A lay-in, later breakfast after the business people had departed and we picked the car up from Avis on 4 Feb and drove over to Fremantle. The weather is still scorching hot but ‘Air-con City’ in the car.

Around a 40 minute drive and we are passing our first brewery in Fremantle. Craft Ale Capital of WA it seems. Very kind of Fiona & Mike to put us up, we had a great evening out at the Little Creatures Brewery. Ten beers to try first … Wait for it, (in shot glasses) and complimentary.

Then a decision made on the beer, pizza and my first oyster from the shell (it tasted of the sea).  A night time tour of this vibrant town concluded the evening.

5th Feb and we headed out on our first road journey of our trip. Nervous for sure but once out of Freemantle & Perth and onto the Indian Ocean Drive you soon get into the swing of the long straight road ahead. A couple of hours driving and more traffic for company than we expected, it was a relaxed drive with ‘Pete’s Road Trip CDs’ playing, to our first coffee stop a couple of hours later.

The odd and sizeable dead animal in the road were avoided, the remnants of bush fires could be seen quite frequently as could massive sand dunes that looked like mountain ranges.

A beautiful beach at Lancelin was followed by the incredible Pinnacles Dessert in the Namburg National Park. This is a 3 kilometres gentle drive (too hot to walk) around these limestone pillars that rise out of the sand.We then head on northward to Jurien Bay for fuel, a swim (another nice beach) and overnight stay before Day 2. 

Our Avis contract says that we can’t go further north than Carnarvon, so that rules out Exmouth and Coral Bay but still plenty of reasons to head north, next stop Geraldton.
  

Day 2: Homemade breakfast and coffee and we are on the road by 9am. Now we really have the reality that we are on a road trip, foot down, pretty much straight road with the sea on one side for a lot of the time. Road Trains a plenty and fellow motorists here and there.

Temperatures continue to climb as we hit Geraldton which seems quite a large new town (we will call in on the way back), this time it’s just fuel, coffee and a sandwich.

A hour or so later we turn onto the road to Kalbarri and within a mile or so we see the Pink Lake, salt flats. Stepping out of the car to stretch our legs and it’s our first experience of the pesky Kalbarri flies, which make time out of the car limited!
Whilst we eat our sandwiches in the car, the three camper vans in the lay-by in front of us head out onto the road, the last one mis-judges the speed of the Road Train coming down the road and must have had a rear view mirror full of an angry Aussie lorry driver as he slammed on his brakes and had the horn blaring. Quite how there was not an accident, I’ll never know. About 45 mins down the road we are in Kalbarri, stopping at various points on the way to view the stunning scenery. 

Temperatures well into the 40’s and first stop after checking-in is the pool. A chat with an American family from Tennessee on a one year working holiday was cool. 

Kalbarri Road house had an excellent selection of food and beers and with a covers band cranking out some classics, we spent a couple of hours chatting to a couple from Lancashire, who emigrated to Perth seven years ago
Sunday we spent just touring some sections of the National Park in Kalbari. The heat well over 40 again and hotter in the depths of the park. We have not seen any wildlife yet, the Roos move at dawn and dusk apparently but, we try to remain as vigilant as possible when driving.

You really need to be kitted out with water, boots, fly nets and provisions for most of the walks but there are a couple of spectacular gorges that you can get to within a hot fly infested short walk for the car. Well worth the drive!!
This afternoon it’s a short drive south for more cliff top views and an amazing beach at Mushroom Rock. Standing on that beach, looking at the sea ….. I think we just thought, this is a big reason we are on this trip!
We also had the pleasure of meeting a German lady called Ruth on one of the cliff tops. She has lived in Australia most of her life. Ten months ago she sold up everything she owned in Bryon Bay, brought a 4×4 live-in truck (that she now calls home) and decided to travel Australia. One amazing lady! 
Next stop is further North to Denham and Monkey Mia 
Pete & Jules