Jurien Bay

May 20, 2018 by Rachel in Australia

We left Exmouth and are making our way back to Perth. We spent the night in Geraldton to break up the drive before arriving in Jurien Bay Friday morning. We first went to Sandy Cape, one of the many areas to explore the beautiful sand dunes of this region. For $10.00, we rented a sandboard and spent time sandboarding down the dunes. Picture sledding but on sand and you have the right idea! After waxing the bottom of our sandboard, we tested it out and went flying down the dunes. It was so much fun and we both were covered in sand by the end of it! I'm pretty sure I'll be finding sand in my hair for the next week!

Exmouth

May 17, 2018 by Rachel in Australia

It is only an hour and a half drive from Coral Bay to Exmouth, so we took our time relaxing in the morning before setting off. Exmouth is our final stop in the northern part of Western Australia. We will be here for five days (the longest amount of time we will be in any one place for the rest of our travels in Australia!). Once we leave Exmouth, we will be driving back down towards Perth with a couple more stops before leaving the West Coast.

Coral Bay

May 15, 2018 by Rachel in Australia

We left Shark Bay early Tuesday morning to make the six-hour drive to Coral Bay. We stopped once in Carnarvon to stock up on groceries and fuel. I read online groceries get more expensive from here on out. The town of Carnarvon is known for its thriving agricultural industry due to the Gascoyne River and aquifer which supports several local banana, mango, papaya and vegetable plantations. We made a stop at Bumbak’s where we each tried one of their chocolate covered frozen bananas and shared a banana milkshake. It was a potassium-filled lunch! Ha! The frozen bananas were delicious and I already told Alex we’ll be making another stop in Carnarvon when we make the return trip back to Perth.

Shark Bay

May 07, 2018 by Rachel in Australia

From Kalbarri, we made our way to Shark Bay. Our first stop was to Hamelin Pool to see the stromatolites. Similar to the ones we saw in Kalbarri, the coral-like formations consist of cyanobacteria almost identical to organisms that existed 3.5 billion years ago.

Kalbarri

May 06, 2018 by Rachel in Australia

We left Perth Thursday morning for Kalbarri, a 7-hour drive. It was a long day, but we made several stops along the way to break it up and got to see some really interesting places!

Perth

May 02, 2018 by Rachel in Australia

We arrived back to mainland Australia after a seven-hour flight from New Zealand. When we started the process of going through customs, we were flagged and unable to use the automated entry machines despite not having any problems using these when we entered the country the first time after arriving from the States. We were then escorted to a separate (and off the beaten track desk) where we proceeded to be questioned by the customs agent. She wanted to know exactly where we had been in Australia and exactly where we would be spending the next two months. We also were asked to provide our outgoing flight information and details about our credit card limits and how much cash we were carrying (I had exactly $15.00 Australian dollars in my wallet!). Once we answered all the questions and she entered them into the system, we were free to go! My goodness, they do not want us to stay any longer! Ha!