balichti

Good-byes are often sad - especially when the 6yr old in the back seat of the car says "I don't want you to go. I want you to stay forever!" And the thing about good-byes over on this side of the world is - while when leaving Canada I knew I'd be back in a year - over here I truly don't know when/if I'll see these friends again. But alas - new adventures, new sights, & even more new friends await. So I packed up & said farewell to my cousin & his family & started off on another tour - this time heading north of Perth.

 

The beaches and other sights on the west coast are absolutely beautiful & less touched by tourism than the east coast. I only wish I'd taken more time to really take it all in - perhaps next time...

 

A few highlights from this tour:

* Pinnacles Desert - natural rock formations "growing" out of the sand as the wind blows. Some interesting shapes were pointed out to us, including a turtle, a cathedral & 3 dolphins jumping straight up out of the water.

 

* Abseiling down a 25 metre deep rock gorge. I've done some rock climbing on indoor walls, so the actually jumping down in a harness wasn't new - but walking backwards over the edge at the top was a bit freaky at first! The view over the gorge was beautiful!

 

* Dolphin feeding in Monkey Mia - There were some baby dolphins around so we couldn't actually walk in too far or go swimming with them. But they swam up really close & I got some photos of them being fed by the park rangers. Beautiful creatures!

 

* Snorkling at the beaches - this is probably the thing I would have liked to do more of on this tour. We stopped briefly at Shell Beach in Shark Bay. As the name of the beach suggests, the "sand" is small sea shells. The tide was out so we could walk out quite far over these shells into the water.
We snorkled then in Coral Bay & Torquoise Bay. Both were wonderful but Torquoise Bay was my favourite. It was a beautiful, quiet beach with some amaing coral to view through the goggles. Colourful fish of all sizes, an eel,a turtle... some people from my tour group saw a reef shark as well but I didn't have that pleasure!

I walked along the shoreline of Torquoise Bay where it took a 90 degree turn, and I stood at the point. The waves were coming in from both sides towards each other & overlapped, crashing together. I could hear the roar of the waves further out to sea - the power of water! It was a beautiful experience.

 

* The people I met on the tour made the trip what it was - so much fun & the days flew by. I stayed an extra day in Exmouth with Caroline - a young Irish woman travelling on her own. It was the hottest day I'd had over here - at 42C - and we spent much of the day in our air-conditioned cottage chatting away.

 

More good-byes - but accompanied as always with e-mail addresses & invites to meet up & catch up "when" we visit each other's country.

 

For now, gotta catch my flight...

B.