The last few weeks have been a roller coaster of highs and lowsyet again, and I apologise for not writing earlier but its hard to write an interesting and witty blog when you are feeling down. Weve had a run of good days so Im in a better mood for writingso here goes.
The last time I blogged we had finally encountered some sunshine at Kalbarri. We took this opportunity to visit Natures Window, Skywalk and trail at Kalbarri National Park. Really wonderful part of the world. We had to share our sunrise at Natures Window with a camera and production crew of 3 who were making this tiny slip of a girl hang off the edge of sheer cliffs while making for Japan Airlines. I was seriously worried for her safety. It was a really long way down and cold at 7am in the middle of winter in the outback. She had a slip of a summer dress on. Very floaty in the breeze but she must have been freezing her bits offNoel and I had jackets and jumpers on!! Back in Kalbarri Noel had a
go at stand up paddle boarding and, of course, he mastered it after only a couple of falls. The first one in two inches of water while first standing on the board and then one other time in water deep enough for him to lose his sunglasses. He then paddled around for over half an hour before getting bored and decided in, where he promptly fell off the board again in the same two inches of water. Now THAT was funny. We followed that up with a snorkelling session at Blue Holes which is a little reef/rock pools right on the beach. Lots of fish here and we were very excited to finally be snorkelling.
Next stop was Monkey Mia. The litter on the highway between the road, from Kalbarri north to Monkey Mia, was really bad. The first sign of litter on our whole trip. It was like a recycling truck decided to explode and drop its load along a 100 km stretch of highway. It was so disappointing, because everywhere else has been pristine. On the way we stopped for a viewing of the Stromatolites at Hamelin Pool. Take my word for it.dont even bother.
The only thing at Monkey Mia is a huge resort/caravan park. It was really wonderful here with water sports, pools (too cold to swim), restaurant and a couple bars plus great camping kitchen and bathrooms. Noel managed to accidentally capture an engagement between two of the dolphin experience workers on video. I did my usual of staying in bed as long as possible so I missed the early dolphin experience, so we went back for a later session (3 per day) and Noel congratulated the couple and gave them a copy of the engagement. We met up with them at sunset drinks and chatted for a couple of hours. They are a lovely couple from Perth and had volunteered at Monkey Mia for 10 days as dolphin helpers. I didnt even know that this was possible. We tried kayaking but unfortunately, big boobs squashed into a life jacket, is not a so I called time on that activity after an hour. We rented snorkelling stuff too but I wasnt going to use mine after the dolphin experience guide told everyone about how many dolphins get injured or killed from the local tiger sharks. No WAY Im getting in
that water! Noel had a quick snorkel and said there was nothing to see. Yeah like all the dolphins and SHARKS have already eaten everything mate!!! Shell beach on the way out of Monkey Mia was a quick stop. Super lovely, but again, too cold for a swim.
Carnarvon was our next port of call. This is another dont bother place in my book. The only good thing in Carnarvon is the bathrooms in the caravan park and the spaghetti marinara I made for dinner. I tell a liethere is also a big satellite dish and museum outside of Carnarvon that has heaps of info about all things space related. Apart from a myriad of uses with lots of space flights/satellite launches and landings etc the dish was instrumental in getting Apollo 13 back to Earth after one of its oxygen tanks blew and disabled the craft when it was on the way to the moon.
