Perth: 25/07-01/08

We flew to Perth from Alice Springs and spent 3 nights staying at Holly's 2nd cousins Lawrences house and 3 nights at Holly's mums friends Betty's house. Lawrence met us from the airport and then took us home to meet Becky his wife and Lucy their 18month old (very cute) daughter. On our first afternoon they took us for a walk in King's Park and to look at some views of the city and then we had Thai takeaway for dinner and watched a dvd with a clas of wine (the most civilised evening I have had since I left England)! The next day Lawrence dropped Holly and I in Fremantle and we spent the day exploring. We went on a really interesting tour of Fremantle prison and heard some ghost stories and all about the past escape attempts. We also went to a micro-brewary, a really nice pub and wondered around Fremantle's Sunday markets. On Monday we got the train into Perth City and did some sightseeing (and shopping!) We went to The Art Gallery of Westren Australia where they had some really cool Aborigianal Art, but I found everything else a bit boring. We also went the the museum of Western Australia and visited the Bell Tower. The most exciting part of the day though was when we went to have a look around the courthouseand the security guard told us we should go and have a look in court 3 because a court was in session so we spent about an hour in the public gallery watching an Australian court case! On the Tuesday Becky took us to Cottlesloe Beach and we went for lunch looking out onto the ocean in the sun with her and Lucy which was really nice and then she gave us a lift to Betty's house.

Betty has just moved into a new house and it is a mansion! Holly and I could have had our own rooms if we wanted and she gave us towels and dressing gowns and slippers and we had amazing food, including a roast dinner because we both said that we missed them! When we were at Betty's we spent some more time exploring the City, took the ferry over to South Perth for lunch, walked around King's Park in the sun and planned our trip up the West Coast. Holly's friend Grace also joined us to travel with us up to Broome and back to Sydney.

On our last day in Perth we went on a wine tasting trip to the Swan Valley vineyards which was really good fun as I have never done proper wine tasting before and you could have up to 45 tastings of red wines, white wines, dessert wines and ports from the 5 different vineyards we visited. We also ate way too much yummy cheese and lots of crackers to soak up the alcohol. After a really nice lunch we went to a brewary for some beer tasting and then a chocolate factory with free chocolate!!!!

Cervantes: 01/08-03/08

Cervantes is a really small town about 3 hours North of Perth and we stopped here because we wanted to visit the Pinnacles - thousands of limestone formations in Namburg National Park. We went at sunset with a really knowledgeable guide who showed us all the best places to get photos and where to see the best sunset.

Cervantes had a really nice beach so we walked along there on our next day and had a drink in the tavern and some lunch - it was really nice to chill out for a while because there were no shops, just a post office, a mini supermarket, an off licence and a pub!!!

The next day we went to get our Greyhound bus and it was delayed by 3 hours so we spent a very fun afternoon in a petrol station!!!

Monkey Mia: 04/08-07/08

Monkey Mia is a really small resort on the coast, about 800km north of Perth and every morning t about 7.30am, wild dolphins swim to the shore to get fed by the park rangers. On our first morning there we got up to go and watch them and about 7 adults and a baby were there waiting to get fed. I got picked to feed one which was really cool, but you have to stand in the freezing cold water. The rangers and people aren't allowed to touth the dolphins or really interact with them because they don't want them to become dependent on humans. It was really cool to see wild dolphins though just swimming around in the sea.

There was not else to do in Monkey Mia so we spent most of our time sunbathing and on one of the days we went on a bush walk through the national park. We also did our first BBQ of the trip all by ourselves!!

Denham: 07/08-07/08

We got a bit bored of Monkey Mia so we hitched a ride with the airport shuttle man and got him to drop us in Denham, a little town on Shark Bay about 30 minutes away where we were able to do a bit more exploring and there were some actual shops to look in. We also played a lot of cards in the sun, had some drinks and went for some dinner before our coach arrived.

Coral Bay: 08/08-08/08

We only had a day in Coral Bay because the Greyhounds are so rare, but it was a really beautiful beach resort and I think one of my favourite beaches so far. Coral Bay is about 1,200km north of Perth and is a really popular fishing spot for lots of Australians.

We spent the day looking in a few shops, sunbathing, eating yummy food from the bakery and snorkelling on the Ningaloo Reef where I think I saw even more fish than on the Great Barrier Reef and I didn't want to leave!!

We then had to hang around all night because our bus didn't leave Coral Bay for Exmouth until 1.50am!!! But, a very nice security card stole some keys frm reception for us so we could go and have a bit of a sleep before we left.

Exmouth: 09/08-13/08

See previous blog for tales of whale watching, snorkelling and National Parks

Broome: 14/08-20/08

We leave tonight!!!