Monday 25th August

An early 7.30am start today as it is a 6-7 hour drive to Coral Bay. The countryside got increasingly flat and sandy as we headed north and the greatest excitement was when I narrowly missed hitting a couple of emus! We arrived at our accommodation shortly after 3pm so we had ample time for a swim in the sea (nice and warm once you were in). Coral Bay has a long sandy shoreline and tomorrow we board a boat for 5 days to explore the Ningaloo Reef, so no more blogs until we get back.

Sunday 24^th August

Just 28Km to drive this morning across the peninsular to Monkey Mia, where we stay one night. This is in an ecologically protected area and visitors have to pay an entry fee. We have a beachside unit in the complex that, as well as various grades of units, also has caravan parking, restaurant, shop, laundry etc for a captive audience. Everyone comes here to see the Monkey Mia dolphins up close and, although some are fed a bit each morning, the rangers try to ensure little human contact so that they continue to hunt and remain in the wild.

We had a three hour boat trip this afternoon which was very pleasant although we only saw a few dolphins, a logger head sea turtle and a brown head and back which was a dugong although I never caught a good look at it with the binoculars.

Saturday 23^rd August

We had a four to five hour drive today up to Denham firstly through the Kalbarri national park and then on the main highway (NR1) with mile upon mile of empty road and huge vistas of scrub, with occasional farmed land or sheep. This is where cruise control really comes into its own - set at 108 Km/hr (110Km is the usual limit) and then one can sit back and just steer.

On the way we stopped at Hamelin (in the Shark bay area) and had a walk around part of the shore to see the stomatolites, which are apparently world famous here.

Denham was a smaller version of Kalbarri but we had a wonderful dinner of assorted fish, prawns, squid and crayfish in the most westerly restaurant in Australia which is built of blocks of compressed (naturally) shells called cochina. These blocks had been carved from a six foot deep seam of this material and looked rather like pale breeze blocks. Because of the airpockets contained within the cochina, it makes for a nice cool room when the weather is hot. Although this is their winter it is like the height of summer to us and very pleasant!