Spencer & Alia's steps: October 2014

This is near the centre of Fremantle looking west towards the 'Round House' at the street end.

The Round House is an old police lock-up built in 1830.

Much of the architecture here is late-1800's British and French colonial, also with modern shopping centres and large open markets. Lonely Planet says Fremantle is quite arty-farty and you can really see that in the markets with loads of buskers and artwork on sale.

Fremantle marina

Fremantle waterfront with upmarket bars etc. (no, I didn't take this photo, I stole it off the Perth promotional website)

Looking NE towards Perth CBD from the courthouse park just on dusk. The Perth supreme courthouse is shown in the foreground built in 1837 by convict labour. Quite a grand courthouse for its time although it's dwarfed a bit in this photo by the tall background monoliths

Perth CBD and harbour - view from Kings Park that's just north of the CBD

Southern shore of Perth city - view from Kings Park

Central Perth (St George St). There's quite a bit of old mixing with new in Perth as many heritage buildings have been restored/maintained.

War memorial in Perth's Kings Park. Perth harbour and CBD is in the background.

A bit of the coast between Geraldton and Perth. Nice big stretches of sand but a bit featureless.

Gnomes have gathered here with RIP type messages written on them by people remembering lost friends/family. Why?...not sure. They have a nice view out to sea though (see photo below - looking out towards Gladstone coast WA on this lookout hill that's about 20m high above the plains)

Carnarvon WA satellite station was used by NASA during the Apollo space missions to track the spacecraft. A lot of the old electronic hardware and space memorabilia has now been gathered together into a 'space museum' which we went in for a look at.

Satellite antenna that's now out of service but looks big and cool so it has probably been kept as an ad for the space museum.

Carnarvon's 1-mile jetty that's about 100 years old. The wind out here would give Wgtn a run for its money.

Carnarvon's 1-mile jetty

Iron ore stockpile digger in Port Hedland WA.

These machines feed conveyor belts that pour the ore into waiting ships. Probably got a bit more grunt than my old subaru WRX.

Ships being filled with iron ore at Port Hedland

Near Dampier (a bit further down the coast from Port Hedland). This is another ship loading facility with a string of ships lining up. If you look carefully you can see 9 ships in this photo. We counted 10 in total, couldn't get them all in the frame tho.

A little wild dingo that seemed to be happy spending its days around a rest stop south of Broome.

Broome camels. They do sunset and sunrise tours here where you can ride camels along the beach. Quite pricey tours though so we didn't partake, just got some pics.

Japanese were the first to start diving for pearls in Broome and the industry became a big one. This Japanese cemetary has over 900 headstones

Memorial in Broome main street for the Japanese man who started the pearl diving industry in Broome back in the late 1800s.

Memorial for the pearl divers. Heap of divers lost their lives before the full aspirated dive suit came on the scene.

Western point of Broome

Genuine dinosaur footprints 120million years old. These are viewable in limestone at low tide off the western point of Broome. Believed to be from carnivorous Theropods.
Apparently they stretch for 80kms along this coast.
Also around here are also 1.7m diameter footprints of Brachiosaurus (massive herbivores). Didn't see any of those though.

Boab trees seem to get fatter and ganglier as you go west into WA

These long hot drives are just too much

Matching undies....it's too damned hot to wear clothes

A convenient rest area spot just west of Kunanurra

It's cooler doing homework outside

They call this "China Wall". It's a vertical wall of quartz near Halls Creek town. The strata around here has been tilted to almost vertical over the aeons and erosion has left behind this long section of quartz that is 3m high in places

A nice "middle of nowhere" camp spot somewhere on the edge of Great Sandy Desert WA (off the Great Northern Highway)

Kunanurra caravan park pool (about 50kms west of the NT/WA border near the top of WA)

This was an 8am dip with pretty warm water and the outside temp already at about 32degC. Afternoons here get to about 40degC at the mo.

The tree in the background is laden with mangos ready to drop soon. The whole caravan park is full of big mango trees for shade and for yum yums.

This is under the shade-sail part of the pool. They partly shade pools here so you don't get too hot/burnt while swimming.

Made it.

Border checks here for bio-security. You can't take most fresh fruits and veg from NT in WA. We were not aware how strict this rule was when we stocked up with food in Katherine so we had to eat a big fruit n veggie lunch just before the border and fry 2.5kgs of onions.

Bangers, chips n peas on the camp fire.
Clearly we've been watching a lot of Masterchef

They call this the Gregory Tree as it is an old boab tree with dates and messages inscribed into the bark by explorer Augustus Gregory. A base camp was set up here by explorers. It's on the Victoria River about 50kms east of the NT/WA border. Inscribed dates are of arrival and departure (dep "July 2nd 1856"). Another inscription reads "Letter in oven". Apparently the departing group left a letter for any subsequent arriving parties in a ground camp oven.

Boab tree and a nice rocky escarpment just est of the WA border on the Victoria Highway. The big rock in top left that's looking like it's tipping over is probably about 3 stories tall. Quite spectacular, the camera doesn't do it justice.