Van Morrison: Gypsy In My Soul

When I last wrote, we were down the southern end of Western Australia - some two weeks ago.

We're now about 2,000 kilometres from there and half-way up the West-Australian coast at Exmouth.

We loaded up Van Morrison's storage parts with some delicious Margaret River wines, all from hazy sunny afternoon tastings.

Then we went on to spend our final night there at Losari Retreat - in a boutique spa villa farewell gifted from Husband man's workplace.
Van Morrison is the size of the balcony alone, so it was odd to be living in so much space for the night. But it was just divine with it's outdoor jacuzzi, rain shower, super king size bed and television.

On to Perth and it's surrounds.
We pulled up at Fremantle, walked the cafe lined streets, visited the city and then enjoyed an afternoon brew at the Little Creatures Brewery.

I really liked this city and I especially liked that, without knowing it, people were going to invite us to their houses.

Husband man's family friends had us over for dinner one night and then the next night we went to my friend Doni's parents place for Greek treats and dinner out.

I had never met any of these people before and their hospitality was amazing - they just invited almost strangers into their home and we all chatted as though we'd known each other for years. Best.

Just north of Perth we stayed at Quinn's Rock. Which highlighted for us AGAIN, that caravan parks sometimes have the best views around for on average $30 a night.

This seesms to be a common theme - in small towns, where somehow, the caravan park is perched on a hill, overlooking the glorious sea.
We had this again when we headed up to Denham.

So not at all bad living like a gypsy.

But its not all beaches here in Western Australia.
There's a whole heap of red dirt.
Red dirt gets in your clothes, in the van, in the bed, on the couch.
Everywhere.

There's also some brilliant gorges, which we started to discover at Kalbarri National Park on a 10km loop walk.

While at Kalbarri, we stayed at a caravan park that is exactly what i had always imagined staying at a caravan park would be like. It only took over ten thousand kilometres and about sixty days to get this feeling, but I finally got it.

The air there was all balmy with a warm breeze that was coming in the windows and bringing with it the smells of barbeque cooking and sea mist.

It was noisy until the late evening - people having conversations, beer cans opening, laughter, kids playing chasy, footsteps on gravel roads, distant waves rolling in and crickets chirping.

There was sand and dirt and eucalyptus trees and moths and dogs scattered all around.

I wish all the places we stayed were like this, because then it would feel like even more of a perpetual summer holiday.

So now we're here at Exmouth, the thing to do is swim with the whale sharks.
Unfortunately, it's rather cost prohibitive for this particular taster gypsy trip - so we'll have to do it another time.

There is however, coral reefs all along the Ningaloo reef bed - and you can snorkel right on out to them from the beach.

I approve of this kind of island living.