Exmouth

We made it to Exmouth for Becky’s 24^th birthday… not a massive town, but big enough for us to celebrate! On our check-in evening we met Dennis, a little old biker who appeared to have had one too many beers. We told him about Becky’s birthday and he promised to take us out for a meal tomorrow evening to the site’s restaurant to celebrate… we wondered if he’d actually remember in the morning!

We woke the next morning to some bad news that Becky's house had been broken into at home. Sadly lots of valuables were taken, but luckily 'Beans' her cat was safe and sound. Even after some bad news, we were determined to have a good day, so we went for breakfast at a local organic café in the town. After a little while we decided it wouldn't be a birthday without some birthday cake, so we indulged in an extremely sickly piece of chocolate cake from the bakery.

We decided to take the opportunity to chill out and had a day relaxing by the pool, not really doing a whole lot, other than pretending to play Becky’s new present from Lydia, an inflatable pink guitar.

  

We bumped into Dennis in the day, who did in fact remember our plans and promised to take us out for a meal in the nice restaurant on him. Whilst getting ready for the birthday meal, Becky received some even more bad news that her Great Nan Dip, at almost 94 years of age, had sadly passed away. As difficult as the news was to take in, Becky knew that her Nan wouldn't want it to spoil her day, but to celebrate it more instead. So at 6:30pm sharp, we met with Dennis and his colleague Shane, who also worked on site, and went for a lovely birthday meal. We went all out and ordered pink champagne, the biggest main course of salmon we’ve ever had and then Becky was surprised with an ice cream desert including a candle, sparkler and a chorus of happy birthday from the waiter.

In the morning we awoke bright and early as we had agreed to a day of fishing with Shane, or rather that we’d begged him to take us out on his boat on his day off! We tentatively drove down to the marina with the boat trailing behind the car and hopped aboard for a day of fishing out on the reef.

Shane showed us how to cast our lines out and it didn’t take long before our lines started twitching. Shane was laughing out loud, when Becky turned around and shouted out “What do I do now?!?!”, when her first fish hooked onto her line… “Pull it in, of course!” he shouts back.

We reeled in lots of snapper and even a cod. We were catching so many that Shane stopped fishing altogether and put all his effort into preparing the bait and sorting out our lines.

After four hours of successful fishing, moving anchor several times and a dozen or so fish in the cool box for dinner, we wondered whether to call it a day… but we wanted to catch one more thing that Shane had promised we may be lucky enough to find, a shark! We were both sure that we’d had it on our lines at some point, after some very large tugs and the fishing hooks being bitten off completely. All was quiet when Lydia felt a little tug on her line… “ooohh, I think I’ve got something guys!”…   Then all of a sudden, WHOOOSH!!! Nearly the whole of Lydia’s line went flying out and we were all screaming (well, just us girls!). Shane quickly took over the fishing rod, in hope that his expertise would help us to catch the mysteriously strong fish on the end of the line. The fish had taken so much of the line, so very quickly, that Shane wasn’t sure if we were going to catch it. He shouted out the orders to us; Lydia running around, moving obstacles out of the way and Becky chasing him around the boat with the net, ready to quickly scoop up whatever we had caught when it reached the surface. We continued like this for a whole five minutes, running around like headless chickens and Shane even climbing along the front of the boat, looping the fishing rod underneath the anchor when the fish was giving him the chase. FINALLY, it appeared on the surface of the reef and Becky scooped it up in the net… it was a shark!!!!! We were jumping up and down on the boat!

After some celebratory photo taking, we had a majority vote and decided that after all the effort to catch it, Shane would fillet it and we’d have it for dinner. He did an excellent Bear Grylls job on the shark and the other fish and we headed back inland. He even let us drive the boat on the way back! Lydia got a little excited and throttled the engine a bit too hard whilst having the wheel turned and then tried to drive standing up and her cap got taken by the wind into the ocean… FAIL!

Shane said it was the most fun he’d had fishing in a long time, more so because he was laughing us at the whole time! Who knew fishing could be so much fun eh?!

When we arrived back at the camp site, we bumped into a friend of Becky’s from Sydney, Lloyd, and had an afternoon of silly games in the pool and sunbathing. All the fish we cooked made a brilliant meal for everyone on the evening and we had lots of campers coming over to admire and try the shark we had caught that day. What a great feeling! The shark, by the way, tasted delicious.

Exmouth had been one of our favourite places so far, lots of enjoyable memories. However, as with all road trips we had to continue moving on, so we headed off the next day to continue our journey down the coast. We came across Coral Bay, which was a stunning beach cove and stopped there for a walk on the beach and some lunch.

Although Coral Bay was beautiful, we didn't stay long as our next stop would be Monkey Mia, where the dolphins hang out.

Peace and Love,
Lyds & Bex
xxxxx

Western Australia - The beginning

We’re in Western Australia!! The blog writing has gotten a little bit behind as we’ve been having so much fun.

Our first stop was Kununurra, a perfect base for a scenic flight over the stunning Lake Argyle and a rock formation which they call ‘The Bungle Bungles’. The flight was two hours long and the five of us, along with a pilot squashed into the tiny little plane. The views were incredible!

Following our flight, we departed Kununurra and tried to visit Emma Gorge and El Questro, the site at which the film Australia was filmed. We had planned to watch the film on the evening after going to see it in the day on our laptop. We were so happy to arrive after driving down a very bumpy unsealed road for a while...

And then we drove a little further and we came upon a sign which read ‘Closed until April 2013...

So instead of visiting El Questro, we used our time effectively…

We continued our drive, heading west towards Broome on the coast. We also tried to visit the famous Wolfe Creek, which is home to not only the events of a horror film, but the world’s second largest meteor crater in the world. However, we weren’t sure if Monty could cope with the very long bumpy road to it, so we just stopped at the sign instead!

After a whole lot more driving, we arrived in Broome. Although small, we both really liked the town. We had a couple of relaxing days here, chilling on the beautiful Cable Beach, having a dip in the pool and even trying some mango and lime cider brewed onsite at a nice little bar we found, delicious!

Whilst in Broome, we managed to get our hands on a mosquito net, which meant we could sleep with the boot of the car open finally! Our days of uncomfortably hot nights sleeps were over, hooray!

Driving south we found another gorgeous beach called ‘eighty mile beach’… you guessed it, it stretches for eighty miles! It was home to amazing white sands and beautiful clear water.

From Broome, we detoured away from the coast to visit Karajini National Park. We stayed the night here and visited a couple of the spots there. Although this national park was beautiful in its own right, our favourite has been Litchfield by far. So we left fairly promptly as we hoped to be in a bigger town as Becky’s birthday was approaching the next day and celebrations were in order.

That’s all for now!!

Peace and Love,
Lyds & Bex
xxxxx

The Northern Territory

After having an awesome time on ‘The Rock Tour’ it was time to begin our long journey up to Darwin, on the very north coast of Australia. The journey would take us approximately 17 hours, with a detour through Kakadu National Park, the second largest national park in the world!

After a day of driving we stopped at a rest stop between Alice Springs and Kakadu. The next morning we headed for Kakadu National Park, driving through Katherine. We visited a pub in ‘Daly Waters’, a quirky place full of all sorts of things that people had donated over the years. There were hundreds of IDs, caps, t-shirts, underwear, flip-flops… the list goes on! Becky decided to leave something of her own there too, so she staple gunned her old 16-25 rail card to the counter of the bar.

We visited ‘Bitter Springs’. I think the word ‘bitter’ described it best. The water looked an odd colour so we decided not to venture in for a cool dip out of the heat. We tried to visit a couple of other water falls along the way but the heavens opened and made this impossible with our car. So instead we would try and see them on the drive back down. We camped for the evening just outside Kakadu National Park, ready for a day of touring it the following morning.

Kakadu National Park is beautiful, but enormous! There was lots to see, however, we soon found out that quite a lot of it would be difficult for us to see in our 2WD car. Ideally, we needed a 4WD. This didn’t stop us though! We choose a waterfall that said it was accessible by 2WD if you were careful, so headed for it. The road was bright orange in colour and extremely corrugated, most definitely a bumpy ride! After an hour of very slow driving we reached Gunlom Falls. The waterfall itself was picturesque, so we decided to take a dip in it despite the warning of crocodiles we saw on the walk down to it. There were other people swimming in it, so we thought it must be pretty safe. We saw a nice photo opportunity on some rocks a little swim away from us, so we very quickly swam over, snapped a few shots, and swam back!! We made it out alive!

After camping for the evening in Kakadu, we continued through the rest of the park the following morning. On the way out of the park, a police car flashes their lights and gets us to pull over. Oh dear, we’re in trouble! Lydia winds down the window and the officer asks if we know why we’ve been pulled over so we say ‘No officer’… luckily we had only been slightly speeding so he gave us a stern warning and just told us to be more careful. Lesson learnt.

On the way in to Darwin, we went on a ‘croc cruise’ on the Adelaide River. The tour promised ‘spectacular jumping crocs’ and we saw lots!! They got many crocs jumping out of the water for us, so we grabbed lots of photos! We were even lucky enough to see an albino croc, which had a white head and is apparently very rare.

We checked into a hostel for a couple of nights and took the chance for some well-deserved drinks on the evening whilst we were in a bigger city. The night was fun and we got a few free cocktails along the way, they tasted great! We met a few real Australians from the outback which was a nice change from all the travellers.

We spent our second day in Darwin chilling out, souvenir shopping and went to Mindil Beach and Fannie Bay. Unfortunately, the famous night markets at Mindil Beach had closed for the year due to the wet season.

After a good night’s sleep, we started our journey back down south, this time heading through Litchfield National Park. We loved this place!! With our car, we were still able to go and see all the different sites there which were great! We swam in rock pools, which we had all to ourselves and dipped in and out of numerous waterfalls all day… bliss! Our favourite places were Florence Falls and Burley Rockhole. At Florence Falls which is ‘Croc Free’, we each took turns to swim out nearer the waterfall. Becky was standing elegantly posing on a rock which peeped out of the water, when all of sudden something bit her toe and she went diving into the water… the suspect of the bite is still unknown!

After a day in Litchfield National Park, we continued driving south and visited ‘Edith Falls’ which we’d missed out on the drive north due to the weather. We camped there for the evening and the most epic storm surrounded us. Flashes of lightening continuously, crazy rain and booming thunder. At one point, the lightening was behind the only single cloud in the sky, making the cloud light up every few seconds, awesome sight!

We took a dip in Edith Falls the next morning and then headed to ‘Katherine Gorge’ for a boat trip. Some amazing sites and scenery of the gorge and a well needed relaxing boat cruise on a sweltering hot day.

From here we headed towards the border of the Northern Territory, ready to take our road trip through Western Australia! Becky ran over two birds, Lydia ran over two toads and we near missed a couple of kangaroos and cows… the toads definitely made a squelch! That’s all from the Northern Territory; you’ve been wonderful, if a little humid!

Peace and Love,
Lyds & Bex
xxxxx

The Rock Tour

Day 1

We’ve arrived back from the 3 day Rock Tour, sightseeing and experiencing the centre of the outback in its true form. We were a bit blurry eyed on the first day from the early pick up time of 5:30am, for the long drive from Alice Springs to Kings Canyon.

There were 21 people on the tour and also our trusty tour guide ‘Cooper’, who we soon learned was a bit of a character.

Ahead of us was a three hour hike up Kings Canyon, through the sandstone domes of the Lost City, taking in the Amphitheatre and the North and South Walls. Thankfully the view from the top was spectacular after a very steep climb in the high temperature. It was astonishing the amount of water we were drinking and the little amount of peeing we were doing… that’s how much we were sweating! We officially jumped ‘over a canyon’ and saw a rabbit in the rocks.

Our seats on the tour bus were right behind our guide Cooper, who was 6’3 and bald with a big cheesy grin! Cooper decided to give Becky a lovely manicure with some pens as he drove the bus, so then Becky contemplated what she could use the pens for… Faced with the back of his bald head, the temptation to draw on it was too much for Becky. Cooper made her a deal that if she was to do it, he would get her back twice as bad at some point on the tour… so Becky did it anyway!

After some fun on the bus and collecting lots of fire wood, we arrived at our bush camp at Curtin Springs for some grub around the camp fire and a night’s sleep in our swags under the stars.

DAY 2

Another early start on day 2, waking up at 6am, to travel to Kata Tjuta and where we planned to hike through The Valley of the Winds. When we arrived Becky realised she couldn’t find her camera which was a bit upsetting. We looked everywhere with no luck and had to keep our fingers crossed that it was in her swag from the night before.

The walk around and up Kata Tjuta was even tougher than Kings Canyon, due to the burning sun beating down upon us. It hit 40 degrees and the views were literally ‘breath taking’ by the time we arrived at the top!

Next stop was the Aboriginal Cultural Centre and the only thing on everyone’s mind was a cold drink after drinking warm water for the whole hike! We downed two cans of Fanta and two bottles of sprite in around five minutes. Lydia really wanted to buy a piece of Aboriginal art work in the centre, but unfortunately the prices were quite high. Instead she found a cute wooden lizard carved by local communities and Becky purchased a miniature lizard on a keyring and named him ‘Eddie’.

Late afternoon consisted of a short ‘Mala Walk’ around the base of Ayers Rock and then it was a quick drive to watch the sunset over the rock which we were really excited about.

We eagerly awaited the sunset over Ayers Rock, with ciders and noodles in our hands, whilst the posh tours sipped on champers. It was the eve of Halloween and we were all joking about the ‘scary’ things that could happen, suggesting how funny it would be if Ayers Rock just disappeared right before our eyes. Disappointingly, after the sky being so clear all day, clouds started forming and covered the sun fairly quickly, but we managed to grab a couple of nice photos! 

On the positive side our slight dehydration from our gruelling day in the sun made getting merry on cider a fairly quick process! Cooper finally got his own back on Becky, drawing all over her face and Lydia managed to purchase some Aboriginal art work from a local artist selling their work on the road side.  It turned out the ‘spirits of rock’ were not on our side that evening though, when out of nowhere a sand storm appeared in the distance and very quickly made its way over to us and literally made Ayers Rock disappear… turns out strange things do happen on Halloween! This is us trying to take a photo in a sandstorm…

The bus ride out of the sandstorm was fun with us and our new Irish buddies Lisa and John singing along extra loud to Queen’s don’t stop me now, including a flashing disco light provided by Cooper.

Becky continued on the cider at Ayers Rock camp ground, which resulted in her being last to bed with a spout of never ending hiccups. She was then convinced that either John in the swag next to her had taken her flip-flop or that a dingo had come and eaten it, and was walking around her swag in circles before she finally found it in her own swag! Seems she is good at loosing things in swags, as somebody found her camera in it too! Hooray!!

Day 3

An even earlier start on day three at 4:30am to go and watch the sunrise over Ayers Rock. Hopefully this time we would have more luck! The sunrise was perfect and we got lots of awesome photos whilst eating breakfast with everyone.

The final walk of tour was ahead of us and we opted for the 6km Uluru base walk. We walked it with John and Hannah, discovering some Aboriginal cave paintings along the way and a gorge.

On the ride back to Alice Springs we stopped off at a Camel Farm for an optional camel ride and Becky made friends with a friendly bird called Charlie who loved a tickle behind the ears. A final group photo opportunity was taken at the Alice Springs sign, where Becky left camera case on the bus windscreen… I think we’ll have to glue it to her!

Arriving back at our hostels, we had a well-deserved (and needed!) shower! We then went for a final dinner and drinks with the tour to say our final goodbyes!

Starting our drive up to Darwin tomorrow, detouring at Katherine to head into Kakadu National Park. Can’t wait!!

Peace and Love,
Lyds & Bex
xxxxx