Day 14, 15 - Monkey Mia

Monkey Mia is on Shark Bay, the most Westerly part of Australia. It is a World Heritage Area mostly because of the amazing marine life with animals including dolphins, turtles, sharks, whales, dugong, clams, stingrays and manta rays. Also heaps of emus on land.

We hired a pedalo boat and went out on the bay. It was fun. We took a cruise on a big catamaran and saw lots of dolphins and turtles, but no dugong as it is the wrong time of the year. Everyone had a great time relaxing on the net on the boat (except Will who never sits still).

We got up early one morning to watch the dolphin feeding on the beach. People have been feeding dolphins at Monkey Mia since the 1960s when fishermen used to throw out the unwanted part of their catch. Now the feeding is done by the national park rangers. They only feed 5 female dolphins, and only give them a quarter of their daily diet to make sure that the dolphins still hunt in the wild. The crowd stood on the beach to wait for the dolphins to arrive. After about 20 minutes, one dolphin (Nicky) came into the shallow water with her 9 month old calf, ready to be fed. She was followed by two other dolphins - one was called Piccolo. Liv and Henry were picked out of the crowd to give Nicky a fish. Nicky snatched the fish out Liv and Henry's hands and ate it.

Will left some chips on the ground outside our caravan and we soon had a huge emu coming over to eat the left over chips. He was stalking around outside for ages and looked like he wanted some of Dad's risotto!

On the way out of Shark Bay, Dad took us to see the Stromatolites in Hamelin Pool. Stromatolites are made up of tiny organisms called Cyanobacteria and have been living for more than 3.5 billion years. They were the first living things to make oxygen. Shark Bay is one of the only places in the world where they still exist. They just looked like boring rocks.

Day 11-13 Kalbarri

We stayed at Kalbarri for 3 nights. There are a lot of attractions at Kalbarri, including horse riding, the National park (Murchison Gorge), Pelican feeding, canoeing, sandboarding and a jumping pillow at the caravan park. We couldn't do everything because we didn't have enough time!

Liv and Mum went horseriding along the river. Liv's horse was called Bonnie and Mum's horse was called Kicker. Mum did cantering through sand and around lots of corners and Liv went trotting through the water. Henry and Will went on a pony ride - Henry with Magnus and Will with Chloe.

On our last day we got up early to watch the Pelican feeding. We saw a man feeding the Pelicans - at first only two Pelicans were there but then a third one came along. They ate raw fish. Pelicans can fly up to two weeks non-stop with no food, and at speeds up to 100 miles per hour. They move around to different places throughout the year. Australian Pelicans are unique because they have yellow rings around their eyes and a yellow tip on their bills.

We also visited Murchison gorge. We went for a walk into the gorge. Despite all the rain we had in Kalbarri, the river was not running.

We had an awesome time in Kalbarri even though the Bombers lost to the Hawks!

Day 10 - The Pinnacles and Jurien Bay

Left Perth and headed north. We went to Nambung National Park to see the Pinnacles - strange limestone formations sticking out of the sand dunes. No one knows exactly how they formed, some people think that they are the fossilised remains of ancient trees. We saw a bob-tail skink and played hide and seek behind the rocks.

There were some huge sand dunes along the road. We stayed at Jurien Bay overnight.

Day 8, 9 - Perth

We drove to Perth from Kalgoorlie and stayed with the Thomases in Dalkeith. We went to King's park and we found a fountain that shot water up really high every few minutes. We all got very wet but Henry got the wettest. After we went to Cottesloe and had a race to the water to be the first to cross Australia - Liv won, Henry second, Dad third and Will brought up the rear.

At the Thomas's we played "capture the flag" with Nathan and Riley and their friends. Henry and Liv watched The Hobbit and Ferris Bueller's Day Off. Will watched Ice Age with Josh and played cars. It was lots of fun. In this photo, there was only Michelle and Josh as the others had gone to school and work.

Gary even came home from work early to say hello!

Day 6-7 Kalgoorlie

Today we went to the SUPERPIT, a huge open cut gold mine in Kalgoorlie. It is over 500m deep. We saw big trucks driving up and down the pit. They were taking waste out of the pit and dumping it in the waste area. We saw a car which was squashed by one of the trucks - it was flat as a pizza!

Afterwards, we went to the Boulder markets and we bought some pretty rocks. Liv and Henry bought amethyst (purple quartz) and Will bought a blue stone. We also saw some gold that had been taken out of the pit. Dad had some soup and we watched the band play. We also bumped into Kevin and Caroline, friends of Grandma and Pa.

Tomorrow we're off to Perth!

Day 5 - Balladonia (retrospective)

Big day of driving today - 720km, so not much to tell except we saw a lot of the Nullarbor. Instead, the kids want to share a few photos and highlights from the first few days.

Will: Dad and I put out all the wee. It was disgusting. I got 6 Dad points.

Liv, Henry, Will: We all had bunk fun in Liv's bunk watching the Lorax movie. It was very squishy.

Liv: This is the Nullarbor as you can see. There was a dead straight road for miles and no trees. We also saw huge cliffs and ocean and whales.

Henry: I picked up lots of heavy rocks at the roadhouse and smashed them on one rock. I used my bowling skills to throw and split open a limestone rock so that we could see the core. 

Day 4 - Nullarbor Plain

Left Ceduna early for Nullarbor into gale force headwinds. Guzzling fuel at 28L/100km! After setting up camp at Nullarbor roadhouse, went to Head of Bight to see some whales. Southern Right Whales come here in winter to breed and tend to their calves. Kids were excited to see the whales breaching off shore and we even saw a mother and calf no more than 50 metres away. Weather was pretty inhospitable and we all got thoroughly drenched.

On return to the van, Henry and Dad set off into the distance to play Dingo's Den, a tough par 5 into the breeze and part of the Nullarbor Links golf course which stretches from Ceduna to Kalgoorlie. Fairways not quite up to Dad's exacting standards!

Day 1-3

Arrived today at Ceduna. Amazed at all the wheat fields on the way in. First night was at the Barossa Valley and second at Kimba the highlight of which is the Giant Galah (which wasn't much of a highlight!). More of a highlight was the kids excitement of using the dump point for the first time. Convinced by 'Dad points' which could be used to buy lollies both Olivia and Will were determined to assist Darren.

Kids have loved the caravan so far! They have a 'movie room' on level 2 of bunks and top bunk is a 'play room' and bottom bunk has no real use at moment given how tricky it is to get in and out of. Will insisted on book being read last night and there was a chance Mum would never make it out of bottom bunk again. Photo is of Will and Henry having 'bunk fun'.