It was a special morning today, we had the opportunity to talk on Skype to my cousin Zsuzsika in  America.  It was so good to catch up with her.  The less pleasant part was leaving a beautiful part of this world, Coral Bay.

This morning we crossed the Tropic of Capricorn again, heading south from Coral Bay – a bit sad really as it means we are now out of the tropics & heading home.  The desert & red sand dunes on either side of the road is livened up a bit now & again with carpets of white, pink & yellow wildflowers flowering after a recent rain.  Four hours of fairly boring driving through the desert we came to the town of Carnarvon, a little oasis of organic farm stalls where we stopped to buy some fruit & vegetables as we haven’t been anywhere for a while where we could shop for fresh food.  At Carnarvon we were greeted by a fabulous multi-coloured bougainvillea display.  We also popped into Woolworths for some other groceries then drove to the harbour & had our lunch.  There were a few nice boats moored there & on the other side is obviously where the wealthy people of Carnarvon live, very nice new houses on a new waterfront sub-division.

A little out of town we stopped & had a closer look at some of the flowers, the pink ones are absolutely stunning close up, hard to believe in the desolate desert that you can find something so beautiful.  We also had to make a few temporary stops as a few large trucks with very wide loads came from the opposite direction.  The monotony was broken once when some very bare hills poked out of the desert, then it was back to the same old scenery, long straight seemingly endless roads.  However, the wildflowers are delightful & really brighten up the desert.

After around 450 km of driving we finally turned off into the World Heritage Area of Shark Bay & the road to Denham & Monkey Mia.  The desert scenery was now broken by glimpses of the waters of Shark Bay & the views across the bays & headlands.  We saw a few more wild animals, one of the emus we saw was sauntering along the side of the road seemingly oblivious to us (almost oblivious to me too, I barely had time to take a photo of it).  We also saw a lazy goanna crossing the road & some magnificent wedge tailed eagles soaring.  We finally reached the township of Denham, located right on Shark Bay & we booked into the Shark Bay Caravan Park.  We had a very long drive today, a total of 585km & feeling a little weary.

Tereza dished up a lovely home cooked lasagne & for once no red, but a coffee instead so that I can stay awake & write this.

We have been ploughing into strong head winds all day (Ron & John had a long hard drive today).  A strong cold wind blowing here tonight, I suppose it is a narrow peninsular & the wind blows from the Indian Ocean.  Hope that tomorrow morning the weather will be kinder because we will leave early to get to Monkey Mia (about a 20 minute drive) by 7.30 am for the dolphin feeding.  This cold weather reminds us of Canberra, we have been in a lovely warm/hot climate for most of our holidays.