Planet Ruby Starrs

Agios Nikolaos in Crete was pleasantly charming... I cant put my finger on why but it was so much nicer than Thira in Santorini. Simpler, less busy but just a nicer softer vibe. Obviously its not so dramatic and perhaps thats the key - theres nothing to 'live up' to...  A small town with a dense tourist centre and dwellings sprawling away from the coast it feels compact and easier to navigate. Theres a large marina and then a little picturesque lake in the middle of the main town... makes a nice change from a market square. Its still very touristy but definately less crowded... wider streets - same tat but less hassley. We wandered round the small lake and into the shopping area. Theres a serious lack of supermarkets and we ended up buying olive oil from a shop at the top of town. There was alot of choice... brands ... numbers... in the end I just picked the prettiest tins.    We finally found some rocks... nothing too spectacular ...

Before I write this I just want to credit Andy with most of the pictures... the good ones are his the snaps are mine.. Next I wrote a whole dissertation about our time in Exmouth and the phone deleted it so this is the short version with photos... Exmouth.. official population just under 3000 had approx 20,000 visitors and did them selves proud. At first we were led to believe a lot of the national parks were shut... or very restricted access - saftey and wildlife issues and we were disappointed. We had had to book camping for a week... we expected to explore parks and coast and it looked like we might be confined to the town.. but it turned out all ok in the end there was restricted access but we managed to get most places we wanted to...  We set up camp, having met the Castlemaine duo... and went to explore... sussing out the best option for the eclipse view - we soon had plans A to H.. The boys went climbing and wanderung in the canyons and gorges spottin...

Well Kalbarri delivered on every count...it was a great time with old and new friends And thanks to Mr October we ate the most amazing cray fish.. as a spread, pickled, and BBQ'd...  But first we were made very welcome by Mrs October (by default) and it was lovely to finally meet up with our friends from Castlemaine. There are a lot of rocks at Kalbarri... we went for a wander on the cliff side by mushroom rock and round the bay - the rock here is a beautiful deep red colour and just gleams in the sun.   There were a few daring exploits involving a sticky out bit of rock that was lots safer than it looked.. and this picture doesnt really do it justice to how high it was or how gloriously blue the sea and sky were.  and then some climbing on the (recently named) wedding rock - a large piece of granite that had fallen off shortly after our friends had been married under it!!! Fred played at being crushed by the rock... its strange h...

Second post today... the rock posts are just interludes.. FINALLY!!!  More kangaroos.... there loads more but it was too dark to photograph them.... We camped in a site at Windy Harbour and it sure was aptly named... serious gales confined us to quarters.. we did a short walk on the beach but I had a dreadful headache so Dr Fred went off to explore the headland on his own... the rock here was very different to the granite we had become used to. It was more fossilised sand dunes quite crumbly and eroded into fantastic shapes and patterns.  As a campsite Windy Harbour did the job but it wasnt the best.. but for one night it was ok.. in the morning we got up and the weather was loads calmer and there were no kangaroos to be seen!!!  We drove to the headland where Fred had walked the day before - the rocks were pretty amazing .. there had obviously been a huge cave made out of the fossilized rock which was everywhere and it had partially collapsed making a huge wi...

Here are more rocks from Dr Freds perspective... scroll on for glorious granite ....  ( when taken with the proper camera they are too large to load on this computer so I have to resize them which may affect quality). Bluff knoll from various angles.... Shelly Beach bouldering around the headland Peak Head Granite Cliff Stoney Hill Albany Headland... Tower Hill Near Denmark....

 I'm about to post a load of pictures of rocks... look away if you are not interested...There are more but its faffy making them smaller to upload so I'm doing it a bit at a time... Enjoy mount Barren rocks on summit Mount Barren Views... Cave Point - unreachable cave Small reachable Cave scree to unreachable cave Frenchmans Peak Cave Frenchmans peak View Frenchmans Peak Summit Esperance Headland Boulders Esperance Headland with fisherman for scale Eperance other headland cave Esperance other headland...