Wednesday 30 November 2011

Introduction

Australia's sparsly developed western coast line boasts a vast array of stunning natural beauty, presenting itself as a place studded with 'must-see' gems.

On the Western Xposure Perth-Exmouth tour we covered the Pinicles Desert, Kalbari National Park, Monkey Mia, Shell Beach, The Stromatolites, The Tropic of Capricorn, Coral Bay, Exmouth, Northbrook Farm, a Wildlife Sanctuary Park, the Hutt River Province and Perth.


Below you can find a daily break down of the tour complete with photographs (hopefully a useful tool for inspiring and assisting in creating your own travel plan).  


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Day one

Fisrt stop; the Pinicles desert. We stayed here for around forty five minutes, which was about right to walk to a few view points, take a few pictures and leave before a sense of boredom had chance to creep up and sabotage the initial intrigue aroused by the curious verticle rocks standing errect across the sandy plain.  




From the desert we continued up the coast, and upon finding an unpoilt white sandy beach surrounded by sand dunes engaged in a spot of sand boarding.


We piled back into the van after this and spent the rest of the afternoon on the road, making it to our destination hostel just outside of Kalbari National park in time to cook a bbq and spend the evening having a few drinks together.

Thursday 15 September 2011

Day Two

In the name of keeping good time and avoiding the mid day heat whilst hiking through the gorge, we left the hostel at an ungodly hour of the morning and drove into Kalbari National Park. (Travel sick pills advised; the dirt track roads spare no forgiveness on the vans' suspension). Expect several miles of the following view:



Somehow from the midst of pelting down the road full speed ahead, our tour guide managed to spot, capture, and then handle one of Australia's more aesthetically interesting inhabitants, the 'thorny devil':



If that wasn't enough excitement for 7am, we then hiked into the parks main gorge with the option to abseil on route.


I can assure readers I did not look so happy in the minutes proceeding this picture!

View of the gorge in Kalbari National Park
We followed this up by hiking to the parks most famous spot, aptly named 'Natures Window':

With Kalbari ticked off the list we spent the rest of the day in the van driving up to Monkey Mia.


The Beach at Monkey Mia

We arrived at our beach front hostel there in time for a sunset swim, had a bbq and then, armed with torches, we completed a night walk on the beach, during which we saw baby sharks swimming in the water, a moon rise and the sky at the starriest I have personally ever seen it.