Perth

My last week I could stay with the lovely Kate who Mum stayed with last year from BPW.

It is the best thing to stay with Kate and she made me have a very luxury end of my travel.

I arrived Monday morning from Exmouth and Kate awaited me at the Bus stop. With her daughter Fiona we visited the Kings Park. The photo above shows the heritage listed Swan brewery with the  Swan river in the background and the skyline on the left.

This Water Garden Is dedicated to the different Women organization in Perth and WA.

After a coffee break in the park we went to Fremantle which is the port of Perth where the first settlers arrived. Symbolized with the statue next to the maritime museum in Fremantle.

Fremantle is the oldest part of Perth and has a lovely harbour. Next to the fishing boats are all the lovely fish&chips shops where we stopped for lunch.

On Tuesday I went to the Museum of Western Australia and had a look around the city with some beautiful Arcades like the London Court Arcade.

The statue with the changing of business men in time was in the George Terrace with all the highrise buildings with the banks inside. Perth is the 3rd windiest capital in the world with this street in particular windy.

From a church in England Perth got 2 bells as a present so that they built this modern Bell Tower which should look like a boat.

From the jetty of the Swan river I had a good view on the skyline of Perth.

We checked out the Cottesloe beach where we had a coffee and the Scarborough beach where Kate has been growing up.

Hilary Beach is much calmer place were we had the champagne and enjoying the good weather.

On Wednesday afternoon we saw the exhibiton at the Art Gallery of Perth with this statue called ´the Secretary´.

This picture shows the progress of the first settlement with the moment of the naming of Perth.

Just with lots of crayon lines this portrait has a power and life around it.

The BPW club Joondalup Had a dinner and a speech about Negotiation on where Kate and I were invited to.

Exmouth

Exmouth is a town on a peninsula on the West Australian Coast with the Ningaloo Reef on it's doorstep.

I came to this beautiful place on Wednesday after a 21 hours bus ride from Broome and met my first couchsurfing host. He is a local and very experienced with couchsurfers who are filling his life with a lot of stories and memories.

My biggest wish in Exmouth was the swimming with whale sharks my sister Melissa loved while she travelled the West Coast.

With a yacht we started our trip to a reef strip in the inner lagoon for a test snorkel.

On that one we already saw reef sharks...

some turtles swimming in the pretty corals, manta rays and of course a lot of colourful fish.

Rob had always and eye on us and the whale sharks from the tender.

The whale sharks can grow up to 18m while we were mainly swimming with one's about 7 metres long.

They just eat plankton and are therefor harmless to humans and have the nickname 'gentle giants'

The also have the amazing spots which definetly rates them to my favourite animals. While we were snorkeling we had 3 big whale sharks circling around us and the crew members said it was one of their best days ever.

At the end of the day we were swimming with around 10 different whale sharks and didn't want to leave these awesome creatures.

On our way back in the inner lagoon some excitement broke out because we found a dugong (sea cow) family and watched them for a while.

On our beautiful shark group photo I wonder why just my hair seems to do what it wants?!

The next day I went with my host Bill to the National Park for a walk around Jardie gorge.

After the walk we went for lunch to Sandy Bay with the nice turquoise coloured water and an afternoon snorkel in Oysters Stacks.

For the sunset we went up to the Vlamingh Lighthouse and enjoyed the view.

Broome

Hanging out with the Freeman of Broome

In Broome we actually just chilled out at Cable Beach and the Town Beach. With Coralie and Laureline I had a lot of fun exploring the town center and some tourist attractions from the pearl luggers.
Broome was founded from Japanese in the pearling industry and became the pearl capital of Australia.

In th eold Open Air Cinema we wanted to be little Hollywood stars 

 On the markets I thought that the girls with the lemonade must played to much of the game The Sims!

 Even in a Caravanpark you can find people collecting dwarfs!

 We've also seen some great sunsets and the dinosaur footprints.

Finally the girls forced me to do a very typical australian photo!

   In one of the shops we even could see how they harvested two pearls. We got sooo much information that I all forgot already of course but it was amazing to see. They don't break up the whole shell they just open it a little bit and go in there with a little knife. The cut the scientist made was just one centimeter long and then he inserted the instrument and got a beautiful pearl out. 

Roadtrip to Broome II

 Finally I even managed to get some photos of Katherine gorge and the waterfall int the Southern Rockhole where I was swimming on the way up from Alice Spirngs a couple of weeks ago.

 Many roads in Australia are just going on for forever with no change...

 Another highlight of our Roadtrip to Broome was definetly the visit in the Zebra Rock Mine.

It is the only place in the world where you can find a rock with that pattern and every piece is unique.

No scientist is really sure how that rock became like it is. They just know that there must have been a Vulcan involved with the heat that melted some materials in the rock.

An ambitious couple is mining the rock and creating beautiful art and furniture out of the rock.

 There was also the bearded dragon Mathilda and my friend Derek who came for a cuddle.

 The two year old child of the family loved to play with the two animals and wasn't scared at all.