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Day 6, Rockingham to Margaret River 250km
First thing in the morning we head to Penguin Island, which was cheaper than Rottnest by far and loads better, infact simply stunning. There was a crazy amount of birds being a conservation area, little retiles, the clearest torquoise water and little baby rescued penguins being fed fishies. Did you know ??....The deepest a baby penguin has dived is 67m (that's twice the limit for me to scuba dive!), they can eat their body weight in fish (I can eat my body weight in most things!) and they sleep bobbing about on the water for 20 mins at a time (something I haven't yet mastered!). They were so cute! Then we take a short cruise to Seal Island and guess what we see there! Seal's of course and pelicans, I wasn't really expecting to see any in the wild but as we turn the corner there are loads!! Lots of happy snapping with the old camera and we are back on penguin Island enjoying a packed lunch of you've guessed it ham and chesse sandwiches. On arrival in Margaret river some hours later we try out the pool and meet Nick from New York state who invites us round with our cards later, some of the cabin inhabitants are more pleased to see us than others (we think Laura one of the Irish girls has a soft spot for Nick) so an interesting evening of civilised card playing follows with a group of irish girls and boys and Nick.
Day 7, Margaret River 0km (only some wine induced staggering)
Wine tasting fun bus style, 6 of us and driver head out to visit 4 vineyards, a chesse factory and a chocolate factory in 4 hours. A shed load of wine later with our taste buds well and truely overworked, i have picked my favourtie 2006 Pierro Pinot Noir and for those wine lovers reading this Pierro vineyard was by far the best and I enjoyed every wine sampled here and they have a UK supplier: MWH Wine Merchants based in London. Sorry Mum and Dad I did ask but they wouldn't ship home from here! I have just counted the amount of wines we tasted that day and it was infact 39, so of course what did we do next a refreshing dip in the pool and then a trip to the pub with the 2 chefs we had met that day for a spot of beer and pool! They then decided that they were going to cook dinner for us, so we enjoyed a feast of Roast Lamb, Roast potatoes with rosemary and garlic, roasted veg and copious amounts of there earlier purchased finest vino. Hours later I decide to be acrobatic and head for another dip in the now closed swimming pool (so I have to climb the fence), it was freezing so I head to bed.
Day 8, Margaret River to Walpole, 181km
Arrggghh, my head hurt! Wished we hadn't over enthusiastically drained margaret river of wine yesterday or booked a 10.30am surf lesson!!! Both very stupid..Make or break time as we headed into the water, luckily we were both ok and the water almost instantly cured us and the smiles were back on our faces. I had a lesson booked, the waves were huge but I mastered the art of standing up, Linds still makes me look rubbish though, more lessons required, so it's a good job I love it! 2 Hours later and thoroughly surfed out we head for Walpole, the terrain down south now has really changed lots of tree lined roads and green grass, but still lots of nothingness. Northcliff (a place we were going to take a short break at) was truley bizarre, we think it looked like the world had ended, nothing was open, there was deserted cars at the petrol station and an earie buzzing noise, we moved on at speed! Coal mine campsite was very similiar to the tricky bit (a campsite we stayed at when I was little with very clever squirrels!) and we enjoyed yet another BBQ of Roo, firmly sticking to the soft drinks and a very early night.
Day 9, Walpole to Albany, 181km (yes strangley exactly the same as yesterday!)
First stop a visit to valley of the giant trees and they are huge some 18m wide and 60m tall, others with hollowed out trunks big enough to have a party in, well big enough for me and Linds to stand in atleast. We complete the suspended walkway through the tingle trees which was 40m high in some points and designed to sway in the breeze, which it did! Attempted to take photo's that showed our height off the ground or the size of the trees and failed miserably so you will just have to take my word for it! We were then recommended to go and see Shelly beach on our way to Albany that afternoon which we did, Carlos was not at all impressed as the road down was a stupidly bumpy dirt track, Linds spent most of the journey holding down the dashboard and the pots and pans in the back were being very noisey!! The beach was definately worth it though we were among just a handful enjoying it. Then we had a momentary disaster, losing the Carlos keys!! bit it's ok they turned out to be just sunbathing on the beach, phew!
Day 10, Albany 0km
First choice for today was diving and what a shame we can't as the sea here is so clear and we even phoned ahead but it's their day off today! So Third choice after horse riding, who are also having a day off is canoeing. The caneoing was interesting the boat not particulalry boyant and we had to stay very still. The guy that we hired them from told us the downward journey would be against the current and into the wind, lucky we realise he had it the wrong way round and floated most of the way there to conserve our energy for the return. A boat of pensioners all overtook us and were shouting and waving, thinking we were very amusing!! That afternoon we took the advise of the campsite lady and headed to in her opinion the best beach in WA and I know I have gone on about the beaches but this one was great, so clear but so turquoise water great sandy beach and absolutely no-one else there. Next stop after I saw a postcard with the gap and natural bridge on was there, The rocks were huge and it was so windy I would go as far a saying I was actually cold! A very big difference from the beach we had just left - hopefully the photo's will show you what the water beneath was like. Then we head back to Carlos for another evening of BBQ, cards and me cracked open my finest bottle of Pinot Noir to celebrate Linds new job!
Day 11 - Albany to Perth 400km
An interesting day. We are both feeling very lucky.. I won;t go into massive details but basically Carlos decided he was bored with travelling in a straight line locked up his back wheels and did a few acrobatic twirls through the air landing in a ditch on the side of the road. Me and Lindsay are both absolutely fine, a few cuts and bruises but all is good. Carlos however not so good, when I get my camera fixed I will upload the photo's of him, bless him! A very nice man, (Jason) stopped to help us, called the police, ambulance etc and when we were given the all clear to abandon Carlos and continue on our way drove us all the way to Bunbury so we could get a bus the rest of the way to Perth. We checked ourselves into a hotel at the airport, very in need of a pamper and I realise that I have now officially changed as I promptly searched the room for freebies and actually got excited!
Day 12 - Perth to Melbourne
I am sat at the airport typing up the blog about to board my flight. Mark and Cath (Mark whom I know from Siemens in Poole) now live over here and have very kindly offered to pick me up from the airport and kip in their spare room. So I'm looking forward to some home comforts...goodbye WA.
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