Western Xposure

Introduction

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Australia's sparsly developed western coast line boasts a vast array of stunning natural beauty, presenting itself as a place studded with 'must-see' gems.

On the Western Xposure Perth-Exmouth tour we covered the Pinicles Desert, Kalbari National Park, Monkey Mia, Shell Beach, The Stromatolites, The Tropic of Capricorn, Coral Bay, Exmouth, Northbrook Farm, a Wildlife Sanctuary Park, the Hutt River Province and Perth.

Below you can find a daily break down of the tour complete with photographs (hopefully a useful tool for inspiring and assisting in creating your own travel plan).

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Day one

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Fisrt stop; the Pinicles desert. We stayed here for around forty five minutes, which was about right to walk to a few view points, take a few pictures and leave before a sense of boredom had chance to creep up and sabotage the initial intrigue aroused by the curious verticle rocks standing errect across the sandy plain.

From the desert we continued up the coast, and upon finding an unpoilt white sandy beach surrounded by sand dunes engaged in a spot of sand boarding.

We piled back into the van after this and spent the rest of the afternoon on the road, making it to our destination hostel just outside of Kalbari National park in time to cook a bbq and spend the evening having a few drinks together.

Day Two

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In the name of keeping good time and avoiding the mid day heat whilst hiking through the gorge, we left the hostel at an ungodly hour of the morning and drove into Kalbari National Park. (Travel sick pills advised; the dirt track roads spare no forgiveness on the vans' suspension). Expect several miles of the following view:

Somehow from the midst of pelting down the road full speed ahead, our tour guide managed to spot, capture, and then handle one of Australia's more aesthetically interesting inhabitants, the 'thorny devil':

If that wasn't enough excitement for 7am, we then hiked into the parks main gorge with the option to abseil on route.

I can assure readers I did not look so happy in the minutes proceeding this picture!

View of the gorge in Kalbari National Park

We followed this up by hiking to the parks most famous spot, aptly named 'Natures Window':

With Kalbari ticked off the list we spent the rest of the day in the van driving up to Monkey Mia.

The Beach at Monkey Mia

We arrived at our beach front hostel there in time for a sunset swim, had a bbq and then, armed with torches, we completed a night walk on the beach, during which we saw baby sharks swimming in the water, a moon rise and the sky at the starriest I have personally ever seen it.

Day Three

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First thing in the morning we stood knee deep in the ocean and watched the dolphins come in for a daily feed. When the dolphins came to within a few meters of us it was an exciting site to behold, but in honesty I lost interest in the spectical reasonably quickly and felt it somehow didn't quite warrant the two hundred strong crowd fighting for space on the beach.

In close proximity to Monkey Mia are the Stromatolites and Shell Beach. At 3 billion years old the Stromatolites are the oldest thing on the earth; and a strange sight for sunburnt eyes.

Shell beach, so named because the sand is made up enitrely of crushed shells, is the largest unspoilt stretch of beach I have ever seen. This was one of the places I felt we had to rush around and could have had a little longer with.

After a short time in each place we continued on our drive and spent the entire rest of the day in the van, stopping to watch the sunset at the tropic of capricorn sign. The brewing cyclone whilst messing up our snorkeling plans for the next few days did at least make for a beautiful sunset.

Day Four

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In the morning we went snorkelling over the reef at Coral bay. With brightly coloured coral, crystal clear water, an amazing range of tropical fish, manta rays, turtles... it certainly holds its own as top spot for snorkelling.

Glass bottom boat

Coral Bay

We spent a second night in our hostel near the beach which had a good enough bar to sustain a decent evening drinking with friends.

Day Five

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I'll make this one short...we drove down to the beach at Exmouth, but alas due to weather conditions were unable to snorkle, or even swim very far in the choppy conditions.
The water was brilliantly turquoise, and I know if it looked this beautiful on the back of a cyclone it must be mesmorising in good conditions:

Day Six

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On day six we killed several hundred kilometers of our mamouth drive back to Perth, and then stopped in a farm stay for home cooked dinner and a night of sleeping in swags under the stars.

Day Seven

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On day seven we drove from the farm stay back to Perth stopping at two places on route...

A wildlife sanctuary where we had the chance to feed and stroke baby kangeroos:

This was a great morning :)

And 'The Hutt River Province'.

This is a really bizare place where a couple used a loop hole in the law to create their own country; and where weary tourists on route to somewhere actually worth seeing can stop for a bit of light hearted banter with the Prince and Princess!

We arrived back into Perth in the late afternoon, and that was Western Xposure.