This could get a little messy

Having another week left with the van we decided to drive past Perth (Our final destination) and look at the bottom section of WA. We went to the Margaret River, which is like Wine mecca for WA. A very up market area with lots of wealth looking, maturer couples, our Cat woman wicked van blended in quite nicely.

Being in an area famous for it's wines we decided to take a little wine tour. We signed up and were picked up at 10am the very next morning. It was to be a day of wine, chocolate and cheese tasting, with a small in dependant brewery thrown in there for good measure. Now, for those of you that don't know, Clare doesn't drink but I happy volunteered to take up the slack. As I say, we were picked up at 10am and went to a few other places to pick up others. By 11am, I had my first taste of wine. Now in a taster session you only get around 20ml of wine, which may seem tight but as the day progressed I was quite pleased that this was the case. We spent around 45 mins at our first vineyard where we tested a sparkling white, two whites, two reds and a port. A hell of a start to the day! Clare was quite happily smelling and swirling the wines, and I was quite happy drinking them. What I didn't realise was that we had another 4 vineyards to go and all were testing two whites, two reds and a port. By vineyard three, things were starting to get a little blurry and I certainly wasn't the only one!

Once it was time to come home it was like a grown ups version of a 18-30 holiday............which is exactly the same!

Don't be fooled by the rocks that I got.

On our way to Monkey Mia, we stopped at Hamelin Pool to see something quite amazing. At Hamelin Pool is a colony of Stromatalites. Now, to the untrained eye, Stromatolites are a loads of rocks in some shallows of water. To those in the know though, these rocks are almost identical to organisisms that existed more than 1900 million years ago and give us clues into the biulding blocks of life. The stromatolites were over 3500 million years old and were still living - WOW. Now, as amazing as this was, it was a little hard to see past them just being rocks.

The day we nearly died

Six months in and it's finally happened. We've encountered our first snake! It was a good 10 to 15 centimeters long and, although it can't be confirmed that he was poisonous, had a look in its eye that said "you don't want to be coming any closer pal". Ironically I'd nearly stepped on the fella thinking it was a small stick, but thankfully my razor sharp instinct told me otherwise. I jumped into a defensive stance and told Clare to stop moving, knowing that any sudden movements could send this potential killing machine into a wild frenzy. Clare looking somewhat bemused, looked at me, then the snake, and then back at me. We had to get past and only careful and slights movements would ensure our safety. "Just slowly walk around the edge of him" I said. I demonstrated this by slowly sliding round the other edge of the path and past the snake. Clare was a little more blase about the situation, strode past him saying "Isn't he cute". Once she was safely past we continued walking. Both I and the snake exchanged glances knowing that today was not a good day to die.

Let's talk about sex baby.

There's a very familiar pattern when you travel Oz, especially when you enter the bigger towns and cities. The streets have a familiar sights, namely betting shops, RSL's (Sort of like a working mans club) and........sex shops, and there's plenty of them. The irony of this is that every third advert on the radio is for premature ejaculation and impotence problems. Is this coincidence or are our aussie cousins struggling???????? The radio ads claim that Nasal Technology can help cure the problems. Quite what your nose has to do with it I'm not sure but hey....I ain't no doctor!

That's a big 10-4 rubber ducky

Because the West Coast is quite empty, seeing another motor vehicle on the road can be quite a novelty. Between Broome and Port Hedland, I'd say that you'd see another vehicle every 10-15 minutes. Because of this, many of the drivers acknowledge each other as they pass, and my, there is quite the variation in techniques. The most popular is the basic raise one index finger from the steering wheel. I used this for a time, but then took it a step further and changed it into a peace sign. Nice. Clare has gone a bit more elaborate using both hands, yes both, and does a wavey, jazz hands kind of thing. A lot of effort, but rewarding nevertheless. We've had numerous replies like the rock sign (Index and little finger), a wave, one potentially racial hiel Hitler, although he could have been just bit slow to wave. We've also had one middle finger, which whilst offensive, was a change from the norm.

For other Wicked Campers though the real big guns are reserved. The Wicked camper community is a very friendly one, and everyone waves, flashes lights and beeps their horns at each other. Clare and I are no exception to this although because the indicators/light switches are on the opposite sides of the steering wheel to the UK, every time I went to flash the lights, I just squirted water across the windscreen. Can't help but think that the other vans must have been a little confused by this.

Urmmmmmmmmmm

There's nothing better than going for a swim on really hot days, and in the late afternoon a dip in the pool near your campervan is spot on. Clare and I did this for a couple of hours and then hit the showers to get changed. Clare got all of the shower stuff and went first whilst I continued splashing around like a distressed animal. She finished, handed me the gear and I then went to the blokes showers. When I got into the shower, I realised that there was a problem, Clare had actually given me her shower stuff rather than my own. I was already in the shower so was committed to continuing. I finished my shower and got in to the changing room (Full changing room) and then it happened. Clare's PINK bottle of 'Superstar Girl' shampoo fell out of the wash bag and skidded across the floor. A silence descended across the room and looks of bemusement were focussed my way. I tried to give a look that said "This ain't mine" but it looked more constipated that anything else. The only thing to do was to stare at the floor, get changed and scarper.

Ningaloo, Ningaloo laa laa.

We're now down in Ningaloo Marine Park which is the only place in the world that you can go on trips to see Whale Sharks in there natural habitat............in March. Arse! So we missed that one but there's been plenty else. More whales, turtles, stunning beaches and cracking hot weather......you really just can't get bored of it, you know. The place we've been in is called Exmouth and I think that this is one of my favorite places on the whole trip so far. It's stunning. Whilst the Great Barrier Reef has the worlds biggest Coral Reef, here at Ningaloo, they have the world biggest shoreline reef, which means you get get into the sea, swim 100 metres (that took me a while, luckily my stomach is a fantastic buoyancy aid) and the reef is right there.

What's new pussycat?

West Coast here we are!

Tuesday 24th Sept and are West Coast adventure starts. One night in a hostel (which had a very tropical theme) and then we picked up our camper. This time I was not so lucky with the design. Our van for this trip was.....catwoman. Bollocks! Not a great start. It did though improve as we looked around the van. This one was actually relatively new, it even had central locking....of a sort. Now, Clare and I have found out that there are two types of opinion that people have of Broome. The first is that it is a really lovely place with lots to do. The second train of thought is that it's a shit hole full of axe murders (The horror Wolfe Creek is based on the town just donw the road). The first theory definitely applies here. Broomes pretty ace with lots to see and do. We even went to have a look at prehistoric dinosaur footprints which were by some cliffs. For the purpose of this, I'm going to say that we saw them and it was really quite obvious. The reality is not so clear.....looked like a load of pot holes really. Cable beach is also fantastic here and there's plenty of it. I've also not seen one single axe murder here, although Clare did look at me funny weilding a sharp knife!

Fly, my beauty....FLY

So, we've made it.

Three frickin' flights and we now in Broome, and it is HOT! Summer has definitely hit WA! We stayed a night in the Backpackers around the corner from the airport, which was like a sub tropical oasis......with really, really shit food! Bangers and mash - No. Carbonara - Nooooooooooooooooooooooooo! But we were so hungry it didn't seem to matter. Clare had also spent a five hour flight next to an old fella who couldn't stop farting so she was just glad of some fresh air! In fact, there seemed to be a tour of crumblies on our flights just dodddering around in random directions, looking to go some where and then forgetting exactly where there was. They all had name badges on as well, this could have been so they knew each others names....or just for when they forgot their own!