We stopped at several different places and even managed to see a dugong (sea cow type thing) which is very rare. After the tour we headed to pub for one of the best nights I've had in Australia. At first we all just went to pub for a drink which turned into quite a few drinks and an invitation to go out to Monkey Mia for a "full moon party". Of course we said yes so me, Jenny (the driver and tour guide), Rachel, Lauren, and Andrea jumped in the car and we drove the 20 minutes to Monkey Mia. One of the men that was with us used to be a park ranger at Monkey Mia so he knew alot about the area and the dolphins of course. For those of you who don't know Monkey Mia is famous for its dolphins which come to the beach every morning to be fed. They apparently hang out there most of the time because they were there at night and it was absolutely incredible to see them coming right up to the dock with the moonlight reflecting off their backs and bellies. We were all up quite late that night and didn't make it back to the hostel in Denham till about 4:30 in the morning but it was definitely worth it.

The next morning, with about 3 hours of sleep under our belts, we headed out to see Monkey Mia in the daylight. Seeing the dolphins at Monkey Mia was a very strange experience. They line up about 100 people on the beach and then the dolphins come up the sand and just swim back and forth a few feet away from you waiting for fish. It was great to see the dolphins up close but it felt a little sad to see so many people fighting each other for a spot to see them and the dolphins just waiting to be fed.



Dolphins!

From Monkey Mia we headed to Coral Bay where I am now. Coral Bay will definitely require another blog entry so for now I'll leave you with my travels up the coast. As soon as I get access to a computer with a cd drive so that I can upload some more pictures I will update about the gloriousness that is Coral Bay, so until then!