A Desert Dash and some Coastal Wonders

Hi all!
I've decided to do a really quick and brief catch up to where we now are cause I'm lagging behind too far cause we're doing wonderful things!!!
We crossed the border into WA (Tanya was mostly sleeping trying to get well from a cold flu thing) and flew down the Great Central Hwy to Warburton by 1pm so we restocked on fuel before heading out of town to start the Gunbarrel Hwy. Five hours later we decided to make camp in a flat spot beside the road after only travelling a very rough 216 kms. We continued early the next morning to Wiluna, the track improved a little just past our camp then by a whole lot more when we crossed into the Wiluna shire where it widened and got a lot smoother. We arrived in Wiluna at 7pm tired but good, we got a hotel room because we couldn't be bothered and had cup-a-soup for dinner.
We travelled the highways down and around to Geraldton on the coast, and had a flat tyre on the way but we still arrived in time for my birthday wish - sunset over the indian ocean :)
Watching the sun set into the ocean was gorgeous and a great end to our desert dash, a big ball of mango sorbet melting on the horizon. Checked into a fancy self contained apartment for 2 nights of luxurious bliss. I made an amazing birthday dinner with steak, corn, broccolini, mushrooms, bacon and a cafe de paris style butter full of herbed mustard buttery goodness, all washed down with a lovely bottle of Western Australian wine.
We hung out in Geraldton for a couple more days with a rainy cold snap that halted any ideas of outdoor activities, but Ben got the car serviced and the spare tyre replaced so it was productive in any case. Denham in Shark Bay was our next stop, a windy front was coming through but that didn't stop us going out on a pearl farm tour out of Monkey Mia although it did stop stop us going into the Francois Peron National Park as it was closed from the previous wet weather. The Shark Bay Pearl farm had some gorgeous pearls and they showed us how the whole pearling process happens, truly amazing and it takes a minimum of 4 years to make one pearl from one oyster shell! That shell can get re-used for pearls up to 4 times for a period of 2 years per pearl and they get bigger as the years go on. We stayed in the westernmost caravan park in Australia, claim to fame, check. On our way out of the Shark Bay region we went down to Shell Beach.... millions of tiny tiny shells make up this beach and it was beautiful, we made our names in the shells and took lots of photos before moving on.
Carnarvon was our next stop, the fruit and vegetable capital of the west we attended the Saturday morning market in the town centre for lots of fresh bananas, beans, pumpkin, corn and lemons as well as some yummy chutney, mango chilli sauce and spice mixes. Lots and lots of yummyness :) After the markets we decided to go fishing off the one mile jetty that was built in the late 1800's. We both contributed to the fish bucket for our dinner some very nicely sized bream, which I cooked 3 ways. First with lemon, pepper and onion, second with sesame and almond spice mix then lastly with the mango chilli sauce I picked up from the markets--- the latter was the favourite, it was beautiful :)
Also in Carnarvon was our first chance to get the snorkelling gear out at the Quobba Blowholes- well around the corner from them off the beach, neither of us has ever seen so many fish, and big fish, while snorkelling before. There was so many! Parrot fish as long as my arm, reef sharks, stingrays and bream, tuna, garfish and so many more. We had another fish that afternoon at the jetty, just throwing back as we already had dinner sorted, but having a good time we stayed until after sunset when it got cold and dark fairly quickly.
Following the highway up until it split off to the coast road we followed that up and into the Cape Range National Park where we were hoping to stay they night. Unfortunately all the camps were fully booked and we had to camp just outside the park at the Yardie Creek homestead, not a fantastic place to stay but close enough to the park to explore it. We spent a whole day exploring the park, spending a fair part of that day in the water snorkelling or on the beach drying our bodies in the sun. Again the amount and size of the fish was brilliant even though the visability wasn't all that great.
Today we've arrived in Exmouth to stay for a few nights including our whaleshark tour on friday with Whaleshark Dreaming, super excited. Ben's gone fishing for some dinner (hopefully) while I'm updating.
Having a great time, miss everyone at home but not the weather there, especially right now sitting in shorts and a singlet in the sun with a soft breeze drifting by... ahhh bliss :)

Oh and Ben took off with the cameras so we'll have to wait a little longer for some current photos.