As we step into Perth airport, Aoife now has a full house
having visited all of the seven Australian states- names and main cities are
1.Victoria (Melbourne), 2.South Australia (Adelaide), 3.New South Wales
(Sydney) 4.Queensland (Brisbane) 5.Tasmania (Hobart) 6.Northern Territory
(Darwin), 7.ACT (Canberra). I’ll always have a gap in my CV having never visited
Canberra, most Australians have told me I’m not missing much, Aoife assures me
it’s a vital part of any trip to Australia and my time here has been wasted as
a result of not visiting it!
Pretty confident we’ve seen more of Australia then most of
the Australian population. Our knowledge of Australian tourism is in the top
percentile, something that we couldn’t say about our knowledge of Irish
tourism, it’s on our to do list to change that! Maybe in 2016!
Our plan is to rent a car and drive between Perth and Exmouth-
the cost to rent the car in Perth and return to Exmouth is $1,200, to rent the
car in Exmouth and return it to Perth is $300. Not a tough decision so hop onto
a flight to Exmouth and begin our drive back down to Perth. Seven days, 2,300
kilometres (equivalent of Malin to Mizen head four times!).
The west coast isn’t as famous as the East coast probably
due to its barren nature. Not a whole lot of towns or villages (zero cities!)
after Perth so lots of driving but what it lacks in people it makes up for in
scenery and wildlife. We’ve never seen anything like the roads- long, long,
long and straight. They literally go on for as far as you can see. They’re like
the Great Wall of China- you stop at the top of a hill and look and as far as
you can see the road stretches out over the horizon. Makes for a great view, not the most exciting
driving though! One morning all our GPS had to say to us was- “in 150km turn
right”, next instruction an hour and a bit later was “in 180km turn right”. Not
the most difficult instructions to follow!
One of the nice things of these drives is there is a lot of
wildlife around the roads- obviously very dangerous if they run on the road but
very pretty if they’re just chilling on the side of the road. Saw lots of
roadkill along the way, mostly poor unfortunate kangaroos. Had one (live)
kangaroo hop across the road on us and saw lizards, goats, sheep, horses, wallabies,
emus along the way. Had emus roaming around a few of the campsites too- all
this before we did any activities to see wildlife. The highlights of the trip
were definitely these organized activities- snorkeling in Coral Bay, we were in
the water with six large manta rays, amazing creatures, 3 metres wide weighing
almost a ton each. 
Later on that day we had a school of reef sharks swimming
around beneath where we were snorkeling along with a few turtles and lots of
other fish. Very cool. Our next stop in the wild west brought us to Monkey Mia
where each morning wild dolphins come in to be fed- went along to the feeding
twice, the second time Aoife got chosen to participate and feed the dolphins.
Not jealous at all. Went there years ago with Ferg and he got picked out,
clearly the dolphins do not like me!
Relatively incident free first week of travelling, peace and
quiet really as Vodafone reception does not exist on the west coast. Driving
and site seeing during the day, barbecue and beers at night. Tough life!
Only incident was where I locked the car keys in the boot of
the car. Thankfully our days touristing was already done and they had someone
out to us in a few hours to open her up. No damage done to me or my marriage-
all still good J! Second
last night in Australia, my wife was treated to an ensuite room, first time on
this trip. Quite the treat- it is our honeymoon after all!
Two nights in Perth (Fremantle to be exact) before we head off on next leg. We booked accommodation through AirBnB- never used it before. Basic concept is people rent their house/ apartment/ spare room/ shed to people. Very clever. Had the run of a lovely apartment in Fremantle to ourselves for the few days. Handy out!
We arrived in Australia in August 2010, now in November 2014
we’re leaving, Will we be back? Who knows, what we do know is that Sri Lanka is
next…………..
Our route: Fly
Melbourne to Perth, Perth to Exmouth, Drive Exmouth (Turquoise Bay, Charles
Knife Gorge, Cape Range National Park)- Coral Bay, Monkey Mia (Shire of Shark
Bay, Shell Beach, Stromolites Little Lagoon), Kalbarri (Kalbarri National Park), Geraldton, Pinnacles, Perth.
No comments:
Post a Comment