From Perth to Monkey Mia

Australia » From Perth to Monkey Mia

Wow... we are in Auzzie land! :) And it has been a crazy couple of days!

We arrived in Perth, and got a bigger shock than we expected, caused by the prices over here! We were ready for a general shock after Asia, but this was just too much - our positive attitude and big smiles just disappeared ... we managed to book a hostel (after we've been looking for a place for quite a long time) for 31 dollars each (!!!) - and that is cheap, we heard.. While eating the grilled chicken we got from the supermarket, our minds were just boiling out of intense thinking..."what are we gonna do??" We checked out in the morning, left our backpacks in the storage room, and looked for any tourist information, wanting to ask "can we do ANYTHING without loosing our budget in one week (that we planned to have for 3 months) in this country?" But what we actually figured out was that the cheapest thing we could to, if we wanted to see anything, avoiding to sit in the city spending money on nothing, was to hire a van.
So the famous wicked vans was the cheapest options, and that is the option we decided to go for, naturally. When we arrived at the place, to check whether we can actually fit into the car, and sleep next to each other together with our backpacks - our new family members - in the van for the next 7 days... and when we were about to say yes, the girl in charge, Julia, just said " we also have these cars with a roof tent". A whole discussion later, we decided to go out in the "bushes" 800 km north with a car and a tent on its roof! Yes, the tent is actually ON the roof. Check out the pics! We still don't know how it is possible that we got the new car cheaper than the 10-15 years old van, but we don't need to know! We are happy just as it is!

So there we were, driving up north, looking for the first "free 24 hour stop" that we got on our extremely detailed map, namely one of those with ONE line on it, that is the country highway number 1, and THAT'S IT! : ) It was getting dark, and everybody told us to avoid driving in the evening because of the amount of kangaroos... we are not allowed to camp on parking spots etc. so we would have been in pretty deep sh*t, if it wasn't for Dean and Rebecca :) We stopped to ask them about the 24hour spot, and after searching for a place all together for a while, they allowed us to camp in front of their house! : ) : ) Basically, right outside their garage door, we opened up the tent for the first time. Surprisingly easy and fast, you just fold it out, and there it is - a little house on the car! HAHA! A bit cold (OK very cold) but we survived the first night,and it worked! We said goodbye to Dean and Rebecca, and went to a park in Gingin to have breakfast! Proper camping, with plastic plates and forks, tuna cans, and some bread!

THANKS A LOT DEAN & REBECCA! Our first camping spot was WICKED ; )

Ready to go on! Driving all day, with stops on various places on the way (including dinner on a bench next to the seaside in Geraldton), we decided to look for a place to sleep again.. Driving 3km into the bushes, we found a place that was supposed to present a camping spot, but no one were there... we decided to stay! Unfortunately, the lady in charge decided to come that night, and charged 8 dollars per person... she said she is not coming over every day... From our point of view : too bad she was coming that day.... From her point of view : too bad we managed to hide one of us at least : ) : )

The next day, we arrived at Monkey Mia - our final destination, and decided to stay at the camping park - this time with no other choice left, since there was NOTHING there except this resort and the camping spot. Monkey Mia is known for the wild dolphins coming every morning to the beach, to get fish. We were there and said good morning to them the next day....amazing creatures! Did you know that a dolphin sleeps with one eye open, shutting down only on half of the brain? Or that their eyes are independent of each other, which means they can check you out with one eye, and still keep his other eye on the promised fish ; ) Moreover, the shape of their eyes is changing when they are looking under the water and above the surface to improve their sight... We got to know lots of interesting stuff about dolphins, while watching them a meter away from us. Lovely experience and worth going there for 800km on a desert highway : )

Why we are mentioning desert highway is that there is NOTHING on the way between the towns.... nothing.... only a way and lots and lots of sand... beautiful views! But no houses, no people, no petrol stations, no signs of life - which is great when you have everything and you are just enjoying the scenery... it is a bit worse when you can see that you are running out of petrol, and you took the wrong turn influenced by the petrol sign ... When we realised that the petrol station will probably be in the next town, not closer to the highway as we thought, we got 65km to the city and fuel to go for another 16km... One of these situations where all the movies you've ever seen comes to your mind, mixed with the imagination that we will stay in the desert over night, waiting for anybody to turn of towards Kalbarri - at least we had some water and food, but the idea didn't sound good to us anyway! In the same moment as we saw the sign "poison area" we felt a bit uncomfortable and panic was getting closer. With 0km on the car computer, with NO car passing what so ever, and a way going stright for the next 30 km in front of us we were thinking how to deal with the situation... but still driving (luckily you have about 10-15km more to go after the computer shows you zero). Suddenly, we saw a road train standing on a resting area. YYYYEEEEEEESSSSSS!!!!!! Whatever will happen now, we are saved! We woke up the driver, Les, by knocking on his door. A bit surprised I guess, he was listening to our story and drama! Still sleepy, he got on his shoes, and took out the fuel he had left in a pot, in the back. Oh my lord, the man just saved our buts!!! : )

LES - you are our Road Angel - THANKS A LOT FOR YOUR HELP!

We arrived to Kalbarri, and had to stop there over the night since the petrol station closed at six, and we were there five past six : ) Early today, we got some fuel and headed back towards Gingin (Western Australia (cause there is one in Queensland as well)), to meet up Dean again! Today, we are camping outside HIS place : ) Said hello to his horse Dino, and had a nice HOMEMADE soup (cant remember when we had that)! Amazing!! Thanks a lot, Dean! And see you again!

Our Golden Trio is TEMPORARY splitting up, since Magda is leaving to Melbourne tomorrow, and Andrzej and Jessie will join her in 3 weeks. We will finish the volunteering at the Sailing Event in Perth and go to Melbourne after that. So from now on, we will try to update the blog from two different spots. At different places, but still together, here on the blog! : ) : ) It will be very strange and weird though, to wave her off at the airport tomorrow, after spending so many days constantly together... The good news are that we will meet up again before our final split up! So we still have more adventures to come and we will do everything to spend Christmas together!