12 - 13 August 2016 - Days 132 - 133 - Lancelin

After the boys successful morning fishing we drove to Lancelin.  On the way we passed thousands and thousands of black boys on the side of the road.

When we arrived in Lancelin we drove into the caravan park and we were the only ones in the caravan park beside the permanent residents.  It was a very weird feeling.  Later that afternoon another caravan turned up.

The caravan park was right on the beach behind the sand dunes and the boys couldn't wait to get their boogie boards out and try a bit of sandboarding.  They had a great time and were looking forward to going to the big dunes the next day.

We went for a drive around town and found a bakery and Mitch chose the biggest cookie in the world, it was bigger than his head.  Then we found the jetty.  A local told Michael that you can catch squid off the jetty so the boys came back later in the afternoon for a look but it was too windy.

That night we had a quiet night and watched more of the olympic games.

The next morning Michael and Cooper went fishing but had no luck.  Then it was off to the sand dunes.  We hired two sandboards and headed to the highest sand dune that we could fine.  The guy at the hire place told us not to put our tyre pressures down as the sand was so hard from all the rain.  We thought we should, so we lowered them a little bit.  Everything was good and the boys all had a few turns going down the dunes.  It was hard for them to start off as the sand was a bit wet.  We were about to leave and drive back to the bottom when we got bogged.  Two nice guys that were also sandboarding near us came over and helped dig us out.  They had a pair of maxtrax that were easy to get to as ours were chained to the cage on the roof.  We put the tracks under the back tyres and tried to drive out but we only got more bogged.  We all dug the car out more as the sand had come up to the engine and got our maxtrax down and put them under the front wheels.  Luckily this worked and were able to drive back down the dune.  After that we were keen to get off the sand and go to The Tavern for a well earned drink.

We stayed at The Tavern for a few hours and enjoyed the sunshine while the kids played on the sand as it was right on the beach.

Then we went back to the caravan and the kids wanted to do more sandboarding in the dunes behind the caravan park, they couldn't get enough.

That night we felt very old as a group of young people arrived with their swags and their loud music and stayed in an onsite van.  We thought they were going to keep us up all night but they weren't too bad and we managed to get some sleep.

10 - 11 August 2016 - Days 130-131 - Jurien Bay

We left at 7.00am as we had arranged to go on seal safari from Jurien Bay at 10.00am.  We arrived at the boat ramp with plenty of time to spare so we jumped into the van and had breakfast before we got onto the boat.

There was only one other person on the boat and it happened to be a 18 year old girl from Frenchs Forest who's little brother walks home from school with Michael's nephew.  It's such a small world.

We drove for a short while and Kane the owner of the boat stopped and pulled some pipe up out of the water which was an octopus trap.  He had caught 3 ocotopus but they were to small to keep so the kids got to hold them before they thru them back in.

Then it was out to the island were the seals live. There was approx. 10 seals on the beach and then Mitch spotted a seal swimming in our direction heading for the island.  We ended up seeing two seals swimming around and one came right up to the boat and swam around us.  It was great to see them in their natural environment.  We watched the seals lay on the beach for a while and then we tried fishing for squid off the boat.  We didn't have much luck so we headed back to the boat ramp.

After dropping the van off at the caravan park we drove out to the Pinnacles.  You can walk around and also drive around the Pinnacles, so we did both.  The kids enjoyed exploring and running around.

 

We then headed back to the caravan park and went for a walk out onto the jetty.  A few people were fishing for squid and told us that this is a great place to catch them.

The next day we all got up and went for a ride up the boat harbour and the kids did some excercises in the park.  It was very funny to watch.

The boys were super keen to try fishing for squid so we went and bought the proper loures and they went back to the jetty to try their luck.  They didn't catch any but a nice man that they met gave them one of his and that night we cooked salt and pepper squid and it was delicious. We have been slowly eating the fish that we have caught along the way.  That night we also cooked fish with a yummy sweet and sour sauce and rice.  We are really getting more adventurous with our fish recipes.

The boys were now hooked on the idea of catching squid so the next morning Michael and Cooper went fishing very early with their torches and caught two good sized squid.  Michael got the messy job of cleaning the squid.  Mitch and I had a little sleep in and then walked down the jetty to find a seal swimming around and dolphins jumping.  It was a nice way to start the day.

We all really loved Jurien Bay especially the squid fishing.

7 - 9 August 2016 - Days 127 - 129 - Geraldton

Before we left Kalbarri for Geraldton we all went for a ride to the Pelican Feeding and around the town.  It was starting to rain again so we went back to the van and started to pack up.  We didn't leave by the 10am checkout as we were watching the swimming on the Olympics.

We arrrived in Geraldton late in the afternoon so we dropped the van off and went for a drive into the town to have a look around.  We came across the lighthouse which is the largest steel lighthouse in Australia.  Then we headed back to the van and had a realxing night, it was very cold.

The next day the boys did some more school work and then we went to the Old Gaol where the kids completed a treasure hunt around the cells.  It was alot of fun and made the place abit more interesting for them.  Most of the cells in the goal have been rented out to different people who run a craft or hobby shop from.  Michael started talking to one store holder who had been in the gaol for over 25 years and he told him lots of interesting stories about the place.

Then we visited the HMAS Sydney Memorial.  It had a very impressive structure in the middle with the roof being made up of birds that represented the number of people who lost their lives on the ship.

We then drove down to the foreshore and the kids wanted to have a play on the equipement.  It is by far the best set up that we have seen.  They have electronic games, foosball tables, ping pong tables, climbing frames and a rage gage.  You can hire all types of ball from the information centre for $5 deposit and you can play cricket, basketball, netball and soccer in the rage gage.  We couldn't help ourselves so we had a game of soccer and basketball game.  It was alot of fun.

The next day we visited the WA Museum and did some shopping.  The kids had great fun jumping on the jumping pillow with other kids staying in the park.

5 - 6 August 2016 - Days 125 - 126 - Kalbarri

On the way to Kalbarri we passed lots of fields of yellow wild flowers which were pretty.

We arrived in Kalbarri and dropped the caravan off and went straight to the skate park before the school bell rang so the boys could have it all to themselves.  Kalbarri has the 2nd biggest skate bowl in WA.  The boys were very impressed, it was pretty big.

Then we drove out to Jack's Point to have a look at the surf and it looked really good.  Then we noticed that there was a pod of dolphins catching waves in next to the surfers.  So we stayed for a while and watched them.

Michael went into the butchers to get something for dinnner and came out with chilli kangaroo sausages.  He had to stand out in the rain and cook them on the BBQ, but he didn't mind.  They were really nice but a little spicy.

The next day Cooper and I had a lazy morning and stayed around the van while Michael and Mitch  rode their bikes to the pelican feeding down on the beach front.

We then drove out to the National Park and went to Nature's Window which is a rock formation that looks like a window.  It frames the river below and is a lovely view.  It started to rain so we decided not to do the few kilometer walk that we had planned to do and we went to the Rainbow Jungle Bird Park.

The bird park was by far the best bird park we have ever been to.  The enclosures were all impressive  especially the massive walk thru one.  They had heaps of different types of birds including these colourful Macaws.

We went back to the caravan and finished off some school work before we had dinner and watch some more of the olympic games.

Kalbarri was a really nice little town.

3 - 4 August 2016 - Days 123 - 124 - Denham/Monkey Mia

We set off at 8am and couldn't help ourselves and we drove back into Coral Bay and went to the Bakery for a sneaky pie and a cake.  It was delicious!!

Quobba was our next stop and we had planned on staying at Quobba Station on the coast but as the wind was still howling we stopped off at the blowholes and watched the show.  It was very impressive. Then we decided that we would just keep driving until Michael had had enough.

On the way into Denham we stopped to look at Hamelin Pool which has stromatolites and is one of only a few sites in the world that have them.  It was the eeriest place we have been too as there was no one else around and it was dead silent and still on the water.

It got to 5pm and we were on the road into Denham but wouldn't arrive before any caravan parks  closed so we decided to find a nice spot on the side of the road.  Some days you can drive and you will pass 10 free camps in a short space of time and then you drive for hours and see none.  Well this happened to us so we just kept driving and then we saw a picture opportunity bay on the side of the road overlooking a lovely bay in the National Park so we pulled in.  By this time the sun was going down so we had a quick walk out to the point and a quick drink and then all hopped into bed and watched a DVD.

It had been a big day in the car.

The next morning we got up and left at 6.30am to drive into Monkey Mia to be there for the first dolphin feeding at 7.45am.  We made it with a little bit of time to spare.  It was the biggest crowd that they had had for a long time with 216 people in the crowd and 5 dolphins turned up for the feeding.  The Ranger was explaining how not everyone can be picked to feed the dolphins and only 10 people would be.  It was the boys lucky day and they got picked.  You can't touch the dolphins anymore so to be able to feed one was great.

We then drove back into Denham and dropped the caravan off at the caravan park and drove to Cape Peron.  It was a 4x4 track and very sandy in places.  The view from Skipjack Point into Shark Bay was impressive.  You could see manta ray's, turtles and shovelhead sharks everywhere.  We could have stayed there for hours and just watched the water below.

It was back to the caravan to cook sheppard's pie for dinner and the kids jumped on the jumping pillow.