Maybe in Oz

It's six months on, I'm putting the Christmas card together and realise the picture is from Rottnest Island.  Which is beautiful.  And with our moving in and making the new house just right I haven't felt like writing anything in ages.  But, time to get on with it before I forget! Most people visit Rottnest Island on a day trip, renting bikes to navigate around.  I wasn't about to make my parents ride bikes, and I really wanted to see what the island was like in the evening so we made it a two day trip.  The first day we rode the little train up to Olive Hill to explore.  At the top is a 9.2 inch gun left from World War II, set to defend the west coast of Australia from any attacks. WWII Gun Inside the gun Around the hill is a pretty view of the inland lake and surrounding coastline. Serpentine Lake Nice guns! With the parents On the train It wasn't until Phil and I went for an afternoon run that we really discovered the magic of Rottn

After the couple days of living it up on the luxury farm stay we got stuck at in Northampton, we were happy to get back on the road and head North.  We weren't so happy about the drive though - it was another 5 hours in an uncomfortable rental car with not much to look out the window at.  The sparse landscape slowly changed, and eventually we got to Hamelin Pool, our first stop towards Shark Bay. Hamelin Pool is a Marine Reserve containing the most diverse range of stromatolites in the world.  And after our visit a few days prior to the stromatolites at Lake Thetis we were becoming quite the experts on bacterial blobs!   Pretty bacterial blobs in the pretty water Not far down the road we stopped at Shell Beach, a beach that, quite surprisingly from the name, is covered in itty bitty shells.  You can't really tell from far away, but zoom in and the millions of little white cockle shells are remarkable.  The beach stretches for 60 km and is only one of two beaches