Our trip to Ningaloo part 5

We leave Carnarvon sharpish in the morning. There's nothing to see. We're back on the road.

We visit Shell beach (no sand, just millions and millions of shells).

We have a picnic lunch in Denham and share an easter egg. We go shark spotting at Shark Bay. We don't see any sharks but with the binoculars we spot a dugong!

We drive carefully so as not to hit any big eared, long tailed animals that we don't know the name of.

We make it to Kalbarri for our last camping night before heading back to Perth. It's Anzac Day eve and Kalbarri is rammed. We head out for some food and are unsuccessful. It's 8pm and the restaurants have closed their kitchens (yup, it might be Easter weekend but things still shut early). We manage to buy a bottle of wine and head back to the campsite where we cook up a feast of supernoodles.

crazy weather

So Tonica joined us for 3 weeks in WA and I think they've had the biggest mix of weather conditions ever. It was baking hot for their first couple of days, reaching up to 40 degrees and some hot nights when we had to put the air conditioning on. Down south they said it was positively mild, only mid-teens and then back to Perth, we've had rain, lots of overcast days, it's been humid and many, many clouds. Now the weather seems to have evened out into proper perth weather - clear blue sky, no clouds and sun, which is perfect for my dad as he's happiest when it's sun, sun, sun.

At the weekend we went up to Trigg beach. the water's quite rough here, there's lots of rocks and parts of it are off limits for the swimmer but the ocean was full of surfers waiting on their boards for the perfect wave.

rotto

At the weekend we went to the marvellous Rottnest Island. Rotto is a small island just off the coast from perth. It takes about 25 mins on the boat from Freo so we got up early with the bikes and a picnic and set off for a day of activity with Tonica. Rotto is great for cycling because no cars are allowed and it means you can explore the whole island (it would take too long to walk it all and it wouldn't be much of an adventure going around on the island bus!) The weather was quite overcast but still lovely and warm and we spent the day cycling around the island, snorkelling, swimming and spotting wildlife. The quokkas are common as, so it was minus points for spotting them. Yes, they are basically oversized rats, which is where the name for the island comes from (Rats Nest Island).

but plenty of points for spotting dolphins (check), whales (check), birds of prey (osprey in this case) (check) and a manta ray! woo hoo. This is me spotting the whale at the far end of the island. It was very grey, misty, windy and drizzly out on the point.

And look at these two crazy cats.

kangaroos!

at the weekend we took Tonica out to the Perth Hills. The Perth Hills are the Darling Range just on the outskirts of the city. We've been cycling up in John Forrest National Park before and we thought we'd take the folks out for some bushwalking. Unfortunately our walk was cut short due to a bushfire earlier in the week and we could still see one part smoldering. But we got to check out the amazing views, lots of Xanthorrhoea (commonly known as grass trees or blackboys), saw some parrots and kookaburras (no pix - by the time i'd changed lenses on the camera, they'd flown away, their laugh echoing in my ears) and saw some roos close up! Perfect for the visitors.

things i found in the garden

i was v. lazy today and didn't really leave the house (except to return to ikea to collect my phone which i'd lost and they found - yay!). I mostly enjoying lying in the hammock reading, and i kept hearing this noise which was ridiculously loud. It was obviously an insect. it sounded like a cricket or something so i kinda went to investigate. Turns out (i think) it's a cicada. The first photo shows the shell it leaves behind (there were about 4 or 5 on the wall) and the second photo is of the noisy little critter. Like, seriously, you would not believe how loud they are. I got used to the noise but then when there was lull i really appreciated the quiet. On my search for the cicadas I thought i'd take a picture of our mulberry tree! how cool is that. Mulberries can be used like other berries apparently so i'm thinking i should pick some and make a pie! I also saw a cute little lizard. I don't think you can gauge from the photo how small he was but he was only about as long as a finger. V. sweet. And that's our garden for today.