More Along the Pretty WA Coast.....

Leaving Geraldton we headed off along the coast. With lots of cold southerly wind blowing we were feeling pretty lazy and were becoming quite the car seat tourist - you can see things surprisingly well sometimes without having to get out!

We pulled into this free camping site at Cliff Head about 4pm and couldn't believe how pretty it was.

Our spot was right on the ocean and had no wind! Perfect.

I had my first victory over Lachlan on the scrabble board for the entire trip. Quite an impressive board if I do say so myself.

After jaffles for breaky we decided to stay in this spot for another night and spent a whole day being delightfully lazy.

Stopping in at Green Head we could see big fish off the rocks so Lachy braved the icy water (and my fear of sharks around here) to do some spearfishing. Unfortunately no fish willing to be speared this day....

This bird seemed to pick one up pretty easily though!

Green Head is absolutely beautiful. We saw a sea lion diving about in this little bay.

We stopped in at Nambung National Park to check out the Pinnacles - towers of limestone which protrude from the desert.

You can wander in amongst them. Although it does all feel a little phallic....

The Nambung desert.

Sadly for us a few wrong turns leaving Nambung National Park resulted in us being quite lost. About a 100km from our intended destination with google maps open on the laptop we ended up driving through countryside with enormous kangaroos in the dark. We came over a rise to see a huge roo sitting in the middle of our lane... We hit the brakes and it jumped left.... But then the bugger turned and jumped right into us! The Rav now looks a bit violated and we spent a day both climbing in the drivers side until a panel beater rammed the door open for us. Fortunately no road kill to be dealt with though as the roo appeared to simply bounce off us and hopped away into the night.

About 150km North of Perth is a little place called New Norcia. It was a mission started by Spanish Monks in 1846 and became a self sustaining community complete with farm and flour mill. It is now largely empty except for tourism and an operating monastery. The architecture looks amazingly striking in the middle of bushland in rural WA.

The old accommodation for visiting parents to the private boys and girls schools has now been turned into a hotel. On our wee budget we didn't stay here but we did have a poke around and pretend we did :-)