Western Australia

I flew to Australia back in January. It was strange arriving here after spending so long in Asia. Even now I still kind of miss being there, it was just such an amazing place to be.
I flew into Perth where I spent a few days before going on a couple of tours around the west side of Australia. In Perth there's a beautiful park at the top of a hill which over looks over the whole city and a river that runs around the edge of Perth where I was lucky enough to see a dolphin. Strange place for a dolphin to be I know, but I was assured that they do swim there so I wasn't just seeing things. An island called Rottnest is a short ferry ride away. No cars are allowed on the island so you cycle, walk or get the bus around. There are thousands of little animals there called quokkas which live nowhere else in the world. The scenery is stunning and despite it being the most popular time of the year for visitors I was able to cycle round the whole island hardly seeing anyone until I was back where the ferries leave.
The first tour I went on travelled around the south west corner. We climbed up to the tallest tree look-out in the world at 71 metres. It was kind of scary as there were just spikes in the tree's trunk for you to climb up and nothing really to protect you if you fell but everyone survived and the view from the top was amazing, over the top of all the other trees for miles and miles. We went to the valley of the giants and walked through the middle of huge trees with hollow trunks. There was a tree top walk there too. We visited some beautiful beaches with hardly anyone else on them, with sea all different shades of turquoise blue. We went to wineries where we tasted lots of different wines although I still don't like it that much and went to Wave Rock - unsurprisingly a rock in the shape of a massive wave. We even stopped off at a wind farm and a dogs cemetery on the way back! We spent Australia day in a little town called Albany where we saw fireworks and then a band playing in the local pub.
The second tour I did went North up the Coast to a town called Exmouth and then inland to the Karijini national park. On the way up we stopped off at some more beautiful beaches. All were sandy apart from one which was made up completely of shells. We saw dolphins who liked to pose and went on a boat ride where we saw rare dugongs or sea cows and sat in a net at the back of the boat whilst it sped along, clinging on for our lives. It was essential to cling onto both the net and our bikinis (which was not an easy thing to do) not only so as we didn't go flying out the back or sink to the end of the net and drown under the water spraying up, but also so our bikinis didn't come off and be lost in the sea forever! We snorkeled with reef sharks, turtles and manta rays which was one of the best things I've done on my trip. You could get within reaching distance of the turtles, swim along with them and watch them float up to the surface for air then sink back down again. The manta rays were so big and graceful, they can grow up to four metres wide. They swam so close underneath us and then with a little flutter of their wings they'd be off, we'd swim as fast as we could, trying to catch up with them, then they'd turn and come back to us anyway. Sometimes they rolled over and over underneath us so you could see their white bellies and right down inside their mouths. I left my tour group after the first few days to stay on in a place called Coral Bay. It was beautiful there and it gave me time to explore and catch up on the sleep that I had missed from a few too many late nights and far too many early mornings. There was a reef sharks' breeding ground a little walk away from where I was staying. You could stand with the sea just up to your knees and the sharks would come right up to you.
I joined the next tour that was passing through Coral Bay. We travelled up to Exmouth where we did some more snorkeling along the Ningaloo reef which is the closet reef to land in the whole world. There were so many beautiful fish of all different colours, more reef sharks and lots of different types of coral. We then went on to the Karijini national park which was beautiful. We walked, climbed and swam through gorges. Jumping off rocks into the rivers, escaping from the 45 degrees+ heat. We slept out in swags - kind of sleeping bags with little mattresses in them - under the stars. It was so nice even if we did get covered in red dust!
I returned to Perth for a couple of days then left on the Indian Pacific train and travelled for two days across the Nullabor Plain to Adelaide. We stopped off for a few hours in a couple of places along the way, a little town where the biggest gold mine in Australia is and a tiny ghost town called Cook. As we travelled across the nothingness we passed an old man's home who lives miles and miles away from anyone and anything. He's called Ziggy and is 80 years old. His only companions are his dogs, he has no running water or electricity but apparently he's very happy there. I don't think I could live somewhere like that for too long!