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So i am now in Adelaide. The trip started back in Perth nearly 2 weeks ago, I booked a 9 day tour to get me from Perth to Adelaide. The group was really nice but it was 7 guys and 2 girls. There was a mix of nationalities including Swiss, Deutch, Candian, Danish and English.
The route was traveling east from Perth down to Hyden which is where we went to Wave Rock. It was a lot bigger than i thought and had a massive dam at the top but I was only interested in the wave rock part.
The trip was a wildlife & camping trip so we were sleeping in swags outside. The first night we stayed on land owned by a lady who made her own mustards and jams etc, she cooked us all dinner which was great and we slept by the river in our swags. I was supprised that i had a good nights sleep in the swag, it was a bit chilly during the night but nothing that made me unable to sleep.
The next day we drove down to Esperance which is meant to have really nice beaches but i wasnt that impressed. We camped at Cape Le Grand National Park that night in the swags again and there were kangaroos just hopping around the campsite. It had beautiful beaches there where the sand was 90% silica so it squeked when you walked on it. We did a few walks there too but a lot of the trip was driving so most stops are only quick.
The for the next 3 days we were driving accross the dessert with no showers or running water. I also had no phone signal or internet for 7 days. The drive was long but the tour guide stopped at a few different places along the way to break it up. We stopped at Eucla which is an old telegraph station that has been burried by sand dunes over time and stopped at many different cliff top look outs, all of which look the same after a while.
When going though Ceduna, you have to surrender all fruits and veg, honeys etc and we also got pulled over by the police to do a drugs test with dogs and breathalisers. That took up some time so we had to miss out going to a cultural center to make up the time we had lost. While crossing the dessert we bush campsed which involves using a shovel when going to the toilet and having a 'shower' consisted on standing in front of the campfire so you get your clothes covered in smoke so you all smell the same. One night was forecast rain so we slept in tents instead of swags but the other night we stayed at on old homestead. It had yards of old abandoned cars and a haunted house which is now a museum. I thought the camp seemed ok apart from the horror movie setting but i was wrong. I put my swag near to the shelter so i was proted from the wind but i could feel something and hear thinsg during the night. Mice had come out of the wood of the shelter and were crawling all over me. I screamed and jumped up but no-one woke up, not even the tour guide. After a while i gave up and went to sleep on the bus. No mice in there!
For the following 2 days we stayed at a YHA called Coodlie park which is where the tour company is based. It was good to have beds again but was still basic with only 2 showers and toilets and im pretty sure i could feel mice on me again, even in the hostel and when i asked the tour guide, he said that there is likley to be mice due to the place being rural. Another nights sleep lost.
But while we were staying there we did some really good stuff. We went snorkeling with wild dolphins and sealions at Baird Bay. The dolphins were great, they were so close to you that their fins were touching your tummy as they passed underneath you. There wasnt as many sealions but one came up and kissed my hand underwater. After that we went sandboarding.
We moved on from Coodlie park and camped again but this time i decidedf that i wasnt going to risk loosing another nigths sleep worrying about mice so i slept on the bus. Best nights sleep of the trip. We were ment to be having a surfing lesson but there were no waves on the beaches, the sea was completely flat so we had to miss that out. But we camped at a Koala sanctuary and saw lots of Koalas.
The next day was my shark dive which was really good apart from we didnt see any sharks. They just didnt seem to be any around. The day was really nice though, we were fed and watered all day with a constant supply of good food. We also had a fishing competition and i came 2nd catching 6 trevelli fish which we cooked at camp that night. Not bad concidering I have never used a fishing rod. There was only 2 of us from the group doing the dive so while we were doing that, the rest of the group went swimming with tuna fish.
We also went to an animal shelter where a lady cares for abandoned animals, she has kangaroos, wombats, birds, ducks, emus and lizards. She even had a white wombat which is really rare apparently.I also slept on the bus this night too!
On the final day we had a long drive to Adelaide but we did stop off at a cultural center which was interesting. Once we were in Adelaide we were dropped off at out hostels and we all met up for dinner and drinks. It was nice to see everyone when they had had a proper shower and clean clothes.
The hostel im staying at is nice and clean, its small but i really like it. Ive also been to Kangaroo island for a few days which was ok, nothing special i dont think. Lots of kangaroos. The group was small and mostly chinese. We went sandboarding on this trip too which was good but i have a few bruises as a result. We did lots of short walks and slept in a bunkhouse which was nice and cosy. Kangaroo island has the number 1 beach in Australia i think, it was voted it in 2007 based on things like the water clarity and sand compsition. I didnt think it was anything special.We also went to a eucaliptus company which is one of the last places that they make eucaliptus oil in South Australia.
Ive got a wine tour booked for tomorrow and all i want to do is sleep!
I will put the photos up of the Nullarbor trip and Kangaroo island soon.
Megan x
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