Day 58 Waroora 14 Mile Beach to Carnarvon
Father’s Day. Seriously each morning is just better than the last. Just magic.
Got all packed up and said goodbye to our neighbours. It was sad to pull out of this beautiful place, I think it’s my favourite place so far.
We arrived in Carnarvon, dropped the van then headed to grab some lunch before we headed out to Quobba Blowholes. Everyone is a bit tired, after four really late nights are Waroora. Blowholes were great, really picturesque with the clouds overhead. It’s hard to imagine this is the same sea as we saw in Waroora. The sea is very very rough there. It is amazing the difference an offshore reef makes.
Made our way back to the caravan park, we are in the spot alongside the Agnews (our neighbours from Waroora) who sadly broke down on their way to Canarvon. They were towed to Canarvon, but they aren’t sure what is wrong and have told they could be stuck there for weeks. We all decided to head to the Port Hotel for dinner together. It was lovely, the food was great and the company was lovely. The kids all get on so well.
Day 59 Carnarvon to Whalebone Bay (Shark Bay World Heritage Site)
Excited to head to Shark Bay today!!! It has been something I’ve really been looking forward too. On the way in we stopped off at Hamelin Pool and the Stromatolites, which I was really excited to see, however Scotty squashed that when he told me they aren’t that exciting. Turns out, “what” they are is actually more exciting than they are…. haha…. Scotty said to me, “I just remember thinking when I was here last time was, ‘what was all the fuss about they looked like rocks?? ” I think the kids agreed with 10 year old Scott’s opinion!
Next stop was Shell beach. So pretty and the fact that they used to make bricks out of the compressed shells is pretty amazing! Sooooo many baby shells!
We pulled up for the night at Whalebone Bay, which is a National Park Campsite, and there is only 4 spots here. Wow! Seriously incredible.
The water is so still, absolutely no wind at all. What an incredible spot. The sunset was incredible. At the top of the hill the view was amazing. There were only three other vans there with us. Absolutely magic.
The people staying next to us, spotted 2 large tiger sharks while they were out paddle boarding!!!
Day 60 Whalebone Bay to Monkey Mia
HAMISH’S BIRTHDAY
We have one very excited little man today, it’s Hamish’s Birthday. Lots of planning had to go into this day. When we first told the kids about the trip, Hamish was quite worried that his birthday was when we were going to be away. So we had to make sure it was special. I had purchased his presents before we left, because I had no idea where we were going to be on his actual birthday or if I was going to be near a major town to be able to get something for him. Thank goodness for being organised because we were in the middle of no where!!! Luckily Hamish was quite happy with his presents….phew!
Walk up the top of the hill to see 2 sharks and stingrays. Great start to the day.
Drove to Monkey Mia. We are staying at Monkey Mia Resort and it’s beautiful. It has just been all done up. After setting up we went straight down to the beach and we saw dolphins playing on the beach, really incredible. They come in so close and watching them naturally forage on the shoreline for their food was even better.
Day 61 Monkey Mia
Woke up early to head down to the foreshore to make it in time for the dolphin experience. I had asked yesterday if Hamish could be picked to feed the dolphins because it was his birthday. Apparently it is in such a highly demanded experience that the volunteers just randomly choose people from the crowd! There was 170 people at that first feeding and would you believe it, Hamish was chosen with 5 other people to feed the dolphins! He was on such a high! So, so special. We couldn’t believe he was chosen. We tried to stay around for the second feeding, but the dolphins had other ideas and it was freezing in the wind. So we headed to Denham to go to the Shark Ocean Park.
We had three very excited children, but Liam was next level. For those of you that don’t know, Liam is OBSESSED with sharks!!!!! I mean seriously obsessed, you can see from the photo below just how excited he was to be seeing some up close! The Ocean Park was fabulous! The tour was so informative and the kids were completely enthralled. Liam, also managed to answer almost every question the tour guide asked, even the one that asked “what do you do if you step on a stone fish, what is the first aid?” apparently it is to put hot water on it…. Scotty and I had no idea! He had learnt it from his shark book.. haha. We had to buy some more animal information books for the kids because they are eating them up. But hey it could be worse hehe.
Very windy so we had a quick look in at Denham, then headed into Francois Peron Nation Park. We had a little walk at Big Lagoon, but the wind was not making it very pleasant so we went back to the Peron Heritage Precinct. We hadn’t really planned to be stopping in so we arrived at the Artesian Hot Tub sans swimmers. It didn’t stop the kids, it was so welcoming that the kids jumped in in their knickers. Luckily we had towels in the car.
Headed back to Monkey Mia for a quiet afternoon dolphin watching. When Scotty walked down at one point he saw 14 dolphins playing in the shallows. Apparently this is quite rare , they normally have about 4 playing and hanging around. So it was very special to see 14 there.
Day 62 Monkey Mia
Woke up to attend another dolphin feeding. We didn’t make it to the first one, but just squeezed into the start of the second feeding. Definitely not as cold as yesterday. And would you believe it, we were picked again 😮😮😮😮 I’m assuming it’s because our kids are so stinking cute! Liam had a go this time. He did an amazing job. Of course afterwards, Brig decided that she also wanted a turn so we worded her up and prepared her that the last session of the day was the last chance she had to get to feed a dolphin, we waited for ages for the next experience to start, luckily there weren’t many people and we were picked again!!!! OMG I can’t believe our luck. So Brig got a turn and she rocked it!!!
We were so stoked, three for three!!!!! We got incredibly lucky!!!
Afterwards we decided to hire some kayaks for the afternoon. Scotty got a double one with the two boys and I got a single with Brig.
Heading down the beach, the wind and the current was with us, and it was super easy. We saw three sting rays. And lots of fish. On the way home it was a lot harder, going into the wind was a huge struggle. I am really feeling it tonight. Well it could also be the three cocktails I had at the bar afterwards… haha. We caught up with Nick and Brooke (from Waroora) for drinks at the bar. Such an incredible place watching the dolphins forage for food right in front of us as we sit a watch the sunset.
Day 63 Monkey Mia to Kalbarri
Long drive to Kalbarri today. Much busier in town that we expected and had to try two caravan parks before we found a site for the night.
We didn’t want to waste the afternoon so we drove out to cliffs of Kalbarri National Park. Quick look in at Blue Holes, but it was quite windy so it made it difficult to see how blue the pools actually are.
The cliffs are incredible. We stopped in at Red Bluff (blowing a gale), Island Rock, Natural Bridge and Shellhouse Grandstand for a beautiful sunset. We saw 5 emus just alongside the road as we were driving back to the campground. We stayed at Tudour Caravan Park.
Day 64 Kalbarri
We headed out to Kalbarri National Park to do some walks first thing in the morning before it got too hot. We did the Z-Bend lookout walk which was absolutely beautiful. We then did the four-ways walk which was spectacular. It was 6 kms return and took us about 3hours. It was quite hot and we probably didn’t take enough water with us, but we managed. The native flowers and shrubs were amazing. No wonder it has such a great name for native flowers. Scotty didn’t know where to look first, there were so many amazing flowers, I think some of his Dad’s love of plants has rubbed off on him.
OMG the flies..... they were TERRIBLE!!!!! Thank goodness we had our fly nets in the bags with us, because it was almost unbearable.
We then made our way over to Natures Window which is just gorgeous. Brig spotted some kangaroos in the valley below us.
On the way back out of the park Scotty spotted an Echidna making his way across the road. It was super cute and kids loved seeing it.
Back to the caravan so a slow afternoon and some footy finals! We might be on holidays, but we’ve still been able to catch a few games!
Still quite windy so it was nice to stay out the chilly wind.
Next stop is Coronation Beach and Pink Lake!!! Stay tuned!