Strike the pose....poor Richard got in the middle.....
Charles Knife Road....can you believe that this was a oil drill...
...almost the highest point and they drill for Oil!!!!!!

On the night before we were meant to leave Sandra had organised a bring a pot night...fabulous menu, with curries, camp kitchen pie, damper and much more. From Left to Right, Richard, Robert (Camp Host) Barbara, John, Peta, Sandra, me and Stephen is taking the picture. Great night and we then decided to stay a few more days!
Some general shots of the coral rock....
......shells.....
....crabs.....
and scenery!

We had passed the end of the road our to the Mildura wreck on quite a few occasions but never had had the time to stop and investigate...so on one of our shopping runs into Exmouth we stopped off for a look!
It was a dull old day and it made the look of the wreck look cold and unfeeling. To think that they were stranded on the reef so close to the shore....no loss of life but the Bullocks were all lost....so much for not watching what you are doing or trying to take short cuts..
You can just see where the reef is with the wave line in this picture.

The Lighthouse that covers this tip of coastline is in the process of being renovated. This is a good spot to watch the whales further out to sea. We had seen quite a few from our base but of course they were always on the outside of the reef, so not easy to pick out.

Fishing became a favourite past time , especially for Richard and Stephen...having said that they did manage to keep us in fish nearly every other day. This days catch for Richard was a Toad Fish .....ugh!!!
Another couple that were with us were John and Peta...dusk fishing was the norm with the tides that we had, and this was no exception. Nothing that night!
But the sunsets sometimes made up for the lack of fish.
Did we have a good time or what!!!!!!!

At the end of the first week we had a down pour which resulted in this puddle. We actually went from brown and dull vegetation to sage and green surrounds.
Then Stephen spotted this Wedge Tail Eagle who took off.....
Found his mate.........
Said Good Day.......
And had a play.......thank you very much and flew away!!!!

While in the National Park we did a cruise up Yardie Creek. ( You will have seen the picture of the Black Footed Rock Wallaby in a previous blog, well that was on this cruise.) It was a short but very interesting trip....these Red Mangroves with their red roots dropping into the water, we had seen before but had not appreciated their root system in comparison with the White Mangrove.
More spectacular rock formation.
You got to see it to believe some of these!!!!!!

We experienced many of natures creatures. And we have pictures to prove it...having said that we did not see the Turtles again and the underwater photos are yet to be developed...so you will have to put up with......Emus by the only water supply in the Cape Range National Park...some caring person had left a blue bowl so water could be given to the Emus. Mind you if you did not give them water they would harass you while you were trying to get water.
The drought had been hard and our foot washing bucket become a draw card for the locals...this is literally right outside our Turtle's door.
The lofty, superior, Australian Bustard...this stately creature has been seen before but not here. There were a few locals that we saw on a few occasions...nice to see that they are still around.
Black Footed Rock Wallaby, this small, slight , agile Wallaby was seen while we were at Yardie Creek (see later Blog)....so cute and we even saw one with a joey in the pouch.
This Heron was just about to take off...but I like this photo for the colours and contrasts...but that's just me...

With Richard and Sandra we had decided to do some so called free camping in the Cape Range National Park (or Ningaloo Reef). The deal here is that there are limited spaces to get and so each morning you line up for the ranger at 8.00 am. Needless to say that if you turn up at 8 am you are way to late. So Richard and Stephen left us girls and rocked up at 4.45 am and they were still not the first in line. Having said that we managed to get, on the first attempt, 2 caravan sites on the same camp site...so the dash was on to get us to the site...we made it with minutes to spare to Kurrawong Camp.
The following mornings dawn was special....but we had much more to come in the coming two weeks!
Check this out, dawn on Cape Range National Park with Toby and Turtle...pretty special!

We rolled into Exmouth and on our last visit we had seen the turn off to Shothole Canyon. We had always wanted to do this side road and got the chance on the second day that we were in Exmouth.
Well what a little gem...so often over looked and with little to no information on this canyon, we were very pleasantly impressed. Karen from the caravan park had said it was a hidden local jewel and I whole heartedly agree. Considering the surrounding area were were all staggered as to the beauty of this area...watch this spot there was more to come..... and as for the prawns that we collected on the way back to town from Kailis......scummy.
Flat coastal plains and then this just 13 k's in land ......amazing!!!!

Stephen got up before dawn to take these pictures...he went up to the highest point above Kalbarri..Meanarra Hill. He went up the hill and found 2 Germans who had slept on the Hill..(against the rules) Stephen thought by the speed that they got up that they thought that he was a ranger coming to tell them off!
Kalbarri at dawn with the moon still above.
Toby looking down the Hill. I was sensible and stayed in bed...we then moved on to Northern pastures.

While in Kalbarri, Sandra, Stephen and I, went on a River Cruise up the Murchison River. It had not been a particularly pleasant day, but by mid afternoon it had fined up. The resulting photo's were quite spectacular.
These are fishermen, fishing off Chinaman's Point.
The Estuary channel has to one of the more exciting that we have seen. Stephen managed to get this fantastic photo of the channel marker, the boiling sea and the sun setting.
We also found this little flock of Pelicans sitting on the sandbank. Quite took me back to the flight over Lake Eyre....

The Rainbow Bird Sanctuary was another revisit....and very good to! It also gave me another opportunity to talk to a Beautiful at close quarters....we had quite a chat as you can see from the photo.
Stephen took Sandra and Richard out to the Natures Window which was as impressive as ever.
This rugged Country never ceases to amaze me...and we were having such a good time with our New Best Friends who are now our Old, New Best Friends....if you see what I mean.......
We also went to the rugged coastline of the area, which we all comment on it as being very similar to the coastline coming across the Nullabor.

Next stop, Geraldton were Stephen and I stopped off at the church that Alan & Alys had visited nearly 2 years ago. Was not as impressive as I had imagined...but quite Moorish in its appearance.
We also revisited the Sydney Memorial...still as moving as ever...we had the rain coming in so we had the place to ourselves...so Stephen actually got the photo's that he wanted before.
Not a soul in sight!!!!
While here we realised that our batteries in the van had eventually given up the ghost...after just two nights at Sandy Point with no power we were almost in the dark..so with buying new batteries and a couple of other repairs we set off again..in fact we were going to stop nearby but decided that we would push on to Kalbarri and spend more time there.