After a few very relaxing days in Cervantes we headed north to Geraldton to hire a car. The hostel was almost as nice as the one we stayed in in Perth so I was glad to be leaving after one night. The road to kalbarri national park was supposed to be boring but finally I felt as thought I had reached the Australia of my imagination (i.e. the movies) where continuous red earth meets continuous blue sky. I loved Kalbarri. Despite it being off season and way too hot (36C) to be trekking around looking at gorges, cliffs and rocks it was still amazing.
We had to return the car to Geraldton unfortunately and the bus was two and half hours late so I was a sad and tired wee soul by the time we arrived at Monkey Mia. MM is a resort in Shark Bay. It's a lovely spot, but it's nothing all that special expect for one thing. One animal has made the place famous. Now you might think it's a monkey, because that would make sense, but we're in Aus so it doesn't make sense and it's not a monkey. It's dolphins. Each day wild dolphins come into the beach to be hand fed. It's been happening there for thirty years and they show up almost without fail. I wasn't sure about the ethics of it, but they are beautiful and we were lucky enough to be there when one of the mamma dolphins had her baby with her. It was a gorgeous wee thing, a couple of feet long. There's nothing else to do in MM except eat drink and work on your tan. It's a popular place.
At last public transport let us down. We wanted to go on to Coral Bay and Exmouth but the shuttle buses don't run everyday and we had no choice but to head on further north to meet our flight in Broome. It's disappointing because I'm not sure I'll get the chance to come back here, but we've done so much already I can't really complain. It's hot and getting hotter and I've perfected the Aussie Salute (waving your hand across the face to chase off the gazillion flies). But at least it's not the wet season... yet.
