I've been putting some work into a new public domain collection on skeletons (creepy old stories, basically), and have been collecting public domain images from the sources to illustrate the hardback, my first attempt at one. I thought I'd include some of the pictures to whet your appetite...

This should be my final post about the WA trip. 

We travelled from Denham to Port Denison yesterday to get rthe bulk of the road travel done in one hot. It wasn't the best day. We had a few minor stops along the way, including one in the soon-to-be-hispterized town of Northampton, and ate an adequate meal in Port Denison, which was other dull and windy. But overall the day was about getting south, and we did that. It rained a lot. 

Today was better. We spent a good hour in the Badgingara National Park and saw about twevle new plant species, some of which I will add to the gallery - and I got what is almost certainly my final bird spot of the trip, a Black-faced Woodswallow, bringing me up to 20 for the trip. Even though official wildflower season hasn't started yet there is still an incredible amount to see. It was quite wonderful, to be out among such incredibly rich mallee scrub, with maybe fifty different species in the mix, all noticeably different to what you'd see in SA. I.m not saying we know all the species by heart, but we both could tell that there were many things w had not seen before. 

We made Perth in decent time and are now waiting for it to be late enough to ,make our evening meal feasible. We've been rising, eating and going to bed very early. Our average step count per day has been about 13,000 (9k). We have both lost weight, despite eating very well. 

Rest day In Perth tomorrow and then a Lynch family meal in the evening. Then home. We did it. 

Today (Monday June 29) felt like our last proper day of holiday up on the Coral Coast. The remaining days are transit days back to Perth and more time with relatives there. We'll be home by Friday. 

We only had one full day in Shark Bay and we elected to divide and conquer. Louise took a boat tour to Dirk Hartog Island, the place where Europeans (Dutch to be precise) first landed in Australia, all the way back in 1616. It's strange to think that Europeans knew about this place when Shakespeare was still alive (but only just), when James I was on the throne, and only a few short years after Galileo proved the Earth went round the Sun. But they did. Anyway, she had a wonderful time, seeing Leopard Rays and Dugongs and all sorts. It's a true wilderness out there. 

I was feeling a bit sick of the sea, so I went on a birding trip out to Monkey Mia, which is more famous for bottlenose dolphins, but I was more interested in the elusive Chiming Wedgebill, which I saw, and recorded its song. I got two other new birds as well.

Monkey Mia is an odd place nowadays. The era when you could freely cavort with the dolphins os over, because constant overfeeding was causing their young to grow up without a clue how to hunt, among other problems. Nowadays they get only a tiny fraction of their daily diet, and tourists must keep a respectful distance. So, all the frivolity has gone but it's much better for the dolphins...which seems about right. 

This evening we ate more delicious fish (trevalley this time), and watched a spectacular sunset over Little Lagoon. The Coral Coast really turned it on for us on our final day above the 26th parallel. 

Pics will include a few from yesterday afternoon when we first got here - Hamelin Pool stromatolites, and the famous Shell Beach, both in one of the world's most salty marine environments. 

LMK and I do not believe that Coral Bay is a real town. Instead, it is two caravan parks, two guesthouses, lots of bars, and a shopping centre built in a cyclone bunker. I've been to rural towns with a population of 20 that have more civic spirit than this place. If the tourists stopped coming everyone would forget it was even here. 

The weather, which has been great for most of the trip, finally turned on us. It was very windy, and rained for much of the first afternoon and evening and then intermittently for much of the second day. Consequently the pristine coral wonders of the bay remain somewhat unknown to us, as snorkelling in high wind is not great for spotting much at all. Louise managed a snorkel at Five Fingers Reef, and said it was 'nice',  and I did some some very wind-affected canooing in the main bay, but most of our time was spent beach-walking, jogging, birding, and hanging about at the backpackers, reading. A food highlight of the trip was the delicious chowder at one of the beach restaurants. The crocodile popcorn was not so good. 

All in all, Coral Bay was...OK. Maybe if we'd had better weather, or taken a boat tour, we might have gotten more out of the place, but I felt there was much more to do in the Cape Range National Park near Exmouth. We have just gotten to Shark Bay (Denham) this evening, and I can see already there is plenty more to do around here than there is in Coral Bay. Apart from anything, the name of it sounds like a town from an ABC TV Show, and there was a general sense of fakeness about the place that wasn't there in Carnarvon or Exmouth. I was not sad to leave it. 

Mon - 2 dives on Ningaloo. We dived well, but Ningaloo itself is looking a bit sad after bleaching and cyclones. From my point of view the better action was on the surface, looking for seabirds, mantas, whales, turtles, and so on.  

Tue - 2 more dives but I only did one, LMK did the second and came up with not much more to report.

Both of thee were long days, 9 to 4 on the water, but I keep waking at 6, so am often in bed by 8.30. We keep gorging on seafood - fish, prawns, and tonight it will be scallops a la LMK. 

Wed - Birdwatching at Mangrove Bay, snorkelling at Lakeside, and then walking at Mandu Mandu, where they found the 35,000 year old jewellery beads. Driving home in the pink sunset. 

Thur (today). Up early for snorkelling at Oyster Stacks, Yardie Creek Boat Tour and then a walk in the gorge, and then a final snorkel at Turquoise Bay. Home now after 4 full days in the Marine Park, very satisfied, a bit tired. 

When I am inspired I will write a bit more about Ningaloo but for now, some pics. I mostly took them of the spectacular gorges in the Cape Range. 

From here on out, the trip is a success. We got what we came for. 

We arrived in Exmouth yesterday after a stately drive from Carnarvon on Saturday, via Bullara Station whee we tried its 'famous' scones. I will suggest that they are famous only because no one else around is doing scones at a cattle station on a convenient lunch stop to Exmouth because in reality they were pretty ordinary scones. The pies were sensational, but you can get pies anywhere. 

We somewhat collapsed after checking in and did nothing much with the afternoon other than tour the town. It's effectively the support town for a US Military Communications Base built in the 60s, and it looks like one. The town now survives on tourism and that's fine. There are moves to build an export terminal in the gulf (Eastern) side of the peninsula, and the locals do not like it. They like it slightly daggy, but very functional, and I don't blame them. I like the people here. 

The true wonder of the area is the fringe reef on the western side of the peninsula, as we discovered today. We saw 3 different whale sharks, one of which was 8 meters long, which is about three quarters the length of an Adelaide bus. The other two were a meter or so smaller and swam less quickly, so we were able to keep up with the a bit better. The tour operators drop you into the water in lines of 8 to 10 people and then you remain in line and watch while the creature swims past you, just a few meters below the surface of the water. They tend to swim in a straight line because they can't steer very well. You can try to swim after them if you like but they get away from you after about 90 seconds. You pay a lot for those 90 seconds. The tours are not cheap, but, as the boat crew keep reminding you, you are swimming alongside the world's biggest fish, and it really is pretty amazing. The creatures basically ignore you, and its your job to get out of their way otherwise they can swim right at you. On the first jump of the boat, this is exactly what happened to me. I ended up with the toothless mouth of the 8 meter whale shark about 1.5 meters from me and I had to back away quickly so I didn't run into the poor thing. They are totally harmless. Their most common cause of death globally is boat strikes, which is sad. I rather like their slow-moving, straight-line, vacuum-feeding approach to life. 

We also saw Humpback Whales, including a tiny calf which was only the size of our hire care, and yellow bellied sea snakes, and dolphins, and LMK saw a manta ray, which I missed because I had had enough shivering excitement by then. (It was a tad cold). But my reward for my early exit was to spot a Wilson's Storm Petrel, one of the smallest of all pelagic birds, instantly recognisable for being about as big as a sparrow, but, miles out to sea. 

Great day. We're back at the ranch now celebrating by vegging out on the internet and preparing for scuba diving tomorrow. The plan to come here and see whale sharks has worked, even it if did take 6 years longer than expected. Happy 50th birthday to me, 6 years late, and, happy Winter Solstice to all. 

In other news I hit 250 birds today. The 250th spot was something called a Flesh-Footed Shearwater, which is not a bird to write home about, but they all count. 

PS: neither of us have functional cameras at this point so I have used the photos from the Kings Whale Shark Company. 

End of Friday June 19. 

We got to Carnarvon yesterday. En route I found that my camera charge port was broken and the battery is fully dead. After hours on the phone trying to negotiate replacement batteries and cradle chargers to be hastily delivered to remote WA, I have given up and bought a cheap pair of binoculars to see me through the rest of the trip. Slight bummer. 

Yesterday: saw more black-cockatoos leaving Geraldton - drove through thick coastal fog at Northampton - stopped at Galena Bridge - stopped for a roadside picnic at Nerren Nerren and regretted the lack of an available bird camera - kept driving through meteor blasted waste-land until finally hitting Carnarvon at about 3pm. We had Japanese last night at a place called Miss Fang, which despite the threatening name was a very sweet outdoor eatery in a carpark, of good quality. 

Carnarvon is weird. It's on the same latitude as Bundaberg QLD, but feels like it's in in a tropical moonscape. It's a space town (there's a NASA base here), an aviation town (Kingsford-Smith landed here), a famous fishing town, a fruit town (one of Australia's two Big Bananas is here), a wool export town, a famous Long Jetty town, a depressing bogan meth-head town, a town with a long and ultimately tragic indigenous history, a heavily under-developed town. and one of the ugliest towns I have ever seen. Only in Carnarvon does the local Op Shop get a harbour view. But nearby, Quobba Blowholes and a nearby natural swimming pool called 'The Aquarium' are astoundingly great, and hopefully the wildlife there is a sign of things to come further north. 

We snorkelled in 'the aquarium' and I won't go on about the fish life, but for me the best bit was swimming over to an offshore island, on which we found one of the country's largest colonies of Australian Fairy Terns, a rare bird neither of us had previously seen. We also saw Little Terns and Lesser Crested Terns. 3 new spots in a row.

A Kiama resident happened to be nearby when we visited the Blowholes and in his view the Quobba Blowholes are than Kiama better by a mile. I have a video which I may upload in the coming days. 

I just cooked LMK 9 large local tiger prawns in garlic and chilli and now she is stealing my wine. Happy wife, good life. 

On a strange side-note: we just met two people from our street in Glenelg who also just happen to be in the Quobba area on a fishing trip. We've known them for years. It was strange to run into them in Carnarvon Mall, out of the blue. 

I posted the blowhole video on my facebook. You can see it here.  

​https://www.facebook.com/reel/1376784351014298

This one goes out to the Fitzgerald clan. Captain Charles Fitzgerald is the name behind Geraldton of today, which is a pseudo-thriving / slowly failing hub for all things mid-WA, especially exporting iron ore. We mooched about the town all morning. LMK bought a pearl necklace. I bought two second-hand books. We went to the op shop and got all the weather-related clothing things we neglected to pack. And, we went for an exploration of the Greenough (Green-oh) River area and the old township that predates Geraldton by about 20 years. It would have been the site of the main town in the area if it hasn't have been for the predictable flooding that occurs when you build near a large coastal estuary. 

That's it for today. 13,000 steps is a rest day on this trip. A few pics give you the idea of the Old Greenough Museum and the beautiful (but flood-prone) river. 

Louise and I have embarked on a 3-week trip up from Perth to Exmouth in a hire car. It's the first time we have had a long holiday together since about 1999. We were supposed to do the trip in 2020, for my 50th birthday, but you can guess what happened to that plan. Finally we're getting back around to it. I'm going to blog every few days to let folks know what we've been up to. 

Sunday June 14.  The flight and transit section all went fine. Northbridge provided excellent Malaysian food but little else. It was drizzling rain all evening. We retired early. 

Monday June 15. We went to the Art Gallery of WA and did some shopping to dodge the rain, then saw my extended family, the Perth Lynches, which was a rare treat. 

Tuesday June 16 (today). The road trip began in earnest. We surprised ourselves by getting underway at 7am, and got to Yanchep National Park, on the hunt for the Carnaby's Black Cockatoo. We didn't see any there, but had a great walk round the wetlands spotting other birdlife and getting extremely cold. Neither of has have packed sensibly. We were both imagining a Cairns-equivalent level of tropics for the whole trip, and forgot that quite a few places on the drive up might still be a bit chilly.

We got properly underway on the Indian Ocean Drive by about 9.30. The Carnaby's flew over the car several times en route to The Pinnacles National Park, which I have detailed with photographs rather than trying to explain it. Fifteen minutes further north is the town of Cervantes, where there is an epic-level tourist trap called the Lobster Shack, where we were obliged to eat the eponymous shellfish, as well as some prawn bisque for good measure. The place may be called a 'shack' in the same way that the Adelaide Oval may be called a field. Both the Pinnacles and the Lobster Shack were heaving with asian tourists. The Perth-Dwellers won't be here for another few weeks when school holidays begin. 

I took to the wheel and we drove the rest of the way to Geraldton. We went jogging by the beach and saw an Osprey eating its catch on telephone pole, and are mow tucked up at our apartment. Quite a day. 

​Steve.

PS - on the opposite side of Australia from Geraldton is Balina, NSW. It is lush and tropical. Geraldton is windswept and sandy and quite dry much of the year.