Shark Bay to Carnarvon

No wonder Shark Bay has been declared a world heritage area. It is magnificently beautiful!! The stark scenery contrasting with the ocean is breathtaking.

The little town of Denham was just up our street! Even though the caravan park was laid out on beach sand it was the cleanest, whitest sand ever. The contrast of the white sand and the blue ocean was a picture to behold. As we rode around the town we stopped at a funky little coffee place called "Clouds". We met an artist there who ran a small shop, studio and made coffee. I, of course, couldn't resist buying one of her clay statues. Chris ended up offering to help her install small lighting gadgets onto the back of her beautiful paintings. Down the track we will be in contact with her again.

It was very easy to drive to Monkey Mia from Denham (26km). We absolutely loved Monkey Mia and were truly touched by the awesome sight of the dolphins coming into the bay to "meet" with visitors on the beach and get a few fish to eat. I spent a good while chatting with one of the young volunteers who keep watch when the dolphins come in to the bay. Sometimes they don't come in for 3 days or more, but we were so grateful they came in on the day we were there. It was amazing!! We had the loveliest day and treated ourselves to a special cooked breakfast from the resort that looked out onto the pristine beach and bay. Chris had great fun "chatting" with the emus and watching a few topless backpackers on the beach.

We were sad to leave Denham and the Shark Bay Heritage area but looking forward to Coral Bay and snorkelling in the Ningaloo reef.

Just spent almost a week in Kalbarri in a wonderful caravan park. It's amazing that the one on the sea front is packed and this one has plenty of space with a pool and green lawns. Often we swam after a sweaty ride as it is pretty hot during the days. We spent a lovely evening yesterday with a teacher friend from Perth and her husband. They gave us lots of tips of what to expect if we come across sandflies. We also met a great bunch of backpackers who swopped music with us. They were concerned that their music would bug us. No problem to us at all. In fact they agreed to play some of our music on their system! What a great group of youngsters. One of the girls came and borrowed a pot and pan too. They will be off hitching further north today! We also sat with a group of young Irish musicians who played some haunting guitar tunes. Didn't feel like grey nomads last night!

We ride our bikes a lot. We are so happy to have them as we don't ever use the car in the towns. We rode to Red Bluff which has amazing scenery and was not difficult at all.

We will be leaving to go to Denham today - Shell beach, Monkey Mia etc. Hope it will be fun!

I can't believe we are going further and further north! As the lady at the last caravan park we stayed at said, "an endless summer!" That's what it feels like as the further north we go the warmer the temperature gets. It's much easier handling such lovely warm weather compared to rain and mud.

We drove through Geraldton very easily stopping at the car spares place, good old Bunnings and Repco and then did a food shop at Coles. Nothing wrong with the car - it just needs a service shortly.

We are now in an old, historic town (by Australian standards!) - Northampton. It has a lovely feel with old stone buildings up and down the streets. Tomorrow we will go exploring on our bikes after I have made our weekly bacon and egg breakfast.

Right now we are in the only caravan park just off the main road so lots of heavy truck noise but a beautiful sunset!

Chris is an absolute whizz at getting TV for us each night. Everyone here has a great big satellite dish but not us!! The gadgets and wires we have in the caravan are amazing. Our caravan is definitely home from home. We even have "the broken hi-fi cupboard" that we have always had!!!

We'll leave for Kalbarri on Monday when everyone has gone back to school. Hopefully we'll be the first of the grey nomads to get a good spot in a caravan park next week. We stayed at Kalbarri 13 years ago and loved it. Hope it will be good as we are staying for a week.

First blog!

I have just managed to get this blog going. I hummed and haahed about writing but I think it could be fun. Quite a few people have asked how they could find out where we are. Sooooooo, if you want to know, I'd be happy for you to read about our travels.

A little while ago when I went back to uni to do some studying the lecturer commented that I didn't look like a caravanner!! When I see some caravanners I know what he means! They are either way too well organised compared to us, or they have missing front teeth and starting on the grog by 2pm!!

Mostly, our caravan is very comfortable and we have everything we need. I think I did very well packing the cutlery and plastic crockery we needed. I know I packed too many clothes but at least we can go a whole week without doing any washing.

We spent a great 4 weeks travelling around Busselton, Margaret River, Denmark, and Pinjarra where we spent the weekend at Fairbridge music festival. The music was great, as usual. We treated ourself to a Andrew Winton CD which we played on the way up to Leeman - a small fishing village, south of Geraldton - which is where we are now. We rode our bikes all over the village this afternoon - so quiet and well kept. Tomorrow we will be going down to the jetty to see the fishing boats bring in all the crayfish. Kailis Brothers is there to collect it all!

We were expecting big storms yesterday but nothing happened. I am sure that as we go north temperatures will be warming up. In a way we will both be sad as we love winters in Perth. Hopefully I'll be able to swim in places like Kalbarri, Coral Bay and Monkey Mia where we will be heading in the next few weeks.