Day 132 – 28th September – Home

We’re home!  Our awesome family adventure has finally come to an end.  We have been to some amazing places and seen so many amazing sights.  It’s hard to pick a single favourite, so we have compiled a list of all the stand out places or events of our trip.

Drum roll please….

Highlights of our trip (in chronological order):

-          Snorkelling at Gnaraloo Bay

-          Karijini National Park (Weano, Hancock, Joffree Gorges & Fern Pool)

-          Stargazing at Karijini National Park

-          Fireworks on the beach at Kalumburu

-          Helicopter Flight at Mitchell Falls

-          Manning Gorge (Gibb River Road)

-          Bell Gorge (Gibb River Road)

-          Zebedee Hot Springs (Gibb River Road)

-          El Questro Gorge (Gibb River Road)

-          Top falls at Maguk (Kakadu National Park)

-          Bungle Bungles (Purnululu National Park)

-          Camping at Osprey Bay (Cape Range National Park)

-          Swimming with Manta Rays in Coral Bay

The stats:

Total distance travelled: 18755km

Total cost of fuel: $4051 (14.8km/lt)

Most expensive fuel: $2.47/lt in Kalumburu

Total cost of accommodation: $5493 (avg $42/night)

Number of different birds identified: 168

Day 131 – 27th September – On the road

It is a sad, sad day as we begin our journey toward home.  We are seasoned travellers now so made it much further than we have previously, making it all the way to Greenough River.  There was no time for exploration, just a quick look at the beach where we spotted the very last bird of our trip (it was a Pacific Gull by the way).  That brings our grand total to a whopping 168 different types of birds we have seen and identified… pretty good for a bunch of amateurs!

Day 130 – 26th September – Coral Bay

Our last day in Coral Bay was spent at Five Fingers Reef.  Not only was it our last opportunity for a snorkel but it would be the last activity on our big trip…  Thankfully it was a great snorkel.  Dave has previously been unimpressed with Five Fingers but today, it delivered…

 Everyone was happy to see a couple of our favourite boxfish.  

We also managed to spot this cool unicorn fish. Three guesses why it’s called a unicorn fish, and the first two guesses don’t count… 

To top off our day we finally spotted a Sooty Oystercatcher, an elusive bird we have been on the hunt for over the past few weeks…

There was even enough time for our little miss to work on her selfies… 

Day 129 – 25th September – Coral Bay

Feeling a bit water logged so we have had a quiet day today.  The most energetic thing we did was go for a wander up the beach to check out the shark nursery.  Turns out it’s a bit too early in the season so there weren’t any around…

Day 128 – 24th September – Coral Bay

Today we headed for one of our all-time favourite spots… Oyster Bridge.  Here’s Dave letting down the tyres before the ‘big hill’.  

Unfortunately, things went pear shaped after this point…  His number one problem?  Letting me drive the car!  I took two bites at the cherry but managed to get to the top of the first hill so was feeling rather confident.  But then came the second hill that peaks at a blind crest and has a significant drop off on the passenger side… Let’s just say I didn’t make it to the top of that one and in the process I got the car bogged good and proper…  It took a significant amount of digging, the tyres to be deflated even further and we even had to break out the max tracks for their very first use… One tired and sweaty husband later, we were out of the sand and back on track to Oyster Bridge (no, I wasn’t driving any more…).

Oyster Bridge is best snorkelled at low tide.  Luckily we had left home early enough that our car troubles didn’t mean we had missed the best time to be in the water.  Here we are all set up on the beach.  Another slice of heaven in our opinion… 

In the water at last, we had one of the best snorkels we’ve ever had at Oyster Bridge.  We saw no less than 3 wobbegong sharks, and one of them was even swimming around next to us (we usually just find them hanging out under a ledge).  There were the usual moray eels, octopus, frilly sea slugs and even a couple of nudibranchs.  The highlight were a couple of the ugliest fish we’ve ever seen. These things had grumpy faces and a good set of John Howard like eyebrows.  It took a bit of research back in town but we finally figured out they were toadfish… 

Back in town we headed to the pub for dinner and to watch the Dockers get knocked out of the AFL finals… oh well, there’s always next year…