Maybe in Oz

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 on...

The following morning we got an early start on the long drive North to Kalbarri National Park.  The views on the drive are not particularly remarkable, so we were happy to get out and stretch our legs when we finally arrived.  The park was really crowded because of the holiday weekend, but we were able to find a parking spot and took a hike down to Nature’s Window.  When we rounded the corner to the rock we were surprised to find a long line of people waiting to take their Instagram picture inside the window.  Not exactly what we were looking for in a National Park.  I was able to sneak a picture quickly in between people and then we went back to the quieter part of the trail to explore the layered rock and enjoy the views.  It’s a pretty place, but I would definitely avoid it on a holiday weekend. After that we drove down the road and took another hike to Z-Bend.  It was not as crowded and gave some great views of the rive...

I had been wanting to do a road trip of WA North from Perth for awhile (that’s WA as in Western Australia, no Washington!).  I warned my parents and Phil before we went that it would be a trip of weird and wonderful sights, not your ordinary trip.  We flew to Perth on Good Friday and drove a couple hours North to our first stop - The Pinnacles in Nambung National Park.  They are really interesting sand structures and no one is really sure how they were formed.  It was a bit cold and rainy, but cleared up just enough to give us a rainbow over the formation as we started exploring.  We drove the dirt track around the park, stopping in a couple places to have a closer look.  The first section was all dirt, but as we drove on the landscape changed from red dirt to lighter dirt and green shrubs.  Rainbow over The Pinnacles  Driving through The Pinnacles the changing landscape After finishing the drive we headed to Cer...