Thanks to good old virgin blue we managed to squidge in a couple of weeks over in W.A.
What a difference to queensland!....its a humungous desert basically, this pic shows what its like as you drive along for hours and never see another car or person...

WA borders on the Indian ocean!...The heat is a dry heat very different from the east coast. One awful feature though is the flies, in some places they are in tolerable, everyone wears those mad hats with nets. It spoils the beauty and enjoyment of the region sometimes.

First impressions of Perth,were that it is a very nice looking city. Tragically I thought it was right on the ocean but it sits on the swan river which is very wide near the city so thats where the impresssion of the ocean front skyscrapers come from.
We arranged to stay 15mins out of perth down at Cottersloe beach at the ocean beach backpackers. The beach is absolutely beautiful down there, great swimming and surfing.

Unfortunately the ocean beach packpackers is very expensive, noisey and badly run. The location is the only thing its got going for it! It is attached to a cafe which is SO expensive, they charge 14 bucks for a breakfast!...therefore for people on a budget its ridiculous, everyone of course cooks for themselves but the fridges are minging and theres no organistation of peoples food. Its rightnext door to theocean beach hotel which is a trendy hangout for perths disco dollies and boy racers. Im afraid it was the last straw for us as far as backpacker places go, so many of them suck so badly!..yes theres a few good ones like no.14 in the blue mountains but mostly weve found them rank. So - we decided to take to the road yet again and hired another camper van. We've found the camp sites better run, cleaner and disco backpacker dolly free, so has to be good.
Whilst in perth we decided to take a day tour of the swan valley wineries which was really good, we managed to taste about 20 wines in 5 or so wineries and bought about 4 bottles!, kris also won one in a raffle. We got some good information on wine and know have a better idea of what this wine thing is all about!.
We also wanederd around the c.b.d which has quite a laid back feel to it and some impressive high buildings which look great when pictured form the river.
We went to the famous swan bells tower and had a see go at bell ringing which was a good giggle.

Then off to britz to pick up the van.
We decided to drive up north on the indian ocean drive to exmouth and back.
The drive is pretty amazing from the desolation of the desert to the white beaches and the blue ocean.

We stopped at cervantes to take in the sunset,
and watch the dolphins play in the shallows. We also spent some time at the amazing pinnacles national part where I went emu stalkling, I am so obsessed with animals....odd! This pic shows the emus visiting us in the van park, kris did a runner back into the van in case they stole his bacon butty!...lol

Also spent some time at the pinnacles national park which is stunning and the pinnacles are really striking.

We went through geralton and carnavor up to shark bay. We found shark bay a bit disappointing, we were warned about the toursit trap of monkeymia so we gave it a miss!
We drove on to coral bay which we were looking fwd to, it wasnt quite what we had expected, pretty busy, not the deserted paradise we were hoping for.
Theres alot of controversy right now about coral bay and the development there, but as it stands its spoilt and we thought thety should have left it alone. At present you get people taking their 4wd's right into the water to lainch their boats just yards away from the reef which is ridiculous. The ningaloo reef is really nice.

We took a snorkel trip from here which cost 70 bucks for not much more than half a day, it was a rip to say the least, we were taken a couple of miles up the coast and promised a "sausage sizzle" lunch on board, in reality this consisted of one sausage and one bread roll !..not nearly enough for a flat slag like me!!....lol . Oir recommendation would be to walk around the headland for a few klms and just snorkel off the beach.
Stacks of tours up there for swimming with whale sharks...you get stung over 300 bucks and in reality you might see one and if you do, you get about 7 mins in teh water with them....yea right !,.... kutching !
Off we drove to exmouth and turqoiuse bay.....and yes it was amazing!...just what we were hoping for. The surrounding area is a national park so its not spoilt. the water is so clear and blue and the sand so white. We did the famous drift snorkel along the beach, swimming with giant turtles and all the reef fish. Its just smazing how close the ningaloo reef is to the beach.
Our advice to people travelling up to the ningaloo reef is to miss out coral bay as its a tourist trap and spend more time at the cape range park and turquoise bay.
On the way back down to perth we stopped at areally stunning place at greenhead called dynamite bay, a really perfect beautiful quiet bay .
Our last day back in pert we dropped off the van after spending the day over at kings park in the city which is massive and affords amazing views of the city. We also found a really nice hostel called comfort hostel on the great eastern highway, brand new very clean and spacious and has a spa and everything, better value than many of the hotels and that ocean beach hell hole!.
off on thered eye flight back to brisbane to spend afew days at byron bay before our month in NZ... we are going to be SO COLD !
pics of brisbane and westen oz to follow...