Finally somewhere with internet!

Well I have managed to find a place to use the internet, haven't got too long though as the money is running out and it's pretty expensive!

So we've been up to quite a lot since you last heard from me and are now in a town called Streaky Bay which is in South Australia and about 500km West of Adelaide. James is out on the jetty fishing at the moment so I'm hoping he'll make a catch for lunch!

Well, where do I start...

As you know, we left Mandurah last Monday (7th April) and drove down to Margaret River and it chucked it down all day - this was not a good start to our trip and I really didn't enjoy sorting the car out to sleep in with all the rain and attempting not to get our beds wet or dirty (every night we have to move everything from the back to the front so we can get to our bed) so all in all, that was a pretty uneventful day! Tuesday was so much more fun as the sunshine woke us up! We headed down to the surf competition and watched the surfers for a few hours, pretty impressive stuff but after a while they all just become coloured dots in the waves so we went and had a round of Supa Golf, I obviously hadn't got any better since the last time we played and actually scored worse! I must have had beginners luck before! As we were in the area, we couldn't resist a little look in at the chocolate factory AGAIN to sample some of the yummy chocolate drops! We met up with one of James' friends that evening in Dunsborough and went for a few drinks, they reminisced (don't think that is spelt right!?) about the good old days in the tree surgeon world (they worked together in England) while I tried to keep up with names and things I'd never heard of! We crashed at his house that night which was really cool and him and his girlfriend had the cutest dog ever which I just fell in love with!

So, Wednesday we had a drive to Cape Naturaliste to check out a seal colony and some nice beaches then grabbed lunch at Goana Cafe, really yummy! We popped into another winery afterwards where we got the biggest tasters ever, I swear I'd nearly had a whole glass by the time we left (doesn't happen usually). From there we headed further South and found a lovely camp spot in the forest.

Thursday we visited the Jewel Cave which although was a bit pricey, was really impressive, massive chambers and some beautiful stalagmites and stalagtites. From there we drove to a little town called Pemberton which is inland and houses the Bicentennial Tree. This is a 75m tall tree which has metal spikes coming off it enabling crazy people to climb to the top of it, well that was James - I obviously had to stay at the bottom to take the photos otherwise I would have been up there in a flash... Not! He was just a small dot once at the top and I must say I was quite impressed when he was there but slightly more anxious on his way down! Anyway, he made it down safely and I rewarded him with a trip to Jarrah Jacks brewery where he sampled 6 different beers, it's a hard life!

On Friday we spent most of the day driving and parked for the night at a random camp bay off the main road ready to hit Esperance the next day. Esperance was stunning, probably the prettiest place so far. We did the Ocean Road drive and came across some stunning white sand beaches with torquise waters and couldn't help but stop every time. James managed to catch his first wave on his new surf board so he was a happy chappy. Just after Esperance town was Cape Le Grand National Park where we camped for the night.

Sunday morning we explored the park and climbed to the top of Frenchmans Peak, a 1.5 km steep climb not for the faint hearted! I was gasping by the time we got to the top but that was all forgotten when we saw the view, I tried to take a good photo but those kind of things can only be appreciated when you're there I think. We went for a dip afterwards in Hellfire Bay which was a beautiful beach cove, a good reward for our climbing efforts.

That night we hit the boredom. Australia's longest straightest road at 146km and we parked up halfway across that before entering the Nullarbor (Aboriginal for 'no trees') desert the next day. This was a loooong drive across some very boring vegetation but I'll have to tell you all about that next time I'm online as my time is running out (it's on 1 minute!). Be good and hopefully I'll be on here very soon!:)