Up the coast to Exmouth

We left Perth and started to head north up the coast. Our first stop was in Cervantes where we went see the pinnacles at sunset. They are limestone columns that stick up out of the sand. They look like odd shaped gravestones. Our next stop was at Geraldton but we didn’t do a lot as Graham spent most of the time putting a new distributor on the van but we did manage to get to the HMAS Sydney memorial. It is a dome covered in 645 silver seagulls to commemorate the sailors who were lost when the Sydney sank after an encounter with the German raider HSK Kormoran. We popped into Northampton and then on to the Hutt River Province where we officially left Australia. Leonard Casley seceded his property from Australia on 21.4.1970 and formed his own sovereign state. We were lucky enough that the man himself gave us a guided tour and stamped our passports in and out. I’m not sure how we stand now as our visa does not allow us to re-enter Australia if we leave. We could be illegal immigrants!

Our next stop was at Kilbarri which is a beautiful small town with a wonderful beach ideal for children as it is very shallow. The place was full of kids as well as it was the middle weekend of the school holidays. We even met the barmaid from the football club in Cervantes there up with her grand children of a few days. We went walking in the gorges and while we were sitting in the car a bloody big snake came slithering past. It turned out that it was a brown snake which are highly venomous but that didn’t stop Graham getting a picture. On then to Shark Bay where we met the dolphins at Monkey Mia.

We then stopped off in Carnarvon for a couple of days to get the aircon gassed up as it is now beginning to get hot. It seems odd that just over a week ago in Perth it was cold and raining. While Ugly (that’s what we’ve called the van due to it’s rego being UGL 054) was being fixed I sat on our campsite with the table and chairs playing with the laptop. I got several bright spark Aussies come out with comments like ‘someone nick your house?’ ‘Should have paid the rent’ and ‘I’ve seen people travel light but that’s taking it too far’. We then went on a plantation tour seeing how they grew bananas, mangos, melons and grapes. Graham finally got a few tips on how to prune the vine. They also make sauces, chutneys, jams and the best mango ice cream in Australia.

Then it was on to Exmouth and the Ningaloo Reef. We bought ourselves masks, snorkels and fins to go snorkelling on the reef. The reef can be accessed from the beach so it makes it very popular. We went to Turquoise Bay but I bottled out and Graham went in on his own. Apparently it was fantastic.