Oct 2007

Spent the last week or so in the Perth area. I decided to stay in the swan valley about 20km from Perth, so that I could camp rather than stay in a hostel. The swan valley is a big wine producing area, so the campsite is surrounded by vinyards which all do a lot of free tasting, so I've been taking advantage of that. As I haven't been to a vinyard before, I decided to do a wine tasting tour which was good fun. Went to 5 different vinyards and tasted a few different red and white wines at each one, suprising how different they acually taste, even from just a small area. Although towards the end of the tour after all those wines, a brewery, lunch with champagne, cheese, chocolate and nougart tasting, I wasn't so bothered about the different flavours anymore.

I've spent a couple of days in the centre of Perth, looking round the city and seen a few of sights. Seems a really nice place, not too big, very clean and easy to get around. Also spent a day in Freemantle, an area to the south of Perth a bit further down the coast. Had an interesting tour of the prison, which was originally where convicts were sent, so learnt a bit more about the history. The prison didn't actually close until 1990, so it was shocking to see the conditions that people were kept in that recently.

Had a day walking in the Perth hills. A lot of the places around here are named after places in Bucks like High Wycombe, and from where I went walking you could see why. Really reminded me of the countryside around there, except there were loads of kangeroos around.

Yesterday I went to Rottnest island, about an hour off the caost from Perth. It's a really nice little island where there are no cars so hired a bike for the day and cycled round it, stopping off a few times to go snorkelling. Theres a coral reef about 100m off the shore so there was amazing snorkelling there, hundereds of fish, different types of coral and even saw a dolphin.

Flying over to Melbourne tomorrow and spending a couple of weeks around that part of the country.

Haven't had chance to write anything for a while as I've been camping instead of staying in hostels, so its been more difficult to get online. But, I'm still travelling down the west coast of Australia, should be in Perth in a few days time.

From Broome I travelled south and inland a bit to the Karajini national park. Stayed at a good bush campsite here and had a nice walk along a river gorge. This was perfect as whenever it got too hot there were good places to go for a swim, so probably spent as much time in the water as walking.

From there I went back to the coast to stay at Exmouth. this is a nice little town where I spent a few days. Had very nice beaches with a coral reef not far from the shore, so just swimming from the beach you could see loads of fish. From the beach you could also see humpback whales swimming down the coast. The highlight of my stay here was a trip out on a glass bottomed boat over the coral reef. On the way to the reef a pair of whales swam right past the bat, and the water was only a few meters deep so you could see them really clearly. Went snorkelling at the reef, and his was amazing as i'd never done anything like that before. Saw loads of different types of coral and an incredible variety of fish. SO after that I went and brought a mask and snorkel and have been using it a lot.

After Exmouth I have just been continuing down the coast stopping at Coral Bay, Carnarvon, Denham and Kalbarri and basically spending a lot of time at the beach. While in Denham I went on a day trip to the Francois Peron National Park, this was really good, a very scenic and unspoilt part of the coast where they are trying to reintroduce endangered native Australian species. Most of them are nocturnal so didn't actually see any, but from one point on the coast I did see sharks, dolphins, turtles, sea snakes and huge rays.

Now I am in Geraldton, still enjoying the coast and beaches. I've never really had a beach holidy before so I guess this has been a good place to do it.

From Darwin my plan now is to head down the west coast of Australia to Perth in anout 4 weeks. I spent the first few days up in the north end in Kakadu national park, a huge area of wetland forest, which at the moment isn't actually that wet as its coming to the end of the dry season. But this was actually an advantage as it meant a lot more of the area was accesable. One of the main sights are two huge water falls, Jim Jim Falls and Twin Falls, in the wet season the only way to see them is by plane but at this time of year it is possible top get to them by a combination of 4 wheel drive tracks, a boat and walking. I had a really nice day on a tour to both of these sights. The drive to tein falls was quite exciting, at one point we had to drive through a river that was nearly 1m deep. This meant there were very few people that could actually get to the place, so it was a nice quiet secluded area. Had a very nice beach at the bottom of the falls but there is a risk of crocodiles there so couldn't get too close to the water. Both of the waterfalls there were still flowing, but Jim Jim falls was little more than a drip, but at the end of a very hot walk (it gets to around 40'C in the day) to reach it, the pool at the bottom made for a very refreshing swim.

I also went on a guided walk and found out a lot about how the indigenous people used the plants and animals to survive. I thought I wouldn't be eating any more strange food after leaving China, but I did end up trying green ants and I have to say they were suprisingly good, taste of citrus fruit, so i'd recommend them. Went on another walk to see some ancient rock art, which was impressive considering how old it is. Also went on a boat trip along one of the main rivers in the park, and finally got to see some crocodiles, whch are meant to be everywhere. From the boat you could actually get quite close up to them, some were up to 4m long. Other than that I spent alot of time at the campsite swimming pool as during the day its too hot to do anything much, everything here is done very early in the morning or at sunset.

From Kakadu it was a couople of long days travelling to reach Broome on the west coast. Arrived here yesterday afternoon, its a nice little town, the biggest place I've been to for a few weeks. It was originally established based on the pearl trade but now the main attraction is the beaches so I've been making good use of them. Leaving tomorrow to head further south.