Karijini National Park - Love it !!!

Fortescue Falls in Dales Gorge. This is our last afternoon in Karijini and everyone is feeling very tired after many big walks. This place is now on our highlights list, we just loved it, so beautiful.

The girls received Juniour Park Ranger badges while we were in Karijini NP. They had to complete some work which they loved and found out heaps about the area. What a good idea!

Another great view of the ranges in Karijini National Park. Such a spectacular place. We loved it here.

Chris and Lucy braving the very cold water at Circular pool in Dales Gorge. Another beautiful spot in this great NP. Claire and Bridget loved walking under the waterfalls in the background.

So many of the rocks looked like this in Karijini NP. They were fascinating!

All of us after a swim in Fern Pool. There were no water or showers at the campsite so this was a perfect way to end our day each day.

Fern Pool in Dales Gorge. This was one of our favourite spots. We came back 3 times for a swim. We'd swim over to the waterfall, just beautiful.

This is Oxer Lookout where 4 gorges meet.

This is our walk down Weano Gorge to Handrail pool. We had to use this handrail to get down and then it just went to a rope at the end. As you can see in the background, Lucy is getting a bit of help. So many people said the girls wouldn't be able to do this, but we knew otherwise!! Go Girls!

A few of the walks we did were class 5. The next step up (class 6) involved hard hats and abseiling gear!! The girls were little champions to be doing these walks. We had so much fun and saw some amazing scenery so we were glad to be able to do them.

Lucy slept well during our nights in Karijini. She did so well to be able to do these walks. They were not easy for someone with little legs!

Heading back on our walk down the gorge. We felt very proud to have made it to the end.

This is Kermits pool- the end of our walk down Hancock Gorge

This part of the walk is called the spiderwalk. You have to walk like this all the way to the bottom. It was so fun! Lucy's legs couldn't reach the sides so she got a piggyback down with Chris.

You might think that Bridget is just going for a swim- but this was part of our walk in Hancock Gorge. Once we couldn't walk along the rock wall anymore, it was time to wade through the water. The water was very cold and refreshing!

We made safely into Hancock Gorge. Lots of adventure ahead yet to get to the end of the walk!

This is getting into Hancock Gorge. It was pretty hard and scary, but we just took it easy and never let go of Lucy's hand. No matter how many times you tell her to just walk, she'll always forget and skip happily along!

Weano Gorge- Karijini National Park. So peaceful and beautiful. I was thinking it looked like it had been professionally landscaped, then I realised it had - by God! Just amazing.

Driving into Karijini National Park was spectacular. We had to go on a bit of dirt and some of it was so rough and corrugated we thought we would shake the ute and caravan to bits. We made it safely though without even a flat tyre. The red earth is just amazing, it gets into everything!

Here are the great people we met in Exmouth who made our stay here so enjoyable. There's Lachlan and Bec, Tim and Emily (living in Exmouth), Rob and Vicky (from Sydney) and Shaun, Cheryl, Jaymon, Eli and Amy (from Brisbane).

Our last night in Exmouth, the girls put on a concert for us with their new friend Amy. They had so much fun!

This lobster is still alive. Bridget was brave enough to pick it up! It caused all sorts of screaming and laughing!

Mucking around at Turquoise Bay. We spent all day Saturday and Sunday afternoon out here. The water is a great temperature and perfect for swimming.

This is Turquoise Bay, still in Ningaloo Marine Park. The snorkelling wasn't as good but the beach was fantastic. Just look at the colour of the water!

Ningaloo Marine Park

This was our absolute favourite snorkelling place- Oyster Stacks in Ningaloo Marine Park. We thought Coral Bay was good, but this place blew us away. The was a huge variety of fish, all shapes and sizes with the most spectacular colours!!! We all couldn't get enough of seeing this amazing underwater world.

Claire and Lucy collecting pebbles at Pebble Beach-Exmouth. The variety of colours and patterns on these pebbles was just amazing.

There are emus all around Exmouth. We were told that when all the US Navy people lived here they had an Australian animal park. When they left, they just opened up the gates and let all the animals out. Most of them took off, but the emus stayed around town and have been here ever since. True story!!

From Coral Bay, we kept driving up the coast to Exmouth. We met up with a contact from friends of ours (thanks Martin and Kylie). He's the Anglican minister here in Exmouth. He showed us around the new church which is just about finished being built. He even had a place where we could park our van. We ended up staying in Exmouth for more than a week. We met some great people and really enjoyed our stay here.

What a relaxing place! We know it won't be long until we are in crocodile country, so we make the most of swimming in beautiful places while we can. The temperature was in the early to mid 30's everyday. Perfect!

We spent a lot of time snorkelling and enjoying the big variety of fish and coral under the water. They were all so close to shore we just had to swim a little way out to see it all.

Coral Bay

Coral Bay was just beautiful. It was like a little tropical island. It was in the middle of nowhere and the bay consisted of 2 caravan parks and a resort. It seemed to be a popular holiday spot for people from the south west. There was nothing to do except enjoy the beach (what a shame....poor us!!!)

What beautiful fish! We were in a marine sanctuary, so we could only look but not touch (and certainly not catch and eat!!)

Each afternoon they have snapper feeding at the beach. The girls enjoyed seeing these huge fish up close. They would swim all around your legs and even through them! Lucy preferred the safety of her dads hips and kept her feet well away from the water!! The girls enjoyed it so much we went everyday that we were there.

We went for a walk in Kalbarri National Park down to the river. There was noone around and it was getting very hot so we decided to go for a swim. It was very refreshing but the water had a bit of a smell to it. For the rest of the day I could smell a 'swampy' smell on my skin!!

The Murchinson River in Kalbarri National Park. This was the most water we saw in the river. The locals said they haven't had their big rainy season yet.

This is Pot Alley lookout at Kalbarri. As the sun goes down these cliffs change colour and it is absolutely beautiful.