Shaws on Tour

Friday morning brought excitement and last minute cleaning as we rushed to pack the house up and collect our deluxe camper van. We left Mum and Lucy in charge of the house and, Dad and Chris collected the Camper while I dropped Naomi off at Seb and Leah's where she would spend her final Aussie days, it was weird saying goodbye when she wasn't gonna turn up on our doorstep again!!!

Poor old Ludy then had to endure a dentist appointment to get fixed up ready before South America and then we were on our way.

We visited the gorges on our way up to Kalbarri for some stunning views and a paddle in the river.
We had 2 nights in Kalbarri as we didn't get there til late Friday night and so wanted a full day to see some sights. If our day in Kalbarri could be described in one word it would most likely be 'parrots'!
We took a walk to the parrot sanctuary, 'rainbow jungle', a walk that, according to Dad, was no more than 1km… about an hour later we arrived!! Haha Lovely walk though.
We found that most of the parrots at Rainbow Jungle shared a common dislike for men much to Dad's dismay. One in particular was in love with mum and kept shaking her hand and wanting his head scratched. It said hello to me and Lu too but as soon as Dad or Chris went near, it got really grumpy!
There was a very cheeky one too, I only noticed after I 'shook it's hand' that there was a sign on the cage warning you not too! This would be because it doesn't let go and then it tries to bite you and does an evil panto style laugh!!
Later that evening we sampled the infamous Western Australian Crayfish which, definitely lived up to expectations.
Later still, a fellow camper got a bit of a surprise when our dear Dad ventured out of the caravan in just his Union Jack boxers!!! Doh

Before we left, Mum, Dad and I went to investigate the Pelican feeding and I think Dad got to throw a fish to a Pelican but may not have… Dad???

Next stop was Denham so that we had an easy commute to Monkey Mia for the 7.30AM Dolphin feed. There wasn't a lot to do at Denham so we headed to the beach for a swim in the sea. Although Chris did put in a lot of effort and persisted by walking about a mile out to sea, it really wasn't deep enough for swimming so we settled for a nice paddle instead before another lovely yummy dinner.

Monday held a very exciting morning in store for us as we got up at the break of dawn and packed up to get to Monkey Mia, we knew it would be pretty special but we really didn't expect the Dolphins to come in as close to the shore as they did, it was really amazing. There were loads of them as well. I was lucky enough to be picked out of the crowd to feed one of them, a lady Dolphin named Puck. It was awesome! After that, an excited bunch of Shawmeisters (and Christo) continued on up the coast to Coral Bay, recommended to us by Seb and we could totally see why when we got there, it was beautiful, the beach was gorgeous… and we could swim there!
We did make one stop along the way to see the Stromatolites which first appeared on the Earth 3.5 billion years ago (I photographed the information sign! I hear you Sal - geek! Haha) so we thought we'd better go and appreciate these ancient rock like things that provided us with oxygen.

Arriving at Coral Bay, we had a fun evening sharing the barbeque with fellow campers, mostly an older crowd who'd travelled in campers together from Victoria upto Darwin and were working their way back down the West Coast - sounded like a great trip!!! There was also a bit of excitement when 'The Q' joined us all for dinner. He would be Quentin Lynch, an AFL (Australian Football League I think that stands for) player for the Perth Eagles. I saw him on tv at the Awards aswell!!!
Early next morning, we wasted no time getting booked onto a snorkel and glassbottomed boat cruise over the Ningaloo Reef and a 4 wheel drive adventure along the coastline with the promise of wildlife.
The snorkelling was amazing even if we did have a bit of a nervous encounter with an enormous group of spangled emperor! The crew decided to throw fish food in mine and Chris' direction as we were coming back into the boat so, of course we were surrounded and I think I may have let out a squeal as one head butted my mask! They were harmless though and pretty cool actually, there were loads of them in by the shore as well so you got used to them.
Chris went for another snorkel while Lucy and I attempted to top up our tans - priorities! Meanwhile, Dad ventured into the shallow waters and even managed to swim a little bit with Mum's coaching. The funniest thing was, after he'd been swimming, he realised he had not 1 or 2 but THREE pairs of pants on!!!!!!! Ahahahahahaa
We went to one of the 2 restaurants later for more yummy food to find that our skipper from the trip earlier doubled up as our waitress for the evening - talk about all around service!!!

Next day, we met our 4 wheel drive guide for a day of adventure to explore the desert like outback type of environment along the coast of the Ningaloo Reef. We saw turtles, kangaroos, reef sharks, osprey, emu, a shuffle nosed shark and the very rare albino kangaroo that not many people can claim to have seen!! Woooo yay us! We stopped for lunch on the most beautiful beach and had the lovely experience of p***ing in the bush, before heading back to the bay to say hi to the spangled emperor again.
We definitely would've stayed longer at Coral Bay if we'd had time.

I had my first drive of the camper as I started the first leg of the journey back to Perthland and it wasn't as difficult to get used to as I thought it would be.
We stopped off at a place called 'Horrocks' and it was like something out of '28 days later', there were some signs that life had been there, the campsite was full but we only saw one person and didn't hear a thing! Weird!
The weather was turning so Chris and I thought we'd better brave the sea before it was too late as this would be our last swim on the West Coast. Mum, Lucy and Dad chose to watch instead which we couldn't blame them for as at that point it felt like Blackpool beach in January!!
We soon put a stop to the quiet of Horrocks with the traditional Shaw Barbie and games night. It was a little sad though as it marked the last night of our road trip.

We had a long drive back to Perth on Friday and just made it back in the nick of time for the 4pm deadline! We made use of the company's office space to repack all our bags for various flights and then made our way to Seb's house as he was kind enough to have left us a key out to let ourselves in.
We went for one last meal together at a little Italian place in Leederville, just outside Perth City and then dropped Lucy and Chris off at a really cool Jazz club where you enter through a phonebox to get to the cellar. I really wanted to stay but along with Mum and Dad, I had a flight to catch.
After some seriously emotional goodbyes, Mum and Dad left Australia to return to the UK and I went back to Melbourne to be joined shortly after for a brief time by Lucy and Chris.

We really had the best time although it was a shame Sal left before the road trip and little Bennyboy couldn't join us!

Lots of love

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