Australia

Perth, Freemantle, Margaret River and South West Coast

We touch down in Perth and after 4 weeks at the mercy of the Asian public transport, we hire a campervan, our home for the next five weeks (with more mod cons than some of our previous accommodation).

Several days exploring Perth and funkier 'Freo' and its off to the beach for more 'scorcheo'.

After only one day on the beach we get sun burnt and have to head inland in search of shade.

Jules gets to go 'off road' with the campervan in search of monster trees for Stu to climb. The next few days consist of bumming from small town to small town while wine tasting, swimming in rivers, beach lounging, and trying to work out how so much sand can get in one van.

Here we see the correct pose to adopt when being knocked over by the surf....

There's a certain theme to the South coast and it's best captured by the wave collection:

A walk in the woods and we arrive just in time to capture a rare example of native Australian wildlife (this ant was so big it almost managed to take the camera off Stu) Seen lots of lizards and 'roos but so far only one snake (crossing the path right in front of us).

Montage view of 'home'. we are just starting to find our way around and have now explored all the rooms (feet only included to show scale). Off to climb a mountain tomorrow, whoop!

Kalbarri, Shark Bay and the Mid West Coast

We leave Albany and head north for the sun, on the way we pass through the Stirling range and climb mount Trio 3000ft, hot at the bottom, chilly at the top, but with some great views.

Somewhere north of Perth are the mysterious Pinnacles, strange limestone outcrops sticking out of the sand. The drive north can best be described as long, getting hotter and with vast expanses of bugger all! We stop every couple of hundred km to marvel at how big this place is.

Next we arrive at Kalbarri, national park and cute seaside town. Only problem is, it's hot, 40 in the shade; the great outdoors is a no go from 11 to 4 and we are forced to stay in the sea to survive. Stu attempts to master body boarding and gets eaten by 10ft waves and spat out in small pieces. (hear we see extreme boarding technique rehearsals)

Another few hundred km and it's Shark Bay (even hotter, touched 48). We've now driven 3500km and have gone native thinking about distances. Monkey Mia home to wild (if fed a bit) dolphins which we paddled out to see. Weird feeling standing knee deep in the sea and having baby dolphins play with their mums round your legs.
You can't help wondering who's watching who as they lay on their side and look you up and down.

Stu (hunter-gatherer) catches tea in an attempt to get us back within our budget, black snapper and sea bream, tasty, BBQd in butter and black pepper.

Some more native wildlife, emus out for a sunday afternoon stroll, pelicans on the scrounge for unwanted bait, bobby lizard caught sun bathing, stingray who wouldn't quite come close enough for a decent photo, not a dwarf 'roo but a qokka, biggest spider so far, and yet another roach, we're getting to feel quite attached to these little fellas now.

Our intrepid travelers come to the conclusion that their Northern European bodies aren't designed to take this sort of heat punishment and so they head south in search of outside temperatures where water doesn't spontaneously boil.

After piecing himself back together Stu heads into the ocean. Torn between riding the monster waves and staying alive, Stu opts for getting repeatedly picked up, spun round and slammed into the sea bed by waves the size of trucks. A couple of sessions of this punishment and he realises this surfing malarkey is trickier than it looks (and he's only laying on a body board).

Our last week in Oz is spent in the cooler south. We meet up with Mum and Mike who we kindly invited over from England and they proceed to show us how this fishing stuff should be done.

And so it's with mouthfuls of sandwich and sky's full of rainbows that we prepare for our next hop, New Zealand. Our lasting memories of Oz... it's big and much nicer than you'd think, the cost of living is half that of the UK, the natives are friendly and they say 'g'day mate', for real!

hi ho, hi ho, its off to New Zealand we go...