Day 76 Cervnantes/Pinnacles

For those that have been following the blog... this is now the picture of Toby 2 at the Pinnacles.

We had been before, but A & A had not, so we took them on a guided tour.
Stephen did a little revisiting to his personal pinnacle..then got us two in on the act.
You really cannot appreciate the vastness of this area unless you go and look.
Stark beauty at it's best.
Stephen has named these pinnacles as "Lovers through eternity". He can be quite romantic, sometimes!!

We are now going to be in  Perth for a couple of weeks. We will continue to do the blog but only to keep things going, then will continue on our travels leaving around the 1st October. Until then, see you!

Day 75 Sandy Point

We spent our penultimate day with A & A, when we met up again at Sandy Point Recreation Reserve. Lovely spot, where we sat and discussed our last two month adventure. We all agreed that as traveling companions it had worked really well, with each of us having time out to do our own things. The boys had not even had their customary argument!! We know we have one more day together in Cervantes but could not resist the temptation to do another sunset shot of the four of us, as we had done on the first night in Kununurra. (Not the best shot as the camera did this one on it's own.) 


Just to prove who the computer geeks are in this outfit!! You show me yours I'll show you mine!!!!!!!!!

Day 75 Western Flora

With the Wild Flowers giving us such a lovely show on the way down, Stephen and I, on the recommendation of Deborah & Anthony, spent a night at Western Flora Caravan Park.

To say that the owner Allan Tinker is passionate about this wonderful country of ours would be an understatement.

The caravan park is rustic, but beautiful and each day at 4.30 you get a guided tour of the flowers that are around at the time. Then at the end you are shown some of these minute flowers and what is on/in them, through a microscope projected onto a screen. Stephen is never going to sniff Geralton Wax again!!!

In the morning before we pushed on we walked the trail down to the Arrowsmith River and enjoyed the plants and birds as we went. We both feel that we learnt so much that we now have a different perspective of wild flowers, they are not just everlastings!

Day 74 Geralton

It is a long drive from Denham to Geralton, but again it was on our list of must do's this trip. By the pictures you can see that we are at the HMAS Sydney Memorial. After all the news of late it was very timely to come to one of the most poignant memorials that any of us had seen. Especially the famous wife looking out to sea, awaiting the return of loved one's that never came back! If you look at the dome behind her, it is made of stainless steel seagulls, one for each of the missing sailors.

Day 73 Denham

While in Denham we chanced upon this quaint restaurant, it is completely made out of shell bricks.... it also boasts itself as being the western most restaurant in Australia.. anyway we thought it cute and decided to investigate these shell bricks.
Which brought us to Hamlin Pool, home of the Stromatolites and also a shell brick quarry. These shell beds have compacted and glued themselves together over the years and then where just cut out for building material. The restaurant was built in 1974, so not that long ago really.
Continuing on our walk and we came to the Stromatolites, this video shows the "stumpy" narrating the types and ages etc of these incredible stromatolites. It's hard to believe that without this life form we would most likely not exist. Also, note on one of the slides the wagon wheel marks in the stromatolites from over a hundreds years ago...fascinating. And to think that you could still walk on them when Stephen came here 16 years ago!!

Day 73 Monkey Mia

I know this is the tourist stuff but it was one of the things that I had always wanted to do.. so Stephen took me off to Denham were we spent the night, then early in the morning we went to Monkey Mia. We had heard that Nicki ( an old hand from way back) had had a baby and was bring it in to the feeding area... 2 weeks old!. Yes I was excited and as you can see in the next photo not disappointed in that the baby was there for us all to see.
Normally, you are allowed to stand i  the water and then are called up to feed if you are lucky, but because of the baby, they insisted that no one entered the water apart from those lucky few. We did not get that lucky!

Just behind us was this early morning calm, and when we investigated further the back sand bar was covered with this...
a sand bar of cormorants.

Day 66-72 Heading South

We were now on a schedule to get back to Perth for the arrival of my brother from the U.K. We left Exmouth and travelled down to Coral Bay. Having missed out on a fishing trip in Broome due to the weather conditions, Alys was keen to try again here, but yet again the weather caused us grief with 3 meter swells. This photo is of the fish feeding off the beach which is as close as we could get.
Stephen and I left Alan and Alys at Coral Bay and travelled down to get to Denham. On the way the Talking Tart showed us on the Tropic of Capricorn....then there is the grafffetted sign...

Day 65 Cape Range Turtle Aw-Gee

While at the Visitors Centre we were informed about a Turtle Nesting Area that most people do not get to. We rekkied the area the night before and found nothing, so decided that we would all get up at first light and take a look. We were sadly disappointed at first, as there was no evidence of turtles coming up the beach to nest..then we saw them. only one or two at first, just in the shallows. So we followed with cameras in hand and were shown a display of mating that most wild life photographers would die for.
She was obviously an older lady, and the pheramones (not sure of spelling) were abundant as she had a total of 6 suiters. She entertained one gentleman whilst the other 5 swam around going aw-gee.....!! 
She was beached a couple of times, and then finally the males left and she rested on the shore line before going back for another serve.
Now I have seen pictures of dolphins in waves but I have never seen anything like this. Bear in mind this was all going on within feet of us.
Now is that coital bliss.... or exhaustion! 

Day 63-64 Yardie Homestead/ Cape Range

Stephen has yet again managed to do wanders with his camera. This postcard perfect shot should be enlarged to get the best effect. (Double click and it will do this). This shot is of an area just beside the Visitors centre at the Cape Range National Park. It has the same feeling as that of the day...just walk right in.
Yardie Gorge, on Yardie Creek, was the only gorge that we have seen that was absolutely teeming with fish... Alys wanted to get the rod out there and then. We all admitted that we are all Gorged out, so I think that's the last one for a while.
South Mandu Beach was where we went for our second snorkeling experience. The first was at Turquoise Bay, yesterday, and Stephen and I saw a Black Tipped Reef Shark (all I heard was the "Oh Sh t", through the snorkel). It was about 4 ft long and cruised passed about 6 ft away. The colours and varieties of the fish were staggering. Here at South Mandu Beach we saw dead coral, before getting out to the serious stuff, only meters off the beach. The tide was out so we swam up and out to the live reef and then just drifted down with the current. If you put your hand down you would have touched the reef and the fish. Sensational!!!!!!!

The lone fisherman, turns out to be a German pastry chef, named Riener, who was delighted to be offered copies of the said photos.

Day 62-63 Exmouth

Here we are the great fishermen, after Alison had a crash on the rocks & bruised various parts! Alys led the charge with a throw back.
I decided to use my limited skills & use the camera, so Alison took over with my rod & caught this :-
Who's ever caught an octopus on a rod before?
I just sat & watched & took these beautiful sunset pictures "with the odd person" to add interest.
Alan doing the final clean-up, there were some other fantastic pics but we can't fit them all.

Day 60-61 Millstream to Port Samson/Cossack

When we left Millstream we went across the top to Mt Herbert, along the way, we saw a picture for one or both of my parents to paint. The panoramic views from this area was something that we did not truly appreciate until we saw this shot with the Sturt Desert Pea in the for ground.
The next stop and short walk was the cool spot of Python Pool.... the only weird thing was that there was hardly any birds at this spot... quite eerie.
We moved to Port Samson, which apart from the first viewing of the whales breeching did very little for me... but we did go to Cossack, and I must say the old cemetery bug hit! This is the grave of William Shakespeare Hall one of the original pioneers of the area. It is always fascinating to me when I can read the local history in some of these fantastic buildings and then find the actual grave of the person I have been reading about... I know you all think I am odd, but hey, each to their own.
This is were Stephen got me were he always dreamed... in Gaol.... this is the local prison in Cossack...now used along with the local post office as an art gallery.
These are the remaining buildings of what was a thriving town of the area, and this is only one of the towns that are now small pockets of properties all over this vast area of this country. Most of the original town was built in timber and the 1898 cyclone destroyed most of the town, stunning!