Ningaloo Trip!!

So this trip started out very interestingly. I had my alarm set for 7am, bags packed (sans toiletries) and everything ready. 7:32am rolls around and I get a text from my friend Kelsey asking if I was ready to head out to meet the group. This also happened to be my wake up call, unfortunately!! I forgot to set my alarm for Saturday, so it didn't go off!! I had to scramble to get all my toiletries in order and run out the door...without brushing teeth/hair or changing out of pjs. We made it to meet the group a few minutes early, so I went in to the bathroom to change into regular clothes and freshen up. This is when I realized that I forgot my hairbrush AND toothpaste. I did, however, remember the essentials such as mascara..go figure.
SOO then the bus pulls up. It's this old VW-looking blue bus with the MOST uncomfortable seats EVER! 13 of us pile in. It's about 8:05 and we are missing some people - we had strict instuction to be prompt. Nathan, our tour guide, calls the missing members...who happen to be in the middle of breakfast. Let me get this straight...I hopped out of bed, forgot a ton of necessities, made it to the bus AND changed in under 30 minutes while these girls are having breaky?? I didn't even get breaky!!
ANYWAY...we eventually take off!! First stop was the Pinnacles Dessert...about a 4 hour drive from Perth. It was a neat dessert with eroded sand/soil forming large rock-like protrusions from the ground. After the Pinnacles, we drove for a few minutes until realizing we had blown a few tires on good 'ol Oliver, our van. We had to pit stop for about 3 hours at a gas station that was unable to help us. We continued our travels towards Northampton Farmstay. It was literally a farm!! It was a fun place, though, and I bunked with 5 others.
Day two consisted of a drive up the Kalbarri National Park. The scenery here was soo pretty!! Red rock cliffs on the ocean..very nice! Then we took a hike around Mushroom rock for some more pretty scenery. We stopped at Shell Beach, which was made completely of tiny shells and was completely infested with annoying flys. My friend Toni and I had a fly-killing contest. We both won.
After, we went to the beach at Kalbarri and walked around the town a bit. The water was way too cold to swim in, but the town was a good alternative. Then, we loaded up the bus for a few hour drive to Monkey Mia. This was a pretty neat place...it was a backpackers resort (every place we stayed was a hostel/backpackers resort). Resort is a very loose term, but it worked for us! Nice beach with sting rays and dolphins right on the shore!! We all woke up relatively early to watch a dolphin feeding on the beach (7am), then took a power nap until about 945am when we departed for Coral Bay.
It took a few hours to get to Coral Bay, but it was well worth it!! We arrived fairly early and had breakfast at a small shop on the beach. A few of us decided to lay out on the beach for a while. It was ridiculously hot out (north = HOT!), so Kelsey and I got in the (shallow) water. We walked out probably 300 meters and the water was only hip deep. HUGE (1/2 meter long) fish were swimming all around us, so we decided to rent snorkeling gear and check out the reef that was just a few more meters out. It was SOO neat!! We saw marine life such as tropical fish, octapus, jelly fish, sting rays, coral, eels, etc. I would definintely do that again!!
After a few more hours on the beach, the group headed to our over night accommodations at another backpackers resort. We had dinner and decided to go to the beach lookout for the sunset, and the hang out at the beach hotel bar, which sits right on the beach. We all went to bed at about 9pm because we had to be on the bus and ready to depart before 550am!!
Once on the bus, I took nice pictures of the sunrise and the Australian Outback. You do not realize how barren Western Australia is until you drive through it. There is literally NOTHING here!! It's crazy. We drove over 7 hours and saw nothing more than bush.
We drove up to Exmouth, our final destination. Some people went scuba diving/snorkeling on a guided tour, but I wanted to see the Ningaloo Reef, so I stayed with the group and went on to Turquoise Bay. It was really nice to just relax on the beach!! The Reef was not as impressive as it was in Coral Bay, but it was still fun to snorkel over for a few minutes. I fell asleep on the beach and got about 5 shades darker!! I was very excited!! Once we left the beach, we toured the visitor center and the light house. I got some really pretty pictures of the Bay area/reef. Then we headed to the backpackers resort and hung out by the pool for a few hours. 3 of us decided to go sandboarding. We never actually found where we were supposed to sandboard, so we settled for a sand dune on the beach. It wasn't as fun as we though because the dune was short and not that steep, but we had a good time nevertheless!
This is about the end of the trip, unfortunately. It was a really good time and I highly recommend a trip up the Western coast of Australia to anyone!! The next day, we had a 12 hour drive back down to Northampton, back to the Farmstay for the evening. We had a good time that night catching up with each other and some of the other tour groups staying there for the evening. The next day, we had about 7 hours drive back to Perth!
Thats all!!!!

<3 me