The West Coast

On January 3rd I was picked up by Easyrider tours from my hostel to set off up the coast towards Exmouth, where I will be volunteering starting January 9th. It is a 1200km drive, so I did the tour to take my time.

The first night we drove to Kalbarri, stopping at the Pinnicals. They reminded me of the hoodoos, in that they were free standing rock formations, but the pictures about them are a little deceiving, as you can find when travelling. We stopped at a nice beach called hangover bay for lunch, but the first day was almost all driving. We ate dinner at a really great little seafood restaurant, it was all outdoors, and there was a firepit and picnic tables and good food.

The next day we drove to Denham, stopping at Kalbarri Gorge, which we hiked down. On the way up a guy dislocated his shoulder, so that was a crazy afternoon waiting for paramedics to come out to the middle of nowhere. The guys had to all help carry him out on a stretcher and we didn't see him again, I think he had to stay in the hospital a while. After that we went to Nature's Window which is the rock formation I'm sitting in in the photo. Then we went to look at stramatolies, the oldest living life form on earth. They look like rocks though, so not too thrilling. on to our hostel in Denham. We had a barbq there and went to bed early, everyone was pretty tired after all the.

The next morning we went to Monkey Mia, where although there are no monkeys there is a bay where they feed the dolphins so they come in 'like clockwork' every morning and you can wade in and pet them. Unfortunately for us they didn't show up, a volunteer said she had worked there for 16 years and that was only the second time they didn't come.

Then we did the most fabulous, wonderful, uber amazing thing I have ever done in my entire life. We went to a small ocean park, which looked like nothing when we drove up, it is run by a man and his wife who are passionate about marine life, and it is tiny. They have a lagoon with a few cod and sharks, and other fish, but they also had baby loggerhead turtles. They had ones that were a year old swimming in a tank, and I got to hold one a little bigger than a dinner plate. Then they had ones that had just hatched, and I can't even describe how I felt. I was in paradise. I was picking up these tiny little babys, and I was grinning ear to ear. It was the best thing, and out of this small, out of the way place that we almost didn't stop at. They were so cute, and I could feel his little shell moving in and out as he breathed. It was the best. They had to drag me away after I held all of them, about 5 and took a million pictures and short videos.

We drove a little further and ate at a beautiful beach called Shell Bay where the shore is made up entirely of small white shells, making the beach a stunning white against the bluest water. Apparently there are 7000 beached in Australia and I'm slowly making my way through them.

We stopped that night in Coral Bay, a tiny town of only 150 people which is where I am now. Me and really cool English girl named Lucy decided to jump off here, so we didn't leave with the tour the next morning. The Ningaloo Reef starts here and goes up past Exmouth. We went snorkling on the reef, you can just walk out into the water to it, so no boat, which made me happy. The two of us spend a really perfect lazy day, lying on the beach and going to bed early.

This morning we got up and went on a glass bottom boat tour for two hours. We stopped twice to snorkle, the first time in a place loaded with fish, and the tour guide threw food for the fish so they were swarming. He threw some right where I was and then there were hundreds of fish all around me, I was reaching out and touching tons of them, so that was a great experience. The next place we stopped there was a green sea turtle that I swam with for about 10 minutes, which was just as amazing at the first time I saw one. It was a great day, and I am really excited to leave tomorrow and get to the hostel I will be staying with the other volunteers.