Western Australia - Perth to Shark Bay

We left Siem Reap headed for Perth via the Bangkok airport. Time number 5 in BKK this trip! Because we booked on two separate airlines, we had to clear customs and wait outside security for 8 hours before we could check in. To save some money, we passed the time in a quiet corner watching breaking bad on my ipad rather than venturing back in to the city.

By some miracle we each got 4 seats to ourselves as we asked at the last second and two rows had opened up! Almost made up for the fact that we had to throw away our waters at the gate! Australia and their interesting rules...

Mo's friends Erica and Scott were nice enough to have us stay with them even though they'd just moved to Perth less than 2 months ago! We went for coffee and banana bread shortly after arriving at their flat. We took the train to Fremantle for lunch (we had Mexican) and to little creatures for some drinks. I had little creatures bright ale and white rabbit white ale, both very tasty.

Here's Mo with Erica, Scott, and Elizabeth 

The next morning we joined our tour from Perth to Broome. Erica and Elizabeth drove us to the jetty for our 7.15 departure.

Our group is 10 people and the odd thing is that most everyone is a solo traveller! Just one married couple and Mo and I knew each other beforehand.

Our guide/driver/cook, Kimbo, is pretty hilarious. One of the first things she told us was that there is this black sash with a silver bit at the end that we must wear...it's the bus bling! Our bus (not called a truck this time!) is airconditioned too! Talk about luxury. Seatbelts and aircon...two more things than some of our africa trucks had!

The first day we had a little while to drive. First we stopped at the Pinnacles desert.

Then we drove a bit further and went sand boarding at Sandy Cape. To my delight it was the sit down variety rather than the snow board, strap yourself to the board and throw yourself down a hill variety!

This hill was STEEP. 

We then made our way to our hostel in Horrocks, but it was more like a big house we had to ourselves. It was right on the beach! 

The next morning, departure was at 5.30, meaning we got up at 4.30! Ouch. But, it was for a good purpose. It gets HOT in Australia and we were doing a gorge hike in Kalbarri and we wanted to make sure it was in the less hot morning weather. Six of us also did some abseiling. This is another item on my 30 before 30, so I definitely had to do it. 

No, this isn't someone who had fallen, that's Kimbo waiting at the bottom (she was the safety who would pull the rope tight if someone was falling too fast or out of control).

Here's me. Everyone found out my nervous noises. Apparently when I'm nervous I breathe slightly out of control and do horse impressions! Oh well! I did it! Twice.

Here's Mo, jumping very far off the rock.

After abseiling, we hiked down farther into the gorge, back up to a lookout point and to 'nature's window'.

After another long drive we arrived at our stopping point for the night in Shark Bay. We headed to the most westerly pub in Australia for the sunset and had an Australian barbecue for dinner with steaks and sausage! Very delicious.