Dent Family Six Month Travel Blog 2018 – Australia NZ USA Canada

Apologies for going quiet on you for a week or so but the WiFi in deepest Western Australia is not the best!

After driving on the straightest, emptiest roads we have ever been on, having lizards, goats, cows, kangaroos, emus and pigs crossing the road, crossing the Tropic of Capricorn (good photo opportunity for school!) and even resorting to listening to some of Simon’s Alan Partridge to relieve the boredom, we arrived in the oasis better known as Coral Bay! It didn’t disappoint!

It was simply paradise! The sea was as warm as bathwater and really shallow in the bits that look turquoise on the photos, but where the sea looks a darker shade of blue, is where the coral starts! So you could easily snorkel and see the most stunning and colourful corals and fish just from the beach!

There were loads of little, blue spotted rays swimming in the shallows and they were very inquisitive, coming up really close to you! We went on a glass bottom boat trip to snorkel a little further out & saw even more amazing corals and fish and even got to swim with turtles!!! The large coral you can see is called a mushroom coral and is over 2000 years old!!

We chickened out of swimming with the manta rays this time but then maybe that’ll give us an excuse to come back, and swim with the whale sharks too?!!

Today (5th Feb for us) we got up really early and went to Monkey Mia to see dolphins (not monkeys!) on the beach! A ranger did a talk about a hurt dolphin that had got bitten by a shark called ‘Surprise’, and then they called out some people to feed the dolphins.

And guess who got picked?!

That’s right, me (and Alice) got chosen to feed one of the dolphins called ‘Piccolo’ (although it didn’t actually eat the fish, it did come very close to me!). We also saw a turtle!

Also, as we were on our way to the cafe to get a coffee, we were greeted by a wild emu. It wandered around the cafe and then ran off. Very odd!

Dolphins-best-friend,

Barnaby 🙂

This week we have been travelling quite a lot, but have seen a lot of stuff on our way! One thing we’ve seen is a Pink Lake in Port Gregory! You may be wondering how a lake can be Pink, well it is thought to be because of the bacteria and algae that live in it. It was interesting as some parts of the lake looked more pink, or purple, than others depending on where you looked from.

 

We also ticked off one of the things on our list and visited Natures Window. It was suprisingly difficult to get to as you had to walk along rocks and it was very high up! It also didn’t help that it was about 34 degrees… Whilst we were there we took a lot of photos and saw a black swan in the river below! I was also very clever and managed to hit my head on it 😦

 

Thurdays, always a good time to start of with some more educational studies…so Alice and Barnaby dragged their parents to Lake Thetis, home to some Stromatolites/Thrombolites….

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stromatolite

Stick around for possibly more Stromatolite news in a few days time….

Next we popped to Cervantes beach for a spot of snorkelling….luckily boat stopped before reaching the Cousteau twins…

And here is a pretty representive shot of the crowded beaches around here….these are both Jurien Bay.

Tomorrow (Friday) we head up to Kalbarri….

Oh, and to become even more Australian I’ve started to binge watch Prisoner Cell Block H, currently on episode 10, only 682 to go.

Clearly I had planned being in WA to co-incide with the Lunar Eclipse. Thanks to those who pointed out it was happening!

We were lucky enough to sit on a near deserted beach, and watched the sunset, the Moon rise and then the shadow of the earth cover the moon, leaving a murky red moon. Then we went back indoors.

I’ve attached a couple of photos of before and nearly total coverage (its difficult to get a focussed image, with a handheld camera)

As the “moonlight” faded, the view of the stars was amazing!

Where to begin……??!!!

Australia Day? The kids embraced the spirit, as you can see………. Simon dressed up, I went shopping……..!!!! But we did have a BBQ!!!

Rainforests? We went up to Tamborine Mountain & walked on a skywalk above the rainforest. It felt like being on the set of I’m A Celebrity! And the cicadas were deafening!

Beaches? Here are just a couple of the stunning ones we saw.

But, most importantly, the trip was all about seeing Kay, Ed, Dan & Paddy. What a kind, loving, laid back and huge-hearted family of friends we have! We never thought that we would be able to come over to Australia to see them and we had the most unforgettable time with them that we will all treasure forever. Just beautiful xxxxx

Sorry we are a bit behind on the blog! We’ve been a bit busy this week having fun with Kay, Ed & family! On Thursday (25th) me, dad, Kay, Dan and Patrick went to movie world. Movie world is a Warner Bros theme park and has some pretty scary rides! The main rollercoaster (the hyper coaster) was particularly scary for dad I think. I really enjoyed the Green Lantern rollercoaster and the superman rollercoaster, which was extremely fast! For lunch dad also had a giant muffin…

(29th/30th) – We have now moved over to the West Coast, arriving in Perth late on 29th.

We picked up a car and began the drive north, stopping at Lancelin for some lunch…and then on to the Pinnacles in the Nambung National Park, to do our Geology homework.

The Pinnacles are limestone features, how they are formed is up for debate…and you can read about it here…

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Pinnacles_(Western_Australia)

It was amazing as to how many of them there are and the variety of shapes and sizes, indeed one entry in the vistors booked simply stated “They look like big willies”.

We then moved on up the coast to Jurien Bay, where we are staying until Thurday…..pssst its a bit quiet….

On Sunday (28th) we went to Wet ‘n Wild water park in the Gold Coast with the Colville family and it was AMAZING!!!

First, we hired a (copa) cabana right next to the wave pool where Ed stole some of the loungers from the cabana next to us and we listened to some very loud music.

That day, there was also a very brave person in the park. And his name was Barnaby Dent (who btw is writing this and is very handsome). That’s right people, I went on not one, but TWO scary rides!! And if you know me, you will know I can NOT do any sort of ride at all. On one ride, you carried this massive four-seater inflatable thing up a load of stairs, got in the infatable thing, went down a MASSIVE drop, and sort of spun round this giant cone thing until you went down a hole into a tiny pool, and on the other one (which was called the Kamikaze -a very nice name-), you went down a massive drop in a two seater dohnut and then went up off a wall and then back and again until you finally stopped.

All in all, I thought I “did good”and deserved a few brownie points for it.

Barnaby 🙂

(It was tricky to hold a camera so I’ve given some links to the YouTube videos of the rides)

https://wetnwild.com.au/attractions/extreme-h2O/tornado.aspx

https://wetnwild.com.au/attractions/extreme-h2O/kamikaze.aspx

Today (24th) we drove up to Brisbane, picked up a Thomas (friends son on his gap year) and visited the Lone Pine Koala Sanctuary.

More Koala photo opportunities than you can shake a stick at…..feed the Kangaroos…..(who seemed far too docile)….spot a Tasmanian Devil….see a (Flamin) Galah….work out exactly what a Platypus is…..