Day 117 – 5th March – Perth to Kalbarri
Today we began our tour. We had booked on an organised tour from Perth to Exmouth return and were looking forward to seeing more of the highlights of Western Australia. We got picked up early by Paul the tour guide and set off towards our 1st destination which was The Pinnacles. These were basically rock formations that were sticking out from the ground. There are a couple of explanations for their existence however there is no definitive proven argument. We walked around The Pinnacles as a group and were given various information about the wildlife in the area as well and shown different footprints belonging to different animals such as the kangaroo, emu and platypus. We were also lucky enough to see an emu in the wild on our walk. After spending a couple of hours here we got back on the bus and drove to Jurien Bay to have our lunch overlooking the sea. We then began a long stretch of driving up to Port Gregory to see the pink lake and then watch the sunset. It was getting dark so we couldn’t really see the pink colour in the lake very much but in the right light due to the minerals and bacteria in the lake it is a deep pink colour. The sunset was really spectacular and one of the locals came out to chat to us saying how they’d not seen a sunset like this one in the area for a long time. We chatted to him a bit more and he told us how he had been to Yorkshire before to Goathland to go to the Heartbeat set. He was a bit of a fan! After sunset we drove to our accommodation at Kalbarri. We helped cook tea and sat down as a group to eat. It was a nice evening chatting to people from the group. It was also nice to have a variety of different ages on the tour as we had been the oldest on the other tours we had done! After a couple of drinks we headed to bed as it was going to be an early start. Today we had driven 600km to get up to Kalbarri!

Day 118 – 6th March – Kalbarri – Monkey Mia
We were up at 5:15am this morning for our journey up to Monkey Mia. After having breakfast and making our packed lunch for the day we set off to Kalbarri National Park for a walk. We had to do the walk early due to the heat at this time of year. Much like Queensland, the best time of year to visit is our summer when it’s much cooler here and not as humid. We obviously didn’t realise this and are here in their summer which in the northern half of Australia is also cyclone season! We started the walk about 7:15 and walked down the Z-bend to the bottom of the gorge. Near to the bottom there was an option of an abseil and Dan did a 25m abseil down towards the bottom of the gorge. After the abseils had finished we carried onto the bottom of the gorge and sat and took in the views for a while. What goes down must come up and we began our climb back up to the start point! Thankfully it wasn’t too hot as it was quite cloudy and when we got to the top we took a short stroll to the lookout point. This had incredible views over the gorge and we could see all the way to the bottom and where we were previously sitting. We then drove to another part of the gorge and did a shorter walk to Nature’s Window which is a rock that has had the middle eroded and you can sit on it and see right through to the other side of the canyon. We took a few pictures here and then walked back up to the bus and set off to Billabong Road House where we had our lunch. About a half an hour drive away from the lunch stop was the Stromatolites there are only 5 spots in the world that you can see them, and they’re basically one of the first organisms on earth. i.e. the human race descend from them…….it obviously took quite a while  for evolution to do its job. 
After this we then drove onto Denham which was about an hour away to pick up some supplies and then drove to our accommodation in Shark Bay called Monkey Mia. This is famous for the dolphins that come to the shore. We went for a swim in the sea but didn’t see any dolphins. We had a bbq for tea as a group and Dan was in charge of one of the bbqs! After food we went down to the pier to see if we could see any marine life in the dark. We saw a few turtles swimming around in the sea which was cool. We were told the dolphins liked Dancing Queen by ABBA however I think our voices scared them off as we didn’t see any!

Day 119 – 7th March – Monkey Mia – Coral Bay
We were up early again today at 6am to watch the sunset over the beach. There were also quite a lot of pelicans on the beach who were asleep! We then had some breakfast before going to see the main attraction at Monkey Mia; the dolphins. They have had dolphins coming into the bay for the last 25 years or so and every morning they feed four female dolphins. They do this three times every morning and monitor and research the dolphins overtime. There were four dolphins and a couple of them had calves that had just been born and were between 6 weeks to 3 months old. They only feed the dolphins 10% of their daily allowance so they still need to hunt their own fish and show their young how to get food. We were told about the dolphins and then we were all invited down onto the beach and volunteers were picked to feed them. The dolphins are only fed two fish each feeding time. After the first feed we were asked to leave the beach while the dolphins took their young into the deeper waters to feed them and then when they returned it was time for the second feed. There were less people here for this one and again volunteers were picked to feed the dolphins in the sea. After the second feed we went to go make our packed lunch ready for later on and checked out of the resort. We then drove to Denham and had a walk around the town for about 30 minutes before going to Eagle Bay which is still in the bigger area of Shark Bay. Of the 28 different varieties of shark, 26 have been found in the Shark Bay area and we followed a board walk to get views of the bay below us. We saw a few sharks, turtles and stingrays in the water. The sharks weren’t very big, maybe about 1m long but still we were happy to be about 100m up on the boardwalk!
Our next stop was Shell Beach which is pretty much self explanatory! The entire beach is covered with shells and we all posed as a group for a photo of us jumping and throwing shells into the air. After this we stopped off at a service station and dropped off 7 members of our tour who were just doing the 4 day option. The remaining 12 of us set off to Coral Bay which was another 4 1/2 hour drive up the coast. We arrived at the hostel about 7:30pm and sat in the bar area of the hostel and had a burger for tea and a couple of drinks.

Day 120 – 8th March – Coral Bay – Exmouth
We were up and ready for 8am today for our trip on the Ningaloo Coast at Coral Bay. The Ningaloo Coast is a World Heritage Area and it stretches more than 300km along the coast. Within this 300km lies the Ningaloo Reef and this is where we were heading today. This reef is famous as it is the only place in Australia you can see whale sharks and humpback whales use this coast as a migratory route. Today however, we had booked onto a manta ray tour and were really looking forward to this as neither of us had seen them before. All of our tour group had opted to go on the trip and were taken down to the office at 8am to pick up our fins and the shuttle bus to the harbour. There were going to be 3 sections to the day and each of them focussed on different things. The first part was a group snorkel and we were lucky enough to snorkel with some turtles. Dan and I hadn’t had much luck spotting or snorkelling with turtles before so we we’re really happy we’d seen some so early on! As we sailed to our next spot, we went slowly through some shallow water and went turtle spotting from the boat. We saw quite a few and saw them coming up for air and sticking their heads above the water!
The second stop of the day was the snorkel with the manta rays. The spotter plane had a sighting of the rays and so we were put into three different groups and each took it in turns to swim with them. The first time our group got into the water the manta ray swum off and moved so quickly I didn’t really see it. Dan was closer to the front and managed to get a good look. Manta rays can travel up to 60km an hour so if they decide to go, you don’t have much chance at keeping up with them! The second snorkel was much better as the manta ray wasn’t really moving. We got a great view and saw how big they actually are! Their wingspan can be as long as 9m and although this wasn’t that big it was probably 5m wide. We spent a few minutes with the manta ray before getting back on the boat and swapping with another group. The third snorkel was similar to the second and the manta ray moved quite slowly through the water and we swam with it for a few minutes. We heard a shout from a crew member who was in the water. Dan thought he said ‘hammerhead’ and we were expecting to see a hammerhead shark coming towards us however the shout was in fact ‘loggerhead’ and a loggerhead turtle was swimming our way! It was absolutely huge! The head was ginormous and we were really lucky to see one as the member of crew we were with had been working on the boat for a few months and had never seen one. They are also endangered and so seeing them is very rare. The turtle saw us and swam unbelievably fast through our group trying to get away! It was incredible to see. We again swapped with another group and got back on the boat. We were only supposed to have three snorkels with the manta rays however one of the groups didn’t see the ray on their turn so each group was given a fourth go! Again we were very lucky as the manta ray was moving slowly and we could swim with the ray and dive down by the side as well. After our final snorkel with the manta ray we got back onto the boat and had lunch. We then set sail to our final part of the day and to some deeper water to see if we could find some sharks! This snorkel was similar to the morning snorkel in that we followed the guides around as they were better at spotting certain things. It didn’t take long until we saw some of the sharks near the bottom of the ocean. At one point we saw a group of 5 or 6 of them swimming together which was cool to see! The sharks were reef sharks and they were also bigger than I thought they would be. They were between 1.5-2m long and it was quite surreal to be snorkelling in the water and looking down on sharks in the water! We also saw plenty of different types of fish and at the end of the snorkel another turtle too. This was the last part of the day and after this snorkel we went back to the mainland and disembarked about 3pm. It was such a brilliant day and one we will never forget. The diverse amount of marine life we saw will make this reef very difficult to beat in future snorkelling trips! I have to admit that I think we both preferred the Ningaloo reef to the Great Barrier Reef, which is saying something! It is also the start of whale shark season here so that is something else you could do if you came snorkelling here.
After the snorkelling trip we set off in the bus for our most Northerly point of the tour and on to Exmouth. Exmouth is only about 150km north of Coral Bay so it was a relatively short drive compared to some of the distances driven over the past 3 days! We arrived in Exmouth at about 5:15pm and checked into our rooms and got showered. Dan and I then went to the bar and had a drink in the beer garden and tried to do some more planning for New Zealand. We had a nice Thai green curry for tea and then we had a few drinks with our tour guide Paul!

Day 121 – 9th March – Exmouth
We were up at 6:30am and after breakfast we went to pick up a hire snorkel and set off to Cape Range National Park which is still on the Ningaloo Coast. On route we stopped at the side of the road to look at a fossil in the rocks which was the equivalent of a dinosaur shark tooth and while we stopped we saw lots of kangaroos jumping across the road. We then went to the information centre and then onto Oyster Stacks for snorkelling. The reef here is off the shoreline and you can snorkel right from the beach. We put our snorkel and mask on and walked backwards into the water and went snorkelling. There were a lot of fish in the waters and it was good to be able to see the reef so close to the shore. After this we went to Sandy Bay for a bit of a chill. The beach was stunning and the water so clear, we spent about an hour or so here playing frisbee and catch with an AFL ball as a group. We then drove back to the hostel and had a late lunch.
In the evening we were driven up to an old lighthouse to watch the sunset over the water. After this we went back and had dinner, followed by a few games of cards as a group. We played a new game which involved cups and was pretty entertaining!

Day 122 – 10th March – Exmouth – Northampton
After a breakfast of pancakes made by our tour guide Paul, we made our packed lunch and then set off at about 7:45 for our journey back towards Perth. Today was going to be a lot of driving as we needed to cover approximately 800km! We stopped off at Carnarvon on the way which was at approximately 12:30 to go to a local ice cream producer. Unfortunately it was shut but we could still see all the fruit orchards and banana plantations! We then carried on driving for another 2 1/2 hours and had a late lunch back at the Billabong Road House that we stopped off at on the way up to Exmouth. We checked the temperature on the thermometer when we left and in the shade it read 44.7 degrees Celsius! We left the service station and drove to Northampton for our accommodation that evening on a farm stay. The farm produced food for animals and we had a look around at a couple of the animals they had there including a camel! We had dinner and then sat outside watching the stars for a few hours. Our tour guide, Paul, is very knowledgeable and he told us lots of information about the stars and wider space. A few of us stayed up for a while longer and watched the stars and how they moved over time. There was very little light pollution out on the farm and therefore the visibility was incredible.

Day 123 – 11th March – Northampton – Perth
We left the farm at 8:15am and set off for Perth as it was the last day of the tour today. We stopped off at a wildlife park on the way and saw some native birds, snakes, emus, an ostrich, a fresh water and a salt water crocodile and lots of kangaroos. We were all given food and we allowed to feed the kangaroos. After spending about an hour here we headed further south and stopped for lunch at Dynamite Bay. It is called that as dynamite was used to create the bay and give some protection to the boats from the wind. It was a small bay but again with really clear waters and white sand. After lunch we set off to Lancelin for our final activity on the trip; sandboarding! We walked up the sand dunes and sat on the sand board and went down the dune, it was good fun and we all went up a few times. Dan got adventurous and tried to go down head first and ended up with a mouth full of sand and then attempted to stand up but fell over pretty instantly! We also had a race against each other that I won, however Dan thinks I had a false start! After this we got back on the bus to head back to Perth. Over the course of the seven day tour we covered approximately 3500km (2233 miles) which sounds a lot but as Australia is such a huge country, there isn’t really another way of doing it except driving.  Luckily for us we had a driver so we could have a snooze!  We got dropped off at our hotel and said bye to the members of the tour that we wouldn’t see that evening for dinner and our tour guide Paul. Paul aka meatloaf was a fantastic guide and who made our tour such a memorable one for us both. His knowledge and passion for the West Coast was incredible.
That evening we met up the with the remainder of the tour group and went out for dinner and drinks for one final time. Our group consisted of us, one American, two Dutch and three Germans. Yet again we had been so lucky with the people on the tour and met some lovely people.

Day 124 – 12th March – Perth – Melbourne
We checked out of our hotel and went to meet four people from the tour for brunch. The Dutch girls didn’t come as they were doing a skydive over Rottnest Island! We said a final goodbye after brunch which was sad as we’d all got along so well on the tour and we’d met such nice people. We got a taxi to the airport ready for our flight to Melbourne. Our flight wasn’t until 5:15pm so we had a few hours to kill in the airport but luckily we could check in and go and sit in the departure area. We arrived into Melbourne at 11:30pm with the time difference and went straight to our hotel to check in and go to bed!