Perusing the Pilbara

After the high of swimming with whale sharks, we bid Exmouth a cheery goodbye and headed back on to the north west coastal highway to continue the journey through WA.

It wasn't long before the strikingly red sandy dirt once again dominated the landscape but this time there were also mountain ranges of red rock to welcome us into the Pilbara. It's a really stunning landscape to see up close and made all the more interesting by thinking of the billions of dollars mined out of it each year.

And it's hot, very hot. I've said to the kids that from here to Darwin we pretty much need to accept we're going to be constantly bathed in sweat and covered in flies. Suzy Q is feeling it as well, with her fridge and water tanks not functioning as well as they should be, so it could be an interesting couple of weeks.

The long, hot drives have been testing everyone's patience so we try to find plenty of places to stop and admire scenery or a building or a park or whatever else is around. Thanks to WikiCamps I found a rest area yesterday right next to a mining highway so we stood on the tables and waved at the giant trucks delivering iron ore and received giant honking horn blasts in return.

Evie's special request was to visit the statue of Red Dog in Dampier. He kinda reminded us of our Cooper dog. I'm going to find the movie for the kids to watch so we can embrace the story of the Pilbara Wanderer while in the Pilbara.

Tonight we're in Point Samson with a view of the ocean from our caravan park site and lots of hermit crabs wandering around Suzy Q. Oh, and look what we found in Karratha:

Whale sharks ahoy

Did anyone just swim with the biggest fish in the ocean?

Oh yes we did!

AWESOME!!!!!

The range and the reef - Cape Range National Park

We've just returned to Exmouth following a few days in the remote wilderness of Cape Range National Park. Well I say remote only because there was absolutely zero phone reception, which seems to be the general definition of the far-flung frontier these days. I love my internet and phone, but there is something great about a few days where you don't even think about anything online!

Remoteness aside, the wilderness element of Cape Range is indisputable. The park is a narrow coastal plain fringed by the Ningaloo Reef on the ocean side and a rocky mountain range on the other. The variety of experiences and vistas is quite stunning as a result.

A fair bit of time was spent snorkelling, with Turquoise Bay being the favourite location thanks to the pristine white sand and gentle turquoise (surprisingly!!) water that offered up lovely corals and fish just five or 10 metres offshore.

Max enjoyed dressing up as "Mummy-Phoebe-Lukas" while donning my hat and borrowing Lukas' fins.

The views of the red gorge at Yardie Creek were spectacular and really felt like the desert remoteness I expected in the part of the country. No doubt we'll be seeing a lot more of this scenery, probably with the added interest of crocodiles as we head towards Darwin. And the termite mounds have started to pop up everywhere, they are fantastic additions to the otherwise fairly flat scenery on long drives.

Seeing the very rare rock wallabies was pretty special.

There was also time for fishing and Dylan managed our first catch of the trip - a reef shark! Luckily it snapped the line just as he got it onto the rocks because I had not the faintest idea what to do with it once it was on dry land!

Water doesn't seem to last long in these sort of places, and we used up our tank pretty quickly camping in the park, mostly gulped down in large mouthfuls to take the edge off the rather warm temperatures. Thankfully the visitor centre stocked 10L bottles of the delicious-sounding Ningaloo Nectar. In our thirsty states we all decided it was the sweetest, most delicious water ever tasted and wondered about the amazing natural spring that must be its source. Back in Exmouth I found out it is just filtered town water - those bottled water companies strike again!

We're in the Tropics

Passing the Tropic of Capricorn sign provided a good lesson in geography for the big boys and an interesting question from Lukas: "Why was there a Tropical Cyclone below the tropical line?" We decided the Tropic of Capricorn line was probably a bit like the lines in parking spaces - just a guide, not always mandatory!

We've had no problems travelling in the cyclone-affected areas. Carnarvon had masses of flattened banana plantations but all the infrastructure was up and running. The road to Coral Bay had only just opened and had a bit of debris and a couple of large puddles, but otherwise fine.

Arriving at Coral Bay was an exciting point on our trip, as it's our first port of call on the Ningaloo Reef. Lukas and I in particular have been looking forward to this since we crossed into WA on the Nullarbor.



It certainly hasn't disappointed. The beauty of Ningaloo is that you can walk straight onto the reef from the beach and be swimming amongst coral and fishes within metres of the shore. Coral Bay is also pretty remote, so therefore pretty quiet (or maybe we just beat the Easter rush): we went on a glass-bottomed boat to take us to a turtle sanctuary and some of the more remote snorkelling sites, and it was just us and eight other people.

And what an experience! One of the best things I've ever done and the kids could barely get the grins off their faces. Even Evie and Max jumped into the ocean with their floaties and noodles and had a turn swimming with the fish!

This underwater photography is thanks to Dylan.

We're heading to Exmouth next to try our luck at camping near the reef for some more snorkelling and see if we can find some whale sharks.

Dolphin fatigue

I never thought it would be possible, but the children seem to be suffering from dolphin fatigue!

After spending five days at Monkey Mia, the novelty of the dolphins seems to have worn off. Part of it is that it is such a great place that you don't have to do a formal 'dolphin experience' to see them. Just a regular swim at the beach and the chances are pretty high that dolphins will come in and swim around you and herd fish in the shallows.

But I don't think I'll ever suffer from that affliction - I love getting close and think I've seen something special every time a dolphin surfaces. Yesterday morning Dylan, Lukas and I were on the beach playing and the dolphins came in for a 'feed' (yes - they do give them small amounts of fish - philosophical arguments aside, it is a great experience). The boys didn't want to leave their boogie-board-fishing-game so it was just me who wandered up to see them up close and feed one.

We're going to try and head North from Monkey Mia today and see how we go. We've run out of cash and there's no eftpos or ATMs working here and the food supplies are getting pretty low. So we'll see how we go - I suspect any notion of healthy eating will go out the window for a while as we live off roadhouse supplies!

An Anniversary

We've just had our 100-days-travelling-around-Australia-in-a-motorhome anniversary!

So to mark the 13,181 km we've travelled, I thought I'd share with you some of the signs we've enjoyed along the way.

Yep, we'll slow down as we run into a
giant sand-dune on the road in WA

Look out for bilbies - we haven't seen any
yet but we're still hopeful

Who can resist a sign with a dugong on it!

Humour is very important in the
Nullarbor

Gotta love a sign that states the
obvious but in a scientific way

The kids are still hoping......

Thanks again Little Creatures

We've only seen kangaroos so far........

Classic Australian scene

On the border that we were most excited to reach

The kids left their mark in Tasmania

More animals to give way for.....

We're a long way from anywhere!

Tasmanian poppy fields

Very welcoming

I'd rather be somewhere than anywhere

We're back online and all safe and well

Well we have officially experienced our first cyclone - Cyclone Olwyn on (of all days) Friday the 13th! We are all safe and well and constantly thinking about the devastation of Vanuatu in comparison to what happened here. But I thought you'd all be interested in how the cyclone unfolded for us, so I've shared our story below.

We got woken up early on Friday morning by the Monkey Mia staff telling us they were starting their evacuation process and it would be a good idea to start packing up to leave. Unfortunately by the time we had breakfast and had a quick glance at the dolphins down at the beach all the roads had been closed so we couldn't get out! Deciding there was no point in panicking, we went and had a coffee and milkshake at the cafe and let all the staff know we were still here so they could try to find us some alternative accommodation.

Then word came through that the police were letting people out to go the evacuation centre in nearby Denham and so out we went.

The evacuation centre was marvellous. It was in a recently constructed cyclone-proof recreational building and we were looked after so well. After registering we bought in supplies and bedding and reserved a spot in the gym. The kids had an absolute ball watching movies and playing soccer, badminton and with gym equipment in the hall. Dylan at one pointed stated that this was close to being the best day of his life (!) Forget travelling around Australia, we should have just got a motorhome and parked up next to a YMCA for a couple of weeks!

The staff who ran the centre were wonderful in feeding us and providing updates on what was going on. The kids were so happy and distracted there was not even time for them to be worried, and I think that was part of the centre's plan.

There are always strange human observations to be made in such a place: the man deciding to it was an opportune time to cut his toenails in the hall was pretty gross, and some foreign backpackers were idiots and went outside in the middle of the storm and then were shamefully rude to the staff when they were told to get inside because a) we were on red alert and it was illegal and b) they didn't want to have to send the police out in a cyclone to rescue them.

It got very windy and very rainy and the noise was quite loud as the peak of the cyclone hit. We saw local flooding, a playground shade sail come off and a door being ripped off a little campervan, but remarkably not much else.

We are very thankful to the Shire of Denham for looking after us. The kids discovered a completely new food group when there were saved up big bowlfuls of tinned stew for dinner and were so impressed that Lukas actually asked why I'd been cooking it from scratch for so long!

After not much sleep in a noisy and bright hall, we were up again at 6:30 and told the town was still in lockdown. So we showered, had breakfast and waited a couple of hours until being told we could go back to Monkey Mia.

Suzy Q the motorhome survived pretty well. We had water in the cabinet where all of our shoes were kept and a bit came in an airvent which wet one of our couch cushions. Her airconditioning was flooded but had dried out and was working again by that afternoon.

We saw mostly flooding on the way back to Monkey Mia, which itself had a few big trees down, a yacht grounded and just looked generally flooded and windswept.

The dolphins are fine as are the emus - we were a bit worried about the chicks because we couldn't find them when we first got back, but they turned up next to our motorhome a few hours later and made us all very happy!

This will be our home for a few days, to let everything settle down a little bit before we try to head north towards Carnarvon, Coral Bay and Exmouth. We've been helping the resort here with their cleanup - Brian was working on the chainsaw yesterday and we were helping with picking up branches and debris. This morning Dylan, Lukas and I grabbed brooms and a rake and spent a few hours tidying up the tennis court. It's good to be able to help out and lovely being forced to stay a bit longer in a little piece of paradise!