Monkey Diary - Post 12

Mr Monkey is back on t'internet, baby! Did you all miss me?


Chillin' at my Coral Bay crib. J & K are so cheap, this is the first bed I've slept on in months!


Tropical Baby!


Why am I on this rubbish beach!



Welcome to my crib, homeys!




Fancy a few beers at my bar.



That's it, you're my bitch now! Thrashing Jam boy at a game of strip poker.




It's a hole a rock. Life doesn't get anymore exciting than that.




Just waiting for the perfect wave, then i'll be out there showing everyone up.



What are they?




Hot in the city.



Meet my new woman. Miss Monkey - very original! We had a couple of dates, but she was too clingy.

I liked eating the witchety grub. Juicy!

It's feckin' cold!

Perth to Margaret River

Perth


We took the car into the garage to get the brakes sorted and the mechanics said it would be a few hundred dollars to sort it. So we left the car a nd went into the city to have a look around. We then got a phone call from the garage and they said that something else needed fixing and then another thing as the list got bigger. In the end, the car car was in for 2 days and we spent way too much money to mention to get most of the problems fixed. This means our plans are going to change slightly. Instead of going to Melbourne, we are going straight back to Sydney more or less and selling the car, then we are going to do Melbourne and Victoria any way we can. After that a very kind Matt Tilly said we could stay at his for as long as we need to, which is very nice of him. We are pretty damn skint, but we are going to make the most of it while we are here. After all it's a once in a lifetime trip.



Perth as seen from King's Park.


We're back on Manchester soil on Boxing Day morning, with 10 layers of clothes on to face the UK winter.


Margaret River


After not really doing much in Perth, we decided to leave and go down to Margaret River and carry on with our journey.

We had a fantastic day out on a wine tour around the area yesterday. We were taken to 4 wineries and a brewery. Our bus driver also prepared our lunch for us. We had kangaroo, wild turkey, salad and lots of sauces and dips made from local bushtucker. It was fantastic stuff. A couple of 'lucky' volunteers got to try a witchety grub. A one of the wineries we tried 'Dukkah', which is a mixture of nuts, herbs and spices which you dip bread or crackers with olive oil on . It's very moreish!



At the second winery before we had drank too much.




At the brewery with the sample beers.



The group on the tour.

Today we went for a drive around the Margaret River region, but the weather was not the best so we really didn't see much.


Cape Leeuwin. Where the Indian Ocean meets the Southern Ocean.


An old water wheel near Cape Leeuwin. It doesn't move anymore as it's encrusted in lime and salt.


Kate on Hamelin Bay beach. The weather was rubbish!

Exmouth to Perth

Exmouth

On our first evening, we drove up to the lighthouse to watch the sunset and to see if we could spot any whales. We managed to spot a few breaching in the distance.


Sunset at the lighthouse.

A legless lizard, we think.

The next day we hired out some snorkeling equipment and drove to couple of recommended spots in Ningaloo Reef Marine Park. Firstly we went to a spot called Lakeside, then after lunch we went to Turquoise Bay. The colour of the sea, surprise, surprise, had turquoise colour to it, with darker areas where the reef was. (Kate: J is V sarcastic!) I spotted a few Stingrays and followed them, while Kate decided to keep her distance in case they got a bit moody and stung one of us.


The creature from the deep.

Angel fish, we think.

Stingray. If you can see it. It's in the middle of the pic.

On Turquoise Bay beach.

On the way back to Exmouth, we stopped to have a quick look at the wreck of the SS Mildura, which struck the reef during a cyclone in 1907.


SS Mildura wreck.

The next day, it was down the coast to Carnarvon.

Carnarvon

We stayed one night. I HATE FLIES!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Monkey Mia

On the way to Monkey Mia, we stopped at a lookout over the vast landscape of WA. We didn't stop for long as it was fly central. I HATE FLIES!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!


I welcome you to 'Fly'stralia.

The emptiness of WA.

We also stopped at Hamelin Pool, to look at the stromatolites. These particular stromatolites are 3000 years old but it's believed that very similar stromatolites were the first lifeforms to inhabit the Earth. They are made from bacteria and there are very few living examples of them remaining.


An old thing and the stromatolites.

We also stopped at Eagle Bluff looking for sharks, whales, dolphins and dugongs.

Eagle Island off EAgle Bluff, with me showing my gut off.


Honest, the dark shape is a shark.

In the morning we walked to the beach to watch the dolphin feeding. They have feeding the dolphins there since the 60s, but it is a lot more controlled these days, you can't feed them burger and chips anymore! The guide book says that it's all predictable and not the normal way of life for the dolphins, but it is good to see them close up and it's not as if they are in captivity. They swim around near the beach as one of the rangers talks to the tourists, then they eat a few fish and swim back out to sea again, they're certainly not daft.

Dolphin at close range.

A couple more dolphins.

And a pelican thrown in for fun.

After leaving Monkey Mia, we drove south down the coast to the town of Kalbarri

Kalbarri

On the first day we drove into Kalbarri National Park and did a couple of short walks. We didn't want to do anything longer because of the flies. I HATE FLIES!!!!!!!!!!!!

The first walk was to Nature's Window, a natural window made from rock framing the Murchison River. The second walk was to another part of the river called Z Bend.


Natures window framing the river below.

Kate fighting the flies away.

The river from the Z Bend lookout.

The next day we travelled down to Jurien Bay.

Jurien Bay

On the way to Jurien Bay we looked at more sights on the Kalbarri coast

Kate on the Kabarri coast being attcked by more flies.


A natural bridge.

Once we arrived in Jurien Bay, we went to the local bar and listened to an Aussie band called Cambridge 43. They were pretty good, playing songs from U2, Red Hot Chilli Peppers and others.

The next morning we drove to Nambung National Park to see the pinnacles desert. They are bizarre limestone formations on bright yellow sand.

More flies attacking. I'm trying to stop Kate wafting her hand everywhere so we could get a good picture but this is what we ended up with.


Kate liked this phalic shaped one.

More of the sticky up things.


Some close up.

On the same day we continued to the outskirts of Perth to a place in the Perth Hills called Mundaring. On the way we passed through Yanchep National Park to look at the koalas that were there. Kate loves koalas! (Kate: It's true.)

Mr Koala.

Mundaring

We camped at the YHA in the national park. It was very picturesque and we saw lots of Western

Grey Kangaroos in the grounds. Two of them had joeys in their pouches. We like camping at hostels as we have use of all the indoor facilities, especially the lounge with the log fire and TV. The weather was noticably cooler here, especialy at nice. It's the first time Kate has wore her 'Ugg' boots since July (Kate: Ugg boots are lush!!)

Very arty shot of the roos.

One of the mums with joey in pouch.

The first morning, we were woken up very early by a bird singing the guitar riff from Lenny Kravitz 'Are you gonna go my way'. It was quite funny at first, but became quite tiresome after 3 hours of it!

We spent our first day taking it easy as I was feeling a bit ill and it was a Sunday so nothing was open anyway (Kate: I reckon he was ill because of that lanb chop that some weird Aussies gave him. It must've been a Homer Simpson moment: Weirdos offering me food..... Free food, woo hoo!!!.... D'oh, I feel ill).

Broome to Coral Bay

Broome

While in Broome we went to the Sun Pictures, another outdoor cinema but with a difference. An occasional plane flying over at close range. (Kate: I love these outdoor cinemas, watching a movie under the stars. We watched Hairspray, which is a fab feel good film and even Jamie liked it!). Anyway we did the manly thing and went to the pub and got talking to few people we met at the camp site. They were all watching the rugby against Australia. When we got in the pub, the game had just finished and there were a few miserable looking Aussies there crying into their beers.

On our last day, Kate had some quality beach time. I spent most of the time untangling the kite strings. then we went to watch the sunset at Gantheaume Point just north of town. (Kate: We sipped our red wine and clinked our glasses - cheap pink plastic ones - as the waves crashed onto the rocks below us and the red sun set over the Indian Ocean. V romantic). I think Kate wants to be a romantic novelist.

The next morning we headed west 600km to Port Hedland

Port Hedland

We stopped for a night at this industrial town. Theres nothing much to see except the 2km long trains. We had to wait for 2 of these to pass before we could get to our camp site. The price we paid for the camping was crap considering we had to camp on a tatty patch of ground next to the stinky bins. So all in all, Port Hedland, we loved it!!! From Port Crapland we headed south inland to another mining town called Tom Price.

Tom Price

On the way down to Tom, we drove through Karijini National Park and I went for a swim in Fortescue Falls.


A view near the falls.



Fortescue Falls.



Kate wondering what i'm doing at the top of the falls.

The next day we went for a tour to the local iron ore mine, complete with hard hats and really big tonka trucks, good stuff!


Kate dons the hard hat.


A big hole in the ground!


A big 'Tonka' truck.

Later on, we returned to Karijini NP and we went to the gorges area of the park. Firstly we went to Oxers Lookout which looks over where 4 gorges meet. These are Weano, Red, Joffre and Hancock gorges. We decided to go down Weano gorge as this was the easier of the gorges to get into. Kate waited for me as I went further in to the gorge, wading through pools and jumping between big boulders as the gorge got really narrow. I got as far as the Handrail Pool. To get any further, I would have had to swim across the pool and use ropes to abseil down the next section - proper canyonning stuff! We were advised not to go on the dirt road to the gorges and it was supposed to be quite bad, so I ignored that and drove down it and it was not worse that what we have driven on before.


A look into one of the gorges.


Inside Weano Gorge.


Further down Weano Gorge


As far as I could get at Handrail Pool.


One of the endless trains.


The dirt roads of Karijini.

Once we left Tom, we travelled another long tiring 600km west to Coral Bay on the west coast.

Coral Bay

As it was our 'unoffical' anniversary, we decided to splash out on a room at the Ningaloo Club, one of the hostels in town. It was very nice to have a break from camping and sleep in a bed with some give in it for the first time in 2 months!

On the first evening, we had a few drinks at the hostel bar and ended up joining in a game of giant jenga. Later we went on to another bar, then after it closed, one of the local Aussie guys invited a group of us down to the beach to drink more beer. We walked to a small cave and joined some people sat around a small campfire. There were 2 young guys playing guitars (one was only 14) and they sang loads of song we knew. We also ended up singing some oasis songs, maybe we had a little too much drink! No one joined in so it ended up being a duet. It was a great night. Its often the things that are not planned that end up being the best experiences.


The group in the second pub.

The next morning we went out on aglass bottom boat to see Ningaloo Reef. We also did some more snorkelling although the water seemed quite cold. Seeing all the fish was great but Kate was very wary of the rather large group af big fish swimming around the boat. She didn't want them to touch her. (Kate: Actually I thought I might get nibbled by the fish!!!)


Me snorkelling.


Kate snorkelling without the fish.



Here's the fish Kate didn't want to go near.

In the evening, we played some pool and chilled out in the bar. We met Australias sweetest boy. He was dancing to the music vidoes on the TV. When he had to go to bed, he hugged everyone in the bar and said goodnight. (Kate: V cute!)

In the morning we moved up the coast to explore more of Ningaloo Reef so we stayed at the larger town of Exmouth.