Kalbarri

We stopped on a nice camp site in Kalbarri for 2 nights whilst we waited for a new tyre to be delivered. We fed pelicans on the beach...

.....And went to visit Nature's Window in the Kalbarri National Park. It was too hot to do the bush walk, but the views across the gorge were fantastic.

 Pete wasn't too keen on the heights!

We trekked down to the river at the bottom which was beautiful and so peaceful, but the short trek back up in the midday sun nearly killed us!

No flies on us...

We finally found a way to fix our fly troubles. Headnets! No more flies in our mouths, nose, ears or eyes! $2 well spent, but we do look a bit stupid!

Car troubles...!

We did our first bush camping at Sandy Cape. It was down an unsealed bumpy road. Facilities included a chemical toilet and a tank of undrinkable water, and nothing else! It was great fun, really rural and back to basics nature. But we took a wrong turning and ended up on the 4WD track in soft sand!! The car made all the right noises, but all the wrong smells (burning rubber not good!). We worried that we might need to get pulled out, but managed to reverse out once Selina got out the car! We found out later that our English tent neighbour did his back in last week having done exactly the same thing and the ranger had to pull him out. Lucky escape!!

Today we saw the pink lake near Kalbarri. The lake is literally bright pink!! Think much brighter than the photo!

Then car problem strike two!

Ouch! But 15 mins later (or there abouts! ;-)

Now we are chilling in Kilbarri until new tyre is delivered on Wednesday.

Moonlight rocks

Our best day of Aussie tourism so far.... We started the day on a wildflower trail, seeing lots of such vibrantly coloured flowers on the roadside, our favourites being everlastings and kangaroo paw. 

We then drove on a 4wd unsealed road to a cave in the middle of nowhere - our first off road experience!

We then trekked round a great nature walk, culminating in some great views, closely followed by Pete falling on his backside, ouch! As we walked back to the car we spotted kangaroos jumping by us.

Then the piece de resistance, after setting up camp and having the local speciality of crayfish, we went on a night time drive to see the Pinnacles by moonlight. These are rock formations created by ancient trees that were buried and fossilised, reappearing thousands of years later in these eerie structures. It felt very other worldly as we saw them late at night, being the only people on the entire site. On the night time drive there and back we saw loads of kangaroos, they hopped out on the road in front of us and Pete had to brake hard once to avoid hitting one. It was really exciting, but also a bit scary! 

We returned to the Pinnacles the next day, to explore the site in the daytime and we saw an emu.

Happy campers!

We spent most of our time in Perth trying to buy/hire a campervan/4WD/station wagon. We finally settled on this snazzy Holden Cruze and pop up tent!

We spent our first night camped behind a petrol station on the freeway in New Norcia, a tiny old monastery town! Next morning, we drove to Moora and camped on a lovely site with a free washing machine and BBQ. We went to feed the Carnaby Cockatoos with Wally, a real Aussie character with plenty of tales to tell!

Swan valley

We arrived in Perth safely and spent a week with my family who I hadn't seen since I was last in Australia in 2000. It was really nice to see them all again, and introduce them to Peter. They looked after us well, fed us some fantastic home made food and took us to some of the sights near Perth. We went to Kings Park in Perth and admired the wildflowers, and we went to the swan valley and tasted wine, cheese and chocolate!

If you're crook, come to Cook!

Cook is the largest town on the Nullabor plain. It has 4 residents and is on the longest stretch of straight railway in the world, there isn't a bend for 478 km!

We took the Indian Pacific train from Sydney to Perth, the journey is over 4,000km and takes 3 nights. You get off the train a couple of times along the way, and there are announcements telling you about things you go past. 

We had a quick walk around Adelaide, tasted Haigh's chocolate and saw some of the sights.

We started our epic train journey in the red service, we bought food from a canteen and slept in a chair in a carriage with about 15 other people, it was like a cross between a train and a plane. 

It was ok, but in Adelaide we went mad and upgraded to a gold cabin........ a whole different experience. We had proper beds, pillows and duvet, an en suite toilet and shower, 3 course meals 3 times a day, ALL drinks are included, and even a guided tour around Kalgoorlie is included. Dad told us not to hold back and really enjoy ourselves, I'm not sure this is quite what he had in mind!!

At meal times, they sit us with other people on tables of four and everybody chats to each other. We are by far the youngest couple, everyone is Australian and wants to know all about us and what we're doing. The people are really nice but very Australian, Pete and I (but especially Pete!) have stared at them blankly as they've talked about chooks (chickens), witches hats (traffic cones) and glad wrap (tin foil)!!

Hyde park....but not as we know it!

We spent days walking around Sydney, exploring, taking photographs and enjoying the sunshine. Darling Harbour was very pretty as the sun set and the city lights came on and here's Pete in Hyde Park in Central Sydney.

We saw lots of tall ships coming into the harbour for the fleet review, unfortunately we missed the fireworks which were meant to be fantastic.

Us posing on the roof of the Museum of Contemporary Art in Sydney Harbour, it rained in the morning, so we did a guided tour of the gallery and learnt about Aboriginal history.

And we managed to squeeze in dim sum at Din Tai Fung for xiao long bao dumplings, a favourite from our holiday in Shanghai last year. Thanks Charlotte!

G'day mate!

We're in the home of Ramsey Street, 'Roos, Emus and ... err .... Fosters.

Absolutely loving Aus! We've spent the first few days here staying with family in Sydney. We've met a lot of really friendly and confident relatives on Darsh's side. They've been so welcoming and kind, we've had a great time.

It's the annual Naval Fleet celebration at the moment, so there are all sorts of festivities going on. We've seen lots of tall ships and warships coming into Sydney harbour and Prince Harry is visiting this weekend!

Each day we've been wandering round taking in the sights, the Opera House and the Bridge being the most striking.

We caught the ferry to Manly beach and had fish and chips by the sea, the views from the ferry across the harbour were fantastic. We also did a great 6km walk round the coast from the famous Bondi beach round to Coogee beach.

These little blighters are also popping up all over the place, it's called snailovation!