12000km, from Sydney to Perth, via some amazing places such as the Great Barrier Reef, the Daintree Rainforest, Kakadu, Nimulik (Katherine Gorge), Litchfield National Park, the Kimberleys, Broome, the Coral Coast of Western Australia, and the Pinnacles.

… And now we’re back! We’re feeling a huge mixture of feelings – happiness and relief at making it back to our wonderful home, sadness and nostalgia about the fact that we’ll never do something like that as a family for that length of time ever again in our lives. The entire trip was nothing short of completely incredible and we will remember it for the rest of our lives.

Yesterday was the last day of the trip. We woke up in Perth and spent the morning doing some final packing up, but mostly we attempted to make the Winnebago look as presentable as possible (no easy feat after 8 weeks of containing the Lo Russo’s). We dumped the dud $20 skateboard we picked up in Byron Bay, and the broken fishing rods that we only got out once, at Eighty Mile Beach. We packed our boab nuts we took from the boab tree’s in the Kimberley, the shell and coral collection we steadily built up over the entire holiday, the 2 real skateboards and Eliza’s scooter we acquired in various places on the East coast, the sarongs the girls bought in Port Douglas, etc., etc., etc. All in all we filled up an entire large bag (it’s actually the largest we have, and we had too buy that on the trip as well) with new stuff we have collected around the country.

Just before midday we got into Old Man Winnie for the final time. I discovered another broken cupboard (no surprises there) right before Dad briefed us to stay silent and out of the way while he talked to the rental company, so we could try to limit how much they would try to blame us as damaged.

We pulled in to Around Australia Motorhomes, and got out of Winnie for the last time. The others said their heartbreaking goodbyes (Lilli even kissed the thing), but Dad and I were just happy to get away from it. The keys were handed over, and Mum and Dad went into the office to work everything out with the company.

And what do you know? Turns out that we actually took remarkably good care of the motorhome and mum and dad got the full bond back. Apparently, just in the past month alone there have been several cases of people ripping the entire air conditioning system from the roof by driving into tree branches, and one case where the roof was entirely torn off. So we were pretty happy with ourselves.

We had to catch 2 taxis to the airport. Usually we get a Maxi Taxi, but we had at least 14 bags, 7 of which we had to check in before boarding. 5 people and 14 bags won’t fit in a Maxi Taxi, so we split up and met back at the airport. Dad and I scored a pretty funny driver, who decided to have a rant about Qantas and daylight savings time, and how confusing it all was.

We arrived at the airport 3 and a half hours before our flight, so we decided to make use of Mum’s frequent flyer status and mooch off the Qantas Club. We used the free internet, ate the free food, and read the free magazines until our flight was called. Everyone except me had a rather pleasant experience – I was cramming some maths homework in. I have a long week and a half ahead of me; I have to somehow fit in a terms worth of work into the rest of the school holidays.

Eventually it was time to get onto Flight 566 back to Sydney. By now we were pumped, all the more so when we saw that there were the mini TV’s on the back of the chairs for in-flight entertainment. We got out the movie guide magazine, and planned out what flicks we would watch over the 4 hour flight back home. That excitement went pretty quickly when we took off, and realised that basically everyone around us was watching his or her movie of choice while we stared at a blank screen. Eventually the system had to reboot 3 times before it finally worked, and by now the flight was halfway across the country.

We had a bumpy touchdown into Sydney, and once again we were almost the last ones off. We didn’t care – we were home! Everyone went to the airport toilet, which was a bit of a relay process, with someone always waiting with all the carry-on baggage. By the time we got to the baggage carousels to pick up our 7 big bags of luggage we were the last people there, and even though there was a massive crowd and heaps of bags to pick up, somehow we did it fairly quickly (thanks again to Mum’s frequent flyer status).

We ordered a huge taxi that was practically a mini-bus to get us all back to Curl Curl. We were all overjoyed at getting home, and the first thing we did was race out and give our dog Bingo a great big cuddle and our rabbit Roxy a pat.

Not sure why the girls immediately put on their boots as they ran around the house rediscovering their toys and Eliza excitedly opened her birthday presents from Grandma that was left waiting, but they did.

Got to love our Grandma.  Not only were our animals in good condition (they are at least twice the size they were when we left), the whole house was shining and the fridge full of food with beautiful flowers on entrance.  The house is in FAR BETTER condition than when we left which we know would have been quite a challenge with all that red dust and everything.

Anyhow – this really is the final sign off from me.  I think mum wants to post some helpful guide on the locations, caravan parks and petrol or something in case anyone else wants to do a similar journey. Whatever.

On behalf of the family I want to thank everyone who supported and encouraged us while we were away.  We loved the comments and it made the whole trip feel even more wonderful because of the love of our family and friends.

Nah, all sarcasm aside, we will cherish the memories we have made this holiday. It has truly been the time of our lives, and we have learnt so much about each other, and even about ourselves to a degree. With this family we discovered it is always someone else’s fault.

Today we packed up the entire motorhome, from head to toe.  The cupboards are now bare, the floor is for once not completely covered with sand, and Mum has forbidden any of us from entering the bathroom. I can’t remember why, but we trust the judgment of the Mothership. She powered through the cleaning today – our Winnebago has lost so much weight he would put Magda Szubankski to shame.

The day was only bearable (well the girls loved it – they played on the climbing equipment all day while I did my homework) because we had such an awesome thing to look forward to in the evening. We were going out to dinner at Perth’s famous ‘C’ Restaurant, a revolving room high up on the33rd floor of a gigantic skyscraper. We got dressed up all fancy like, wearing our best clothes. I wore my brand new shirt and my jeans, which have had a bit of a rough week. I have successfully worn those jeans for an entire week straight, sleeping in them too, only taking them off to shower. I shall take them off only when we arrive home.

We caught a bus into town, but we were a bit early so we killed some time by checking out some of the sculptures in the city. These included some giant kangaroos that we climbed on.

Eventually it was time to go to dinner, so we walked to the building where the restaurant is on top of and got into an elevator for the looong ride up. When the doors open we collectively gasped. Well, at least we kids did.

None of us kids had ever seen anything so fancy, and the view was absolutely awesome. We were seated at a window table, and we made a note of what we could see. An hour and a half later we had turned full circle, taking in the entire cityscape and the massive Swan River, but in between we had some beautiful meals, plus a lot of fine dining etiquette lessons from Mum and Dad. No eating with your fingers, slow down (Lilli mostly), use this knife and this fork for this and that, take small bites, slow down Lilli, etc. We got some amazing deserts as well, or at least the others did. I ordered a soufflé just to be fancy, but apparently it wasn’t a very good one.

We savored the moment of our last night of the holiday, and recorded some messages on the video camera (trust Mum to whip it out whenever she can). Then it was time to leave, but we pretended to look for the toilets so that we could go around the whole circle without waiting another hour and a half.

We caught a bus home and navigated around the assortment of bags that are everywhere (as if the space wasn’t small enough) to get to our beds. We are all having mixed feelings about tomorrow – which also means only one more post from me.

So once again we were in a mad rush, making brekkie, eating, getting dressed, and brushing teeth, trying to get out in time for our bus. We made it with less than a minute to spare. Or so we thought. Turns out Dad read the timetable wrong.

We rang a taxi up instead, and it appeared surprisingly fast. The driver was an old man, and from the second we were in he was telling us how great his cab company was. He was definitely trying to brainwash us. I wouldn’t put it past him after hearing what he had to say next.

Completely out of the blue, he started ranting about December 2012 and how the world was going to end and everyone will perish. I love conspiracy theories, and I had heard this one before, so I mentioned the Mayan calendar and how it finishes at December 2012 (which is true, and where most of the nutcases get their apocalypse ideas from). That just set him off; he went on about how everyone will die, and then said that he’s 78, and his time is nearly up anyway, so he is very excited about it. This was right in front of us young people with our whole lives ahead of us. Freaky bastard.

We got out of that cab as soon as we arrived in Fremantle. It’s a very cool place, a mixture of old heritage buildings and modern architectural masterpieces. We went down to the waterfront first and had a look at all the places on the wharf. There were some very cool restaurants, but the best one by far was Little Creatures. An ale brewery, a restaurant, a café, a souvenirs shop, and a club, all rolled into one… we marked it down as the place to return to for lunch.

We then headed out to the main part of town, where there is a lot of awesome shops and cafes (there’s a street called the Cappuccino Strip), and some pretty cool markets. We went to a little chocolatier café and got some absolutely beautiful drinks (hot chocolate for Lilli, iced coffee for me, iced chocolate for Eliza). Then we had a bit more of a snoop around town before walking back to the waterfront.

We went back to the Little Creatures Brewery for lunch, and we understood how it can afford to be so big. There was an amazing number of people eating and drinking, and almost every table was full. Luckily we managed to get a table (but only on the second floor – but still looking over the harbour).

The food was the best we’ve had since we left home and it came out quickly despite the huge number of customers.  We were in the coolest restaurant ever. There were huge drums of beer all around, with pipes and tubes running all over the place. Unfortunately it was a Sunday, so it wasn’t functioning, but it would be awesome to see it all in motion. No matter, there definitely was enough beer to go around, and Mum and Dad both got a Little Creatures Pale Ale, which all of us but the girls loved.

After the best lunch ever we went to another playground and had another play on some more equipment. If you didn’t know better you’d think we are going on a national playground evaluation tour…

Dad and I tried and tried to find a pub with the Rugby League Grand Final on, but not one place had it. Sadly we missed out on watching it. Instead we were glued to the live score updates on Dads iPhone. Damn you Melbourne!

We caught a train to Perth’s famous Clottesloe Beach. The weather suddenly turned horrible, with huge cold winds whirling around everywhere. It was not the best beach weather, but it was good enough for a fair few Western Australians. Then again, I don’t know if they would be able to tell the difference. They do have signs that say ‘Warning: Water’ at a beach. Gosh, not sure who needs a sign to tell them there is water at a beach.

We got out of there pretty quickly and caught another train back to Perth city, where we caught a bus back to our caravan park.

Tomorrow is our last full day, and as if we weren’t despairing already, we also have to clean and unpack the entire motorhome so we can return it the next day.

Mum, it’s your time to shine…

The reason we had to get up so early was so we could catch a transfer bus to Perth harbour, where we would get on a ferry to Rottnest Island. Too bad that bus never came. There we were, practically asleep, waiting in the cold out the front of reception for over 40 minutes. The company wouldn’t answer our phone calls, but they did get our desperate email, and finally sent us a taxi. They said they would compensate whatever the cost was, so Dad let the driver keep the change in return for a larger receipt.

We got some light brekkie (banana bread, muffins) at the jetty before boarding the Rottnest Express. We were all pumped for the day ahead; we’d be hiring bikes and riding around the entire island. Or so we thought.

Once we got off the boat (to Mum, Eliza and my relief – we definitely aren’t sailor material) we headed straight to the bike rental place to beat the crowds – apart from walking and a very expensive bus, bike riding is the only way around the island. Hence the bike rental place gets HUGE numbers, and even though we thought we got there pretty early, there was still a pretty big line.

Nevertheless, we waited not-quite-patiently for our turn, and it eventually arrived. We rented 4 bikes and one tow-along carriage for Eliza. None of us were game enough to deal with her whinging, and it turns out the hills would be way too hard for her anyway.

As we were only day tripping, we had to return the bikes by 3.30, but by the time we actually got them it was about 11. To do the entire circuit of Rottnest Island it was 23km, which takes 3-5 hours. For us it would definitely take 6, so we went the medium circuit instead. This one covered over half the island, and it was the nice half (well, that’s what we’re telling ourselves).

So off we went! And what do you know, within 30 metres of the bike rental place, we spotted our first quokkas. Kind of like a cross between a wallaby and a rat, and native to Rottnest Island (that’s actually how the island got its name – the explorer who discovered it mistook the quokkas for giant rats, and named the island Rattnest, which eventually morphed into its current form). We had really wanted to see the quokkas. We had originally despaired when we learned they’re nocturnal, but I guess it must be New Years Eve in quokka land – they were all up and about today.

We had a good look at the quokkas before setting off on our bikes properly. Me in front, scouting out the area up ahead, with Mum behind,  then poor Dad dragging Eliza, and then Lilli, who was a bit wobbly at first. We made it about 500m metres before she stacked, but after that she was great.

Rottnest Island is an absolutely beautiful place, and to cycle around it is the perfect way to see it. There were some mega hills, but it was well worth the strain. There was nothing better than zipping down these massive slopes, with mountains and lakes to one side of you, and beaches and the clear aqua sea water and reefs on the other.

It was also the best day we could have asked for, with it being sunny and clear, but with a nice breeze. It wasn’t hot at all, thank goodness, because if it was we literally would have roasted.

We rode for just over 3 hours, seeing some amazing sights, plus some great wildlife – ospreys, blue tongue lizards, a wide range of birdlife and more quokkas.

Riding around the island and seeing what we saw on the way was quite possibly one of the coolest things I’ve ever done.  We all agreed it would be a great place for a holiday – there is just so much to do (swimming, fishing, snorkeling, riding, walking, exploring).

We got some lunch before going for another little bike ride around a different part of the island, this one being a lot more flat (it was the easy circuit), which I’m sure the others appreciated. Once we completed that circuit we returned the bikes, got an ice cream, and played on the playground until it was time to get back on the boat to go home.

We arrived in Perth an hour and a half later, and this time we were able to catch the courtesy bus home. After chatting with the extremely talkative bus driver (who must have been separated at birth from my geography teacher) all the way, we arrived at our caravan park and had some 2 minute noodles for dinner.

Tomorrow we are going to look around Fremantle, and hopefully get into a pub for lunch so that we can catch the NRL Grand Final. C’mon Parra!!

We caught a bus into town this morning (little did we know that throughout the day we would catch no less than 4 more). We had a cursory look around the main shopping streets before walking down to the waterfront. We had lunch with the Swan River in front of us and the Wheel of Perth behind, with the Perth Bell Tower off to the side. Apparently it’s the world’s largest musical instrument, but it may as well have been the world’s largest mosquito. It was that annoying. Every five minutes it would play an out of tune jingle. After the first 10 minutes it got old.

After a horrible lunch (Dad’s chicken was so undercooked it was pink) we begged Mum and Dad for a ride on the Wheel of Perth. They gave in, and with Mum’s haggling skills we managed to save $15. We hopped into our little compartment, and this is where we learnt of Lilli’s newest ailment – Ferriswheelaphobia. She was scared out her skin, and whenever anyone moved in the slightest she would nearly scream. It was pretty funny, especially when I got “scared”. You see, when I get scared I tend to rock up and down violently, which doesn’t pair well with a ferris wheel compartment and an extremely anxious 9 year old.

Once our ride finished we decided to check out the Kings Park gardens that our parents had heard so much about. We got on one of the free buses (the one we caught in the morning was a paid one), which are called ‘Cats’. There’s 3 different lines for these free buses; Blue Cats, Red Cats, and Yellow Cats. We hopped on a Blue Cat and squashed up against the other 500 people in the single compartment bus. These Perth dwellers sure know how to make use of a free service…

Turns out that the Blue Cat doesn’t actually go anywhere near Kings Park. So while we got some more sightseeing in, we ended up back at the shopping streets where we started this morning. Undeterred, we tried again, this time jumping on a Red Cat, but this time we actually made sure we knew where it was going beforehand.

Eventually we made it to Kings Park. It was very nice, with beautiful plants and wide grassy spaces. In some areas it was like the Botanic Gardens, while in others it was genuine Aussie bushland. Unfortunately it seemed like it had a total of 3 signs in the entire 4 hectares. So we wandered about for ages, trekking through some bush tracks (seeing some beautiful parrots, and a magpie catching a big fat witchety grub) until we finally found the playground. Mum and Dad got coffees and we all had some ice cream before relaxing and playing on the equipment.

After that we left Kings Park and caught another Red Cat back into town. This time we went shopping properly, looking in some great shops and picking up a bag that’s big enough to take our fishing rods, skateboards, and whatever else back home on the plane.

We got some Bento boxes for dinner before walking back through the city and catching our final bus back to our caravan park and the welcoming 2 x 3metre squares of Winnie.

New Norcia consists of 64 buildings, and 30 of these are Heritage listed. It’s a monastic town, which means that everything in the town is owned by the monks (including 20,000 hectares of surrounding land). But these aren’t your average Friar Tucks – these monks ride motorbikes, surf the net, farm and drink 6 glasses a day of their preferred alchoholic beverage.

But don’t get the wrong idea, these monks are just as devout as anyone in the world. They follow the rules of their order, which means that they have to be entirely self-sufficient. They grow their own fruit and olives, keep live stock, bake their own bread, even make their own wine and beer (the beer has an alcohol content of 7%) as well as go to prayer 6 times a day and keep their vow of silence from 9pm at night until after Church at 8am the following day.

The Benedictine monks came to Australia from Spain in 1846, and founded New Norcia to spread the Word of God in a country of “savage” natives and English convicts. We took a tour through the monastery grounds, going through chapels and prayer rooms sighting very rare historical items, musical instruments and artwork.

Unfortunately our tour guide decided that mentioning how they took Aboriginals from their families and “taught” them to be Christian was just a small matter that could be completely ignored except for the slight mention of the wall that partitioned the white “future doctors and scientists” from the aboriginal boys who were taught the three R’s and a trade.

We heard there was a girls mission too but it was of even lower importance. It was disappointing that they deem it more important to tell us about how much the monks love emailing instead of the complete history of the place, but hey, whatever. The church isn’t known for saying sorry easily.  And there was evidence that some form of aboriginal reconciliation efforts were occurring (just don’t talk about it!).

After our tour we had lunch in the hotel that was designed to house the Spanish Royal Family should they ever arrive (again, run by the monks), the meals consisting of much of their produce (including a glass of their wine that mum tried). We then had a look in the gift shop, that had lots of products that were made in New Norcia: wine, olive oil, garden gnomes, bread, etc.

We left the only monastic town in Australia, sadly without seeing a monk. It would have been nice to meet Dom Paulino, who at 99 years of age still rides his motorbike out to the olive grove every day.

Then off we went.

It was only 2 hours until we reached Perth, our final destination on our Aussie road trip. In 5 days we fly out, back to Sydney. Even though we want to cram a number of things in before we go, time is going fast. It’s all a bit sad now…

We had some brekkie and got into Winnie. It was only a short drive to get to the National Park where the Pinnacles are, and when we arrived we parked in front of the information centre. From where we were we couldn’t see any of the famous rock formations, so we began the walk.

The walk started as a concrete path, and still we couldn’t see the Pinnacles. But once we got over a hill the view was amazing; thousands of rocks poking out of a great rolling desert, with the ocean in the background.

We got to walk among them wherever we wanted for as long as we wanted. So naturally, we trekked around the entire desert, in and among the Pinnacles, while everyone else went maybe half the way. In their cars.

But don’t take that the wrong way – I wasn’t grouching about my family’s obsession about out-walking every other traveler in the country this time. I think everyone else was missing out. The entire area looked like some other planet with weird, randomly shaped rocks everywhere. It wasn’t quite Mars, thanks to the Aussie bush shrubs you come across every now and then, but it certainly didn’t look like Earth.

There were massive 5 metre pillars, tiny little brick sized ones, fat ones, skinny ones, pretty much every shape you could imagine, including some pretty funny ones that appealed to my teenage humor.

We spent a few hours walking around before heading back to the discovery centre where we learned all about the area. While Dad and I were looking at all the different creation theories of the Pinnacles, Mum seemed to be more interested in an emu scat. “Look at how big it is!” she said. Then again, she doesn’t clean the dog poo back home. That emu’s got nothing on our Bingo.

We drove back to Cervantes where we ended up in the same fish and chips shop as yesterday for lunch. We went into the General Store and bought only the necessities. We are currently trying to get rid of all the food left in the motorhome. We haven’t got long to go now, and while Lilli has managed to eat practically every baked beans can in the joint, there are still a lot of 2 minute noodles, Weet-Bix, fruit cups, etc.

After we explored the town of Cervantes (the General Store is pretty much it) we returned to our caravan park and watched at least 40 kids ride their bikes around, having a great time. We miss our bikes…

The girls played hairdressers and beauticians and each painted their nails instead whilst Dad and I read our books.

Tomorrow we are going to New Norcia, the only monastic town in Australia. It’ll be a bit of a change from the stuff we’ve done over the past 7 weeks, but we’re all pretty excited.

But resistance was futile. Yesterday we complained about the cold weather – it was 21 degrees. Today it was 7(!) degrees and wet, and it hit us hard. Just this morning I was grumbling about Dad making me put a shirt on to go to the toilets, but right now I am writing this post in jeans and a jumper. I’m contemplating putting on socks. We are all in shock. Less than a week ago we were dying in 45 degree heat. What the hell?

For miles we travelled a lonely road through the cold and the rain, but then all of a sudden there were splashes of colour everywhere – the wildflowers were back, and they were amazing. White, pink, yellow, purple, blue, green… and they sideline patchwork farming fields, all lush and green.  Such a welcome change from the usual reds and browns.

We were going to go to the Pinnacles today, but due to the ridiculous weather we decided to go tomorrow instead – but I doubt it will get any better (there’s been rain crashing down and thunder clapping all night).

So we continued onto Cervantes, where the weather wasn’t any better, but at least there was some shelter. We got some lunch at a little fish and chips shop while the heavily clad locals in their overcoats and beanies stared. Dad and I were in t-shirts, and the girls were wearing skimpy cardigans. We changed pretty quickly.

We pulled into our caravan park and hid from the rain. We watched the newest Indiana Jones movie and were disgusted at how bad it was, but it did its job – the rain had now stopped, and we went for a walk.

We walked along the beach, which was easily the most revolting I’ve ever seen and smelt. Cervantes must be like the vegetation recycling dump of the ocean. Seaweed, kelp and who knows what else covered the entire beach, with only tiny patches of sand peeking through. We stepped in these little patches until we got to a jetty, but then we saw that it was a private one (you can tell Cervantes is a fishing town after 5 minutes in the place), so we trudged along the smelly beach until we got to the next one.

We got some stares here too – where were our rods? There’s not much else to do here.

After our walk we got rid of any leftover pent-up energy by playing at the playground. It seemed like every other person in town was thinking the same thing; let’s take advantage of the sun while we can. Either that or they are under mind control.

No-one can be that happy all the time. There were at least 3 cricket games going, kites flying, kids running around, everybody laughing… If this place wasn’t so boring it’d be great.

Eventually I managed to get rid of my newfound best friend that I met on the swing set.

He was four years old and we had a competition to see who could go higher, but after that he wanted to have races around the park and climbing equipment games together. I didn’t, so I said I had to go.

But that didn’t stop him. He told me where his tent was so I could find him later. I’m too scared to go outside. He’s probably looking for me. Sorry little bro…

We had tuna pasta for dinner and some yummy Lindt chocolate for dessert. We are all praying for tomorrow to be less miserable so we can see the Pinnacles in all their glory, but I don’t think even a thunderstorm could stop us.

We’re on a mission here – explore Australia in 8 weeks, and I’ll be damned if we don’t see all that we can. Then again, it might be nice just to relax in the relative warmth of our Winnebago and maybe attempt to actually do some homework….

Nah…

It was a beautiful, warm morning in Carnarvon. We had brekkie right next to the pretty mango farm that was our neighbour. All that separated us and those big juicy mangoes lying on the ground was one wimpy little fence. It took all my self control, plus a few stern words from Dad, to stop myself from nicking a few. Just a few…

Little did we know that the sun we were lapping up may well be the last of the trip. The days have been getting progressively colder, and as we arrived in Geraldton we learned that today was what constituted a beautiful day to these poor decent-weather deprived people. It was 21 degrees and cloudy – a far cry from the 45 degree sweatfests we were enduring just a couple of days ago.

On the way in we saw how the weather affects the surroundings; instead of dusty plains of dead plants, there were colourful fields of wildflowers. Lots of pinks, reds, oranges, purples, yellows. Plus plenty of full-bloom wattle trees. It was an amazing site after weeks of the same dry red landscape out the window.

We had a look around Geraldton, which is the birthplace of Rove McManus.

Dad got it right first time when he said now we know why he left. It’s a very big town, on the beach and everything – but the beaches suck (rough, open and lots of seaweed), and we happened to arrive on a Western Australian public holiday. These people obviously take their days off a little more seriously than the pimply teenagers (yew!) looking for overtime pay back in Sydney. There was absolutely nothing open.

The girls played on a playground equipment while I went for a beachfront skate. After everyone had a little time to dust off the after  effects of a 4 hour drive we went to our caravan park, which is positioned on yet another beach. We had planned to take a walk on it, but one look told us everything we needed to know. There was massive piles of rotting seaweed covering the entire stretch of sand – this place makes Dee Why look like the Maldives. Although mum persisted with a walk just before the rain came.

Tomorrow we have a blessedly short drive to Cervantes, a little fishing town not far from The Pinnacles which we plan to see.

Dad and I are looking forward to casting a line out again, hopefully this time with better results than the last attempt, which failed in pretty much every way.

Actually, that’s an understatement. Seriously, these people look for her. No matter who they are, where they’re from, or what they do, they always wind up having a deep and meaningful talk with Mum. Whether it’s about floating TV screens or warnings to never drive a Murrays bus (both true stories from this trip), she gets it all.

So anyway, once we got away from our neighbours in Exmouth we got on the road again. We only had to drive for a short time before arriving in Coral Bay.

We have already labelled Coral Bay as a place we have to return to. Unfortunately we could only spend a few hours there, but they were better than amazing.

Just the other day I said that we had the snorkel of our life in Turquoise Bay. But the time we spent today out on the very same reef, the beautiful Ningaloo, far surpasses it. The coral formations were breathtaking – layer upon layer of different colours and types. After Dad had given in to the girls’ whinging and reluctantly taken them back to shore, Mum and I discovered an absolute treasure trove – a snorkeler’s paradise. It was like a huge garden, and the coral reached up from the ground all the way to the surface, which was a full 5m above it. You had to follow these snaking passageways to avoid being ripped to shreds (I ended up with a few grazes). It was some serious “Finding Nemo” stuff right there, but honestly, forget the Great Barrier Reef. You like snorkelling? Get yo’ flippers over to the Coral coast of WA.

There were also heaps of these great big rose-like coral clumps, giant clams, and hundreds of fish ranging from the size of a French fry to a full sized baguette.

These baguette sized fish are called flute fish, and they were awesome. They had a body like an eel, but with a long face and funny looking eyes. And fins. We saw a couple of them, both with patterns like you would see in a tattoo parlour.

We also saw a LOT of parrotfish, a pufferfish, and also some… okay fine, I don’t know my fish names (sorry Uncle Anth) but today has inspired me to learn them. For sure this time (last week I wanted to be a birdwatcher).

But like I said, unfortunately we had to peel ourselves away from the reef. We had a schedule to follow, and we returned to Winnie to get some dry clothes on. Parked right next to us was another motorhome, and as usual, it was better than ours. We were standing there going through the customary motorhome envy when somebody popped out of it, freaking us out.

He was old. He was fat. He was shirtless. And he had no belly button. He was pretty creepy, and our suspicions were confirmed when he asked us if we wanted to come in. Try “NO”.

We got some of the best burgers in the country for lunch and filled up on some petrol before leaving Coral Bay. But as we left we couldn’t help but notice that the motorhome that was beside us had changed position. It was now in front of the main beach entrance, and there he was. Standing in the doorway, staring down at the bikini babes. Or the speedo boys. We weren’t going to stick around and find out.

We drove for around 2 hours without incident, until suddenly, 51km out from Carnarvon, we got flagged down by some fellow travellers. They were an elderly couple, and they had a busted tire. The man also had a slipped disc in his back, and was in a lot of pain – they were actually on their way to the hospital. Dad and Mum did what they could, but the repair stuff that came with their rental car was faulty, so we offered them a lift the rest of the way into town. The wife was very grateful, but the husband was a stubborn man and wanted to stay with the car. Fine with us. We dropped the wife off at Marloo Senior Tourist Park and set up for the car to be fixed.

Then we finally pulled into our own caravan park right next door to a massive fruit and vegetable farm, had some 100% mango iceblocks (made at the farm) and had a swim in the freezing pool.

We crossed the tropic of Capricorn today, and apparently the temperature has dropped.

Everyone except me is wearing a jumper. I’m still in my beloved singlet.