South West Australia!

Sorry for the silence... we've not had much internet access recently!

Two weeks ago we headed from Exmouth down to Bunbury(a small town a couple of hours south of Perth). Bunbury was very cute, we visited the dolphin discovery centre...twice, in the hope of seeing dolphins, unfortunately we had no luck again!! From Bunbury we hired a car from a local company, the guy we hired from was lovely and very concerned about our safety, he gave us a lovely lecture about how tiredness is the biggest killer! A sweet man really who also threw in a sat nav for free!(obviously we can't be trusted to read a map). When he turned up with the car (we had no idea what car it was as I'd never heard of the make) it was huge! and I mean huge! how do people park long cars??? The car was automatic too and we had to drop the guy back to his house and the first question Tiff asked was... "so I've never driven an automatic before what do I do?" So Tiff ended up with a quick lesson from him!
We hit the road with Cameron(the car!) and headed to Walpole, a tiny town in the southern forests. This forest is made up of giant trees, you've never seen anything like it, the trees can grow to 80-90m! Part of the forest is called the Valley of the Giants and there is a tree top walk which sways slightly in the wind! But was very cool walking among the trees. We then took a scenic drive which took us via the Giant Tingle Tree which you can walk through and Circular Pool- a very calm beautiful pool that slowly moves in a circle! We ended up at mount Frankland and climbed to the summit, the views from the top were amazing and amazingly it was the only place Tiff got any mobile signal! That evening we joined the locals down at the leisure centre for the Zumba class! lots of fun!
Next day we headed to Denmark, on the way we stopped at a few sights, our favourite being Greens pool and Elephant Rocks(check out Iggle Piggle's page to see just how beautiful these were!) Before heading to the YHA we went to Mount Lindesay, we were thinking it would be a good idea to climb to the summit until we got there and realised it was a 4hour walk and it was already 3pm, considering it gets dark around 6.30pm we changed our minds and just had a short wander up the mountain in the hope of a good lookout, unfortunately there were too many trees in the way. We decided to turn back when we saw a snake trail on the path and both got a little freaked out!
For our first full day in Denmark we hired bikes from the hostel (Tiff's brakes were definitely questionable...) and biked down to the beach and then along the coast up and down a lot of long steady climbs....it was really hot and there was loads of flies - i'm just impressed we made it back without any accidents!!! (Lizzy is impressed she survived the ordeal!). In the evening Tiff went for a run by the river and came into close encounter with a huuuuuge lizard thing...thankfully it wasn't a spider and I did manage a graceful leap just in time to avoid collision! The following day was Saturday and we decided we deserved a rest day so headed to the cheese factory, where we happily trialled the testers and then went to a winery for some samples!  Driving home, a little carefully, we settled by the river to make the most of our fresh cheese and bread from the local bakery :)  That evening, the heavens opened and were still going as we headed to church on sunday - a really cute local Baptist church, everyone was so friendly and welcoming.
Our next stop was Pemberton, the YHA turned out to be cottages with fires ready to go which was useful as the rain was still going and it was pretty chilly! We settled there for the afternoon for the rugby and Tiff discovered that there are lots of different freddos over here...exciting times!! 
So remember those tall trees we talked about earlier....well our next challenge was to climb one! The one we chose was 61m and the only way i can describe it is that it has metal spokes coming out of the tree and a kind of net which definitely would not hold if you fell (picture to follow!). With jelly legs, we made it to the top - feeling very proud of ourselves - and the view was spectacular! Coming down, required a bit more coaxing, which we supplied with cheesy singing....you'll be glad to hear we made it safely to the bottom! From here we did another scenic drive stopping along the way - this included a swinging bridge which really did swing and Tiff wasn't so fond of! Our last stop of the South West was Augusta where we went along to Cape Leuuwin - where the Southern and Indian Oceans collide (We think we could just about make it out!). Our final day we drove up the coast via some beautiful beaches and did some whale watching before heading back to Bunbury to give the car back and catch the train back to Perth.

Red Earth Safari tour, Perth to Exmouth!!

Sorry for the last week of silence, we've been very much in the middle of nowhere with no internet access or phone reception! It's been lovely!
Last Monday we started our week tour with red earth safaris. We were picked up extremely early in the morning to begin the adventure! The first day took us up to Cervantes- a very very small town on the east coast, where we had our first swim in the aussie ocean. On our way up here we stopped in Yanchep national park where we saw koalas, wallabies and explored some caves. In the evening we drove up to Nambung national park to see the Pinnacles at sunset. They were not at all what we expected, these strange pillars covered a huge expanse and looked a bit like the surface of the moon!
Tuesday was pretty cool, we went to an animal rescue centre where we held Jack the cutest joey you've ever seen! We also fed some very hungry kangaroos :) Our afternoon saw us leaving Australia and entering The Hutt River Province, here we had the pleasure of meeting Prince Leonard and Princess Shirley, and tried to understand the politics behind the loophole they'd found to create their own country!(Which in reality is just their farm!) Very excitingly we did get entry and exit stamps in our passport, stamped by the prince himself! From here we travelled to Kalbarri, stopping for a bit of whale watching on the way.
The next day was another fun early start...saw our first spider (safely in its web!) on our steep descent down into the gorge of Kalbarri National Park.  This seemed completely out of place after the reeeeaaally long roads with nothing but flat landscape around but was really worth the hike...even if some bits would have felt safer with a harness!! After this we headed to Shark Bay Heritage area where we went to Shell beach...yes completely full of shells but thankfully no sharks yet! In the evening we went on an aboriginal tour - 2 hours sitting around a toasty campfire under the light of the full moon whilst we cooked freshly caught fish directly on the hot coals (Lizzy ate it too!). Throughout the evening the guy told us about the aboriginal traditions of the area and played the didgeridoo for us....very cool!!
The Thursday was meant to involve meeting dolphins at Monkey Mia (where they normally arrive 360 days of the year)..we managed to turn up on the week they were choosing not to arrive - according to our tour guide this had only happen twice before in the time he'd been coming!! typical! Anyway, it didn't matter we headed off to the Hamelin Pool Stromatalites - weird rock things which give off o2 in beautifully clear waters. From here, we had a long long drive into the outback were we were due to stay at an old sheep station. The guy who owned the land loaded us into the back of his Ute and drove us down to his private beach in time for a swim and to watch the sunset. As we got back to the station we noticed the moon rising...it was huge with an orange glow, in fact kind of looked like the sun was rising in the night sky! We got marshmallows round the campfire that night...tasty..and survived the night with no threat from big spiders :) Was incredible waking up in the middle of nowhere!
Friday...first stop was the tropic of capricorn which we'd been camping right near to before heading to Coral bay, where the Ningaloo Reef begins. It was stunning. We spent the day enjoying the sunshine and spent plenty of time snorkelling the reef watching brightly coloured fishys and a turtle cruising around...loved it! From here we travelled to our final destination, Exmouth (that's Ex-Mouth...not Exmouth like we were saying it!!) and spent the next day snorkelling on the reef again down in Turquoise Bay where we had a close encounter with a shark! Tiff was completely unaware as it swum behind her but Lizzy, who was more scared of meeting one let it glide by without being alarmed...we did see a few turtles and some more fishys and the coral was pretty cool too!! On our way back our tour guide knew just the spot to go and see some humongous turtles as they were coming in to mate on the beach...i still can't quite get over how huge they were, we thought the ones we'd seen snorkelling were big!!

Perth

ai ai ai where to start!!!!! We can't quite believe a week has almost gone by. So here's how our week panned out so far.....
Day 1 - A little bleary eyed but very excited (tiff probably a little more hyper than lizzy!) we explored perth, tiff armed with her guide book gave a tour of the best sites, much to the amusement of other hostellers. However, this did mean that we stumbled upon the old fire station where an old man took a shine to us and let us dress up as firemen and climb aboard the old fire truck....it was a good look, oh and showed us how to use the hose - no water was pumped through it though :( 
Day 2 - Rottnest Island!!!! We took a thrilling ferry ride over to this beautiful island (Iggle piggle included...pictures on his page!) and hired bikes to ride around the island. Thankfully we went with the company offering breakdown assistance as 5k in, Lizzy had a puncture! We cycled right to the end, up and down and up and down and up and down hills (Lizzy is emphasising this bit!!)  and spotted a colony of seals having fun in the water...very cute :) On the way back Lizzy managed to have the chain fall off her bike but don't fear, we managed to fix this one without the help of breakdown! You'll also be pleased to know that we came away from the experience unharmed..well unless you count the humungous bruise on Tiff's leg which I'm pretty sure was when the bike fell on me!
Day 3 - Chilled out day in Freemantle...picniked in the park, wandered the markets, stopped by a chocolate cafe (yes that's right!) for a drink and cake. On the way home Tiff declared she was missing exercise and wanted to go for a swim (not sure what she thinks we did yesterday??? 22km bike ride not exercise???) so Tiff headed to the local pool for a dip before we had a fun evening of monopoly deal with our room mate (cup of tea and timtams in hand!!! - living it up on a friday night i tell you!!!)
That's enough for now....stay tuned for up and coming adventures :) Love Tiff and Lizzy xx

We made it!!!

So after 27 hours we have arrived in sunny perth :) there was no chance of us starving on our way here as qantas insist on feeding you every hour! the slice of pizza at 1am made us think we'd been out drinking..followed by an ice cream at 2am was all a little random! anyway we made it to our hostel and appear to be in a room of all guys who are there for the long term..the room is a tad messy but we've made ourselves at home! will write again whe we've had some sleep and done something interesting!! love and hugs tiff and lizzy x