Thursday...the great road trip begins!

Today was the start of our 4 day tour to Monkey Mia, and to ensure we were at the pick up point on time we were required to be-grudgingly put the alarm on for 5:30am.  Obviously at that time of the morning we were not looking very pretty, or acting very coordinated, but as all we had to do was get from A to B and then hop on a bus we were okay!

At 7am we were picked up by our guide Mark, a good humoured 40-something Aussie gent who quickly had us on the road heading north out of Perth.  Our group for the 4 days comprised of a mixture of different nationalities; 3 Brits, 4 Japanese, 2 Dutch, 2 Germans and 2 Koreans. 

The drive north had us out of the Perth suburbs within 20 minutes and we were all of a sudden surrounded by rolling hills, farms and vineyards.  After 2 hours we stopped at our first petrol station, Regan's Ford Windmill Roadhouse was everything we thought an outback rest stop would be - complete with Emu's in the yard outside.  Re-fuelled and refreshed we were back on the road again, this time heading further into the Aussie outback; out of the window the red sand and low scrub went as far as the eye could see, the isolation became more and more evident.

Our next stop was a highlight, the Nambung National Park was home to the Pinnacles Dessert, where thousands of limestone stone pillars were scattered across a moon like landscape across a golden dessert floor.  The pillars had originated from seashells compacted and eroded over millions of years, what was left were meter high pillars.  Lucky for us we were allowed to wander around them.  What had become apparent with travelling north was the intense heat, phew!

Back on the road we had another 2 hours driving until we got to our lunch stop at Sandy Point, near Jurien Bay.  An isolated campsite next to the Indian Ocean were we all chipped in to help make salad and sandwiches.  We were supposed to also be sandboarding whilst here as the tall white dunes were ideal for this sport, but unfortunately the boards had accidentally not been put in.

Instead we drove 2 more hours to Greenough Wildlife Park (they are on facebook for anyone interested in finding out more).  A private run small park run by 2 sisters who took in injured wild animals and nutured them back to health; we were like big kids and had great fun feeding a variety of animals including camel, horse, donkey, llama, kangaroo and goat.  They also had a great selection of Aussie birdlife including gallahs and kookaburra.  The highlight for Nicola was definetely holding a baby Kangaroo called Janis Joplin!

The next couple of hours drive took us further up the coast through small mining and fishing towns, all very beautiful and picturesque, but very remote from the big City of Perth.  One town allowed us a quick rest stop to pick up some beer from the local store, before another drive up to our stop for the night Kalbarri.  There we were staying at the local YHA; where on arrival we all chipped in again and prepared our meal for the night - Chicken stir fry.  All in all a lovely night eating and drinking and getting to know the rest of the group.