It's all over
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By Nicole Noakes in General Published: Tuesday, 10 June 08 - 08:19 PM (GMT +08:00) Last Updated: Tuesday, 10 June 08 - 09:33 PM (GMT +08:00) |
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Wow, I can't believe it's been so long since the last post. The wedding has happened and so has the honeymoon - we got home last night and have been busy cleaning the car and packing away the camping gear today.
The wedding day worked out perfectly: all the guests got along well, the food was yummy and there was plenty of it, the ceremony went well and the weather glassed off so the trip back was smooth as a mirror. I've put a few photos in the gallery if you're interested in having a look.
I don't find being married any different from any other day in the last two and a half years; apart from the surprise in the change of status, and seeing an extra ring on my hand. I haven't gotten around to practising a new signature yet (yes I'm changing my name), or contacting banks etc to change name details...
We've spent the last two weeks trotting around the gorges at Karijini and diving in Exmouth.
Karijini was fabulous. I've been before but David hasn't and he was gratifyingly impressed with the rock formations and the pools (though we both agree the backpackers could disappear and we wouldn't complain). We managed to find a nice quiet place in Kalamina gorge which we had to ourselves for a couple of hours though so that made up for noisy, squawking backpacker morons that infested Dales gorge the day before.
We went to see Hamersley gorge the next day (a fuel shortage and lack of space at Savannah "if-you-don't-have-a-booking-bugger-off" Campground meant that we missed Hancock, Joffre and Weano gorges). We did the walk down to the Grotto and found a bat skull (yay...), then wandered back and floated around in the Spa pool for a while before heading for Millstream/Chichester national park.
We figured out the shortest distance to fuel was this way, unless we went back to Tom Price over ground we'd seen before, hence the apparent detour. The countryside looks great at this time of year - it's all green and looks like there has been plenty of rain. There are heaps of flowers blooming at the moment like Sturt's pea and Mulla mullas, and the contrast between the colour of the ground and the greenery is awesome.
We've decided on making return trips to both Karijini and Millstream so we can do more exploring and maybe even some overnight hikes!
Hey I was amazed too, but the boy agreed!!!
After the national parks we headed over to Exmouth (bypassing Nanutarra, the most expensive place in Australia to buy fuel I think $2.22 per litre!!! 
What a shocker!!)
We went for a dive on the Navy Pier which was fabulous as usual, though we lost the light and we thankful for our torches. I got shoved several times by pushy gigantic cod who thought I was spotlighting munchies for them, a bit freaky I have to say. Got heaps of photos of nudis though, plus good shots of a frog fish and some wobbegongs. The next couple of dives were meant to be at lighthouse bay but weren't because the weather went all to hell. Instead we dived off the west coast. The site at Nicks was really good with some nice big coral gullies and plenty of different fish species, a few nudibranch species, a turtle and lots of different corals. Unfortunately we didn't have too much luck with the second site - there was a really nasty current and despite some promising country and an octopus early on in the piece the effort required to swim against it gave me an horrendous CO2 headache and we had to abort the dive so I could get to the surface to throw up 
Yes I know, gross but thats what happens to me if I work too hard underwater.
When we got back on the boat a couple of other people surfaced behind it because they'd aborted too, unfortunately the woman was too far behind the end of the mermaid line and couldn't get back. David went bounding off the end of the boat with snorkel and fins to help keep her calm while keeping her company (the current was really strong) until the boat arrived to pick her up. Talk about a knight in fuzzy armour...
I couldn't dive the next day as I was too crook (CO2 hangover) but David went out. He liked the diving but the group were moving too fast for him; we like to take our time so we can take photos. We were trying to go for a night dive at the Navy Pier and extended our stay because of it but no luck; the weather didn't want to play and we had to come home.
It was all fun but we're glad to be home.
Photos are in the gallery like I said and if anyone wants to see more just let me know and I'll post them.
Toodles.
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