It’s Alastair’s birthday – he’s 27 today. It’s his first birthday with a wife  I tried to look for a mini birthday cake but couldn’t locate any today, but did buy a box of gelato ice cream cones (which incidentally, melted while I was walking the short distance between the shopping centre and the campervan – just shows how hot it is in Carnarvon).

We stopped past the Visitors Centre only to discover that none of the plantations do a tour any more. I was highly disappointed as this was the reason why we made the journey up to Carnarvon! Instead, we drove over to the One Mile Jetty and did a bit of exploring of the historical items around this area.

Next stop was Bumbek’s, which is located right in the middle of the plantations. On the way, we saw many kinds of fruit trees and plants (banana’s don’t grow on trees – they grow on a plant!) but as we’re visiting in the wrong season, none of the fruits were available for sale, At Bumbek’s, there was a huge range of jams, sauces, pickles etc, which is all home made on that plantation using their fruit. We bought quite a range of products (mostly as gifts, but also got some goodies for ourselves), and we just couldn’t go past the frozen chocolate dipped watermelon, mango, banana and mango ice cream. The latter is my favourite, but they’re all a must-try if you’re in the area.

After the refreshing chocolate dipped treats (pity we didn’t have a big enough freezer to transport these goodies back to Perth), we drove to the OTC dish. The OTC dish was used as part of the whole putting humans on the moon, and for tracking Haley’s comet. It was shut down in 19?? but that meant that we could try all the way to the dish, and even climb up to the first level of the dish (watch for the bird poo) to enjoy 360 degree views of Carnarvon. Apparently there’s a museum in the base of the dish, but you’ll have to ask the Visitors Centre back in town. This is the closest I’ve come to a dish. We did get pretty close at the Canberra Space Tracking Station, but not this close!

After that experience, we waved good bye to Carnarvon, and turned around to head back south. I’m disappointed that we didn’t get to go up further to Ningaloo Reef which I’ve been highly anticipating, but heading INTO a cyclone area is not a wise idea, especially when we can’t afford to wait out the cyclone as the campervan is due back on Monday. We drove along the highway, and saw some towns that we missed along the way (as we took alternate routes on the way up). Northhampton looks like a really interesting town with lots of historic buildings, but we didn’t get time to stop. Rather, we’ve stopped for the night at a rest stop about 30km north of Geraldton. There’s no toilets, so bushes are the only option (yuck!).

Dinner was great – we got a camp fire merrily going, and did toasted ham/cheese/hot salami sandwiches, followed by toasted marshmallows. We’re going to have an early night (highly unusual). In the mean time, we’re going through Dr Karl’s pod casts. They’re great!

It’s been another leisurely morning pottering around the Monkey Mia Resort. We walked down to the beach, and managed to catch the second feeding of the dolphins. There was a much smaller audience this time, which meant that Alastair and I BOTH got to feed the dolphins! I was really excited and waded through the water to get my fish. “My” dolphin was Piccolo who is notorious for playing with her food. She took my fish but didn’t eat it – she pushed it around in the water with her nose, and I’m still not sure whether she eventually ate it. It was a really good way to end our trip. I’ve been highly anticipating the feeding of the dolphins, but had resigned myself to just watching the dolphins being fed, rather than being involved in the feeding.

After all that excitement, we headed over to the Monkey Bar, and chilled out in the beer garden, waiting for the bar to open for lunch. Had lunch (hamburger and carbonara pasta), then did the Pearl Farm tour, which involved a speed boat ride out to the Pearl Farm (a platoon out in the ocean). Once we arrived, we were given a run down on how pearls are made. I didn’t realise that it was such a long and costly process! I also learned that divers had spent about 12 hours a day underwater searching for pearls (doing a 10 days on/5 days off roster), that it cost about $5000/day per Japanese technician to do the surgical procedure to seed the pearls and that they have up to 3 technicians running at a time in a 3 month period, that the colour of the pearl can be determined by the colour of the mother of pearl at the rim of the shell, and that contrary to popular belief, the pearls are not seeded with sand, but with little shell balls from shells of the Mississippi in the United States. They use these round “balls” as they’re the right density for pearls.

The Pearl Farm had a shop on board. I looked around and found only one item that caught my eye (I’m not much of a pearl person) – it was hand made by an artist, who hand wrapped gold wire and argyle diamonds around the pearl. It was a beautiful piece of work, and the price reflected that. I couldn’t justify paying over a thousand dollars for this, so it’s been relegated to the “dreams” section. All in all, I now have a much greater appreciation for pearls.

We’re now on our way to Carnarvon. Another cyclone is on the way. Our weather patterns are certainly screwed up!

Ok, we’ve arrived in Carnarvon and have found that we have mobile phone coverage and also found a wireless connection! Carnarvon has one of the most beautiful sunsets. As the sun goes down, the sky alights with yellow and deep orange glows. With the palm trees outlining the water edge, I can almost imagine being in a tropical paradise some where.

One thing I have noticed is that the Woolies over here is open until 8pm! Even the Perth shops don’t open this late. I’ve also noticed an abundance of various creepy crawlies and flying insects. Not too many flies, but lots of everything else. We were cooking on the barbie (an international feast of Kangaroo steak, Mexican sausages, and honey soy chicken wings), and there were insects flying into the barbie all night long. They don’t last long though on that hot plate!