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This second entry has the potential to be very lengthy; I have had the most amazing time travelling up the northwest coast! I'll try and keep it brief to avoid boring you all though!!
Thank you to all who sent me birthday messages etc. I had a lovely day on the beach (see photo) swimming, sun bathing, then swimming again, oh and a bit of shopping...it's a hard life.
I'm not sure whether it's because I've got more confident in meeting people, or the coastline travelling up north is just more dramatic and the people I've met along the way have been so friendly, but I have definately enjoyed this even more than the last tour.
Highlights of the trip will be hiring a car with Raphaele and Eugenie (girls I met in Kalbarri) and exploring the Kalbarri National park with some stunning scenery and walks....very very hot though. However not as hot as the following day on the bus - on stopping off at a petrol station (inland a bit and away from the coast) the thermometer outside the shop was registering 44° in the shade!!! It's strange how your body grows accustomed to the heat though. When setting the air conditioning for one of the rooms I stayed in, I had it at 27°, which would have been a warm summers day in the UK, but was crispy cool for me to come in to...bizarre!
The stromatalites at Hamelin's pool...I feel I should take a few moments to explain, particularly for Graeme's sake!!! There are only 2 places in the world where these particular rocks can be seen, in WA and the Bahamas. The rocks are living and produce oxygen. When the world was created it was these rocks that increased the levels of oxygen by something like 20%, contributing to making the air sustainable for animal and plant life, including humans. These particular ones are only about 3000 years old, but are an example of the rocks on the planet when it was first created. They helped to make our air breathable, and therefore are an essential part of our evolution! Hope that helps!
I hired another car when up at Exmouth, the furthest north I went. This time with Arshad, a friend I had met a few days earlier. In fact he had just been in a serious accident where the 4x4 he was in fishtailed off the road and rolled 3 times. He and the other 2 were all fine, escaping with just a few bruises and stiff neck between them. We went to see the car the next day though, and it's a complete write off, they were all very lucky. So understandably he was a little nervous when we first got in, I tried not to do any boy racer impressions!! We only had a little Getz so we were never going to go far. However we did end up in muddy puddles that were deceptively deep and really required a 4x4, a few heart stopping moments later we decided we should try a different road...one with tarmac.
We saw a huge amount of wildlife this day. At one point Arshad came hot footing it back over some rocks claiming, in all seriouslness, there was a MASSIVE spider in one of the rocks. When exploring it myself I had to explain to him it was in fact a crab, not a spider!!!
This was one of the best days I've had so far in Australia, we just spent most of the day either laughing, or being terrified, or dumb struck in awe, quite literally when a huge bird stepped into the road infront of me, causing me to slow right down. We thought it was a small emu of some kind, till it spread its wings and took off, wings that probably exceeded my height in length....definately not an emu, still not worked out what it was. We sat with our mouths wide open for a good few seconds after that. Till Arshad pointed out with deep insight...It can fly!!! Very observant bloke.
Back in sunny Perth and I've been sorting things for New Zealand, meeting up with some friends I met on my travels, and out on the town. I cannot believe my time in Oz is over. It's been awesome, now onto the next adventure, woohoo New Zealand, bring it on!
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