Western Australia Adventure - Part II

If you haven't read part one of our adventure yet, read it here first.

Day 6

Monkey Mia

(pronounced my-ah, not me-ah)

The day we spent in Monkey Mia was John's 30th birthday.  We started off the morning by going to see the dolphins.  They come into shore a couple of times during the day for a feeding.  We thought that we would all be able to go in the water with the dolphins and feed them ourselves.  We learned that this is what they did in the past, but now only the staff go in the water and everyone else just watches from the beach.  It was still cool to see the wild dolphins so close up (and Alexis loved it), but it was a bit of a let-down that we couldn't go in the water as well.  And it was super crowded.  You kind of had to fight your way to the front of the group.  It was nice, just not exactly what we were expecting.

It was windy and cold on the beach (it was only 7:30 in the morning).

After seeing the dolphins, John and Alexis spent some time colouring, while I got breakfast ready.

We had booked a wildlife cruise for later in the morning.  This is Alexis waiting for the boat.  It is one of my favourite pictures from the whole trip.

And this is the catamaran that we went sailing on - the Aristocat 2.

The best part of the cruise was that there was only one other family of four on the cruise with us,  and it was nice to just be out on the water.  The main reason we booked the cruise was because Shark Bay is famous for the large amount of dugongs, dolphins and sharks that reside there.  We didn't see any!  Correction, we saw four dolphins at the last moment before the cruise ended.  I was really looking forward to seeing the dugongs, so it was disappointing.  Alexis had fun though, which is important, though it was stressful for us to keep her away from the edge of the boat.  By the end of the cruise she was so tired that she fell asleep standing up!

Because of her catnap on the boat, Alexis wouldn't take a proper nap later that afternoon, so we went to the beach instead.

There was lots of wildlife around the resort.  By the end of the day Alexis had learned how to say "dolphin" and "emu."

Day 7
Monkey Mia to Carnarvon 

As we headed out of Monkey Mia, the rain set in.  We didn't mind too much because we had about a five hour drive ahead of us and weren't planning on doing anything big.  We had had perfect weather up until then.  We drove through Denham which is the main town on the Shark Bay peninsula.  It was very picturesque and on an absolutely gorgeous bay.  If we ever go back, we will definitely stay in Denham instead of Monkey Mia.  The highlight of the day was stopping by Shell Beach, also on the Shark Bay peninsula.  The entire beach is made up of tiny shells, instead of sand.  We only stayed for about 15 minutes (because it was raining), but we loved it.

Once we got to Carnarvon, we headed straight to the Woolworths (grocery store) to get supplies.  Carnarvon looked liked a nice country town, just a bit (or maybe a lot) run down.  But the caravan park we stayed in was fabulous.  It was super clean and we had tons of space.  It was still raining when we went to bed and we were just crossing our fingers that it would pass over night because we were heading to Coral Bay the next day.

Day 8

Carnarvon to Coral Bay
 

We woke up and it was still raining.  We started our drive to Coral Bay and took a detour out to Quobba Point to see the blowholes.  There was also supposed to be a great calm lagoon for snorkeling.  The cliffs were gorgeous, but we didn't actually see any water go through the blowholes.  And because it was so windy and rainy, the snorkeling was out of the question.  Even though it was beautiful, we don't think it justified the additional hour it added to our driving time.

I couldn't resist posting this picture of John wearing his "mantyhose" (that what he calls them).  They're really just a pair of my old leggings.  He woke up feeling a little unwell, so he relaxed in his pj's while I did the driving.

When we got to Coral Bay, the rain had stopped but it was still overcast.  Luckily for me, John was feeling better, because it was my turn to get sick and I mean really sick.  John took Alexis outside to feed the birds and run around.  He was so helpful to take care of dinner for the two of them and then lucky Alexis got to sleep with her daddy up in the loft.

Day 9
Coral Bay to Exmouth

We woke up to sunshine!  And I was feeling weak/tired, but otherwise a lot better.  Coral Bay is a small tourist town located on the southern end of the Ningaloo

Alexis was such a good traveler in the van.  She never fussed in her car seat while we were driving (not even on the long seven hour drive we did later in the week).  On the days we had a long drive to do, we would start Alexis off in her seat and then once she fell asleep, we would move her to the bed in the back because she would sleep longer if she was laying down.  The drive to Exmouth from Coral Bay was only about 2.5 hours, so we decided to just leave Alexis in her car seat.  But her head kept falling down at a weird angle so this is what I came up with:

I just rolled her sleepsak up and tucked the ends into her car seat.  It ended up working pretty well.

On the way to Exmouth we drove through a plague of locusts.  I had never seen a locust before.  They were huge!

We arrived in Exmouth feeling energised and excited.  The main reason we wanted to go to Western Australia was to go to Exmouth to see the Ningaloo Reef.  Exmouth is on the west side of a peninsula and the Ningaloo Marine Park is on the east side (in the Cape Range National Park), about a 30-60 minute drive from town depending on what beach you are going to.  So we just settled in for the night so that we would be ready in the morning.

. . . Western Australia Adventure - Part III (the best part)

coming soon, hopefully tomorrow night . . .