So started our outback tour. We had to get up very early in the morning for the 7am pick-up at our hotel, and since there was no breakfast included with our hotel room, we had instead an apple pie from.....MC'DONALD'S!!! Nutritiously yummy... .
Anyway, I hate it when I make an effort to get up EARLY (me not being a morning person at all) for a 7am pick-up, and after ½hr from the appointed time, we're still waiting. Grrrr. Was almost worried that we were forgotten...until the bus finally arrived. Well, it was a bus that drove us down to another pick-up point so that we could change to another bus...depending on what tour we had booked.
The company we booked our tour with was called "Western Exposure", and our tour was the 7-day to Exmouth and return tour. Highly recommended. This was the general route we took:
To see the bigger picture, this is a map of Western Australia itself:
Circled parts are where we had been to, starting from Perth.
Our bus was filled up to its full capacity of 21 passengers and 1 driver, but about ½ the group were only doing the 4 day tour, so they took another bus back to Perth half-way through. We had a nice mix from all over the world. Unfortunately, no one from the African continent, nor any from the South American continent, though. But yeah, 1 from Singapore, 1 from Denmark, 2 from Germany, 1 from Switzerland, 1 from Lichtenstein (how cool is that?!), 1 from Italy, 2 from France, 1 from Scotland, 2 from England, 2 from Canada, 2 from Japan, 2 from Korea, 3 from Australia, plus our Australian driver.
Most in the group were from 20 - 35 years, and 1 who was probably in her 50's or so (she was so cool!). Definitely made a lot of new friends on this trip, and we all clicked quite well so that made it easy for our young driver too.
Ok, here come the pictures now - our journey towards Kalbarri!
As mentioned in the previous post, in Australian slang, a woman is called a "sheila", so I do get to see/hear my name quite a lot. In this case, "Sheilas" was used to indicate where the "Ladies" was. "Blokes" was used for the "Gents".
Ice-cream-looking flowers... .
Our original group of 21.
Yup...here we are at the Pinnacles in Nambung National Park. 
Amazing, huh?
Like we had landed on another planet.
An alien!!!
In Bollywood movies, the girls tend to run and dance around trees. Since I'm ½ Indian, the Bollywood inside of me was jumping out, but since there were no trees around, then even strange rocks would do.
There's that alien again...waiting for the right moment to attack me.
Like my Australian hat? Not sure when I'll get to use it in Denmark, but it sure was useful Down Under. Yiii-ha!
More of those strange rocks.
See the sand dunes in the background? That's where we'll head off to next for SANDBOARDING!!!
Almost looks like snow, but it's not snow.
Lots of sand...but where's the beach?
This was the closest to surfing I got while in Australia.
Wheee! What a pro! But ok, he was from Switzerland, so I would have expected him to do a lot of snowboarding in the Swiss Alps.
For the amateurs (like me), we go sitting down.
Like this... .
View from the bottom. See the sand blowing? If I have a choice between snowboarding and sandboarding, I'll actually rather choose snowboarding. It's really annoying with the sand blowing into your eyes and mouth. Should have had a pair of googles with me.
View of the bottoms... .
Beautiful? Water was too cold for me, though.
Leaning tree? More like loser tree.
See? Tsk, tsk, tsk.
Our driver, Chris. I don't think I could drive the many hours he did without falling asleep at the wheel!
The 2 Michelin chefs of the evening.
A bit of social time before bedtime.
Our twin room for the 1st night. We had to pay a bit more for this, otherwise we would share dorm rooms with the rest instead.
So ends our first outback day.
