The Rest of the Trip

Day 4 was Easter Sunday. We all awoke to find the Easter Bunny had visited and hidden eggs all around the hotel room. Amazing animal, that Easter bunny. He was able to find us in Sydney last year, and Exmouth this year. He doesn't miss a thing! And neither do the kids when it comes to egg hunting. Church was wonderful. Exmouth has a small Catholic church with a kind priest that covers 3 parishes (with lots of kilometers between them).

After church, we planned to meet our friends at Coral Bay, which is nearly a 2 hour drive south. We loaded up and hit the road.

Most of my readers likely know that I was not made for the sun. I've had some bad sunburns, (and skin cancer) and that has caused me to be more of an indoor person. But, we live in Australia and that means enduring the sun and outdoors sometimes, to truly enjoy our surroundings.

Exmouth has lots of sun. And it was beautiful and the beaches were fun and the whalesharks were great, but it was more sun than was appropriate for fair-skinned me.

All 4 of us are in the habit of protecting ourselves from the sun with hats, sunscreen, clothing, shade, but the sun is so hot up there that I would have spent the whole time applying sunscreen to prevent the burn.

So, by day 4, I knew it was time for me to avoid the sun. Coral Bay also has lots of sun. So I knew I couldn't enjoy it to the fullest. :( But they also offered a glass-bottom boat tour to view the coral. So, the kids and I signed up for that with my friend Kelly and her 2 boys Jacob and Ollie. It departs from the beach so, after lunch, we trekked down to the beach and boarded the boat. I didn't take many pictures but we saw so many kinds of beautiful coral and fish, a starfish, and small shark. A really fun experience! See a school of fish swimming below us.

T, and Kelly's husband Gareth, did a bit of snorkeling and tried spear fishing. Fun to try new stuff!

We decided to leave Exmouth on Monday morning and start south. We had to stop and check out these monstrous termite mounds along the way. There are thousands of them all over the place. A six-year-old on our whaleshark tour told me they are made of termite spit. I think I believe him. Look at the size of this thing!

We drove all day, arriving in Geraldton around 6:30. The hotel had a nice restaurant so we had a great, relaxing dinner and some wine before returning to the room to jump on the beds and burning off some energy.

Geraldton is just about 4 hours north of Perth so we didn't have too much of a drive left for Tuesday. So, that morning T dropped me off in town and he and the kids went to the playground.

We've been looking, recently, for original paintings from Western Australia, or landscape photography that we love. Geraldton had a number of galleries and I spent a couple of hours checking them out. A few people told me about an Indigenous Art Center in town that sold work from local artists. When T picked me up we went to have a look.

This art center is great. Just a room, full of paintings, at the Tourist Centre. They even provide the artists with the paint, to better insure the quality of the work. We found 3 paintings on canvas and are so pleased with them!

D picked this one out, so we'll have it stretched and hang it in her room.

A nap and a DVD later, we were home again, and starting to think about our next trip.

D has requested New York City (listening to Jay-Z and Alicia Keys has her feeling brand new and inspired) but first...Thailand!