World Cruise: Remote Australia - Geraldton and Exmouth (West Coast)

Wow, we are out there. After Perth we sailed north overnight to Geraldton. Typically, we restrict our tours to 4 hours or less so we can have some time on our own after the guided tour. Also, 4 hours is about the limit on our attention span. However, in this huge environment where everything is so spread out, we elected a 7 hour tour for the day so we could visit a national park with a canyon area that reminded us of Utah and an incredible dramatic coastal cliff area. It was very, very hot and the tour bus air conditioner struggled to keep us comfortable. Also, this remote countryside is plagued with flies from the acres and acres (or hectares) of bush country that lies inland from the coast. The drive out and back to these sites took us across incredibly rural, rugged desert countryside -- no greenery, wildlife or rivers anywhere. Also, no gas stations, convenience stores or traffic lights anywhere. However, there is a certain beauty to this landscape and the people here are so proud of where they live. The coastline is gorgeous and so pristine. It is a very tight knit community. We are so fortunate to have visited this wide open countryside. To wrap up our tour for the day, the tour guide took us to a memorial in the town of Geraldton that pays tribute to 645 sailors that went down with their ship, the HMAS Sydney, in a battle with a German warship in World War II. Both ships were lost off the coast of western Australia and the sunken hulls were finally discovered in 2008. The memorial consists of a dome of 645 carved sea birds, an etched wall with all 645 names of the sailors and a statue of a woman looking out to sea searching for her loved one. It is an emotional experience to visit this beautiful memorial.

Next, we sailed further north to Exmouth, a small coastal town of 2,000 people. We took a snorkeling tour to Turquoise Bay that turned out to be a very special day. We were on a small bus with 2 young "surfer dude" guys as our tour guides that were so enthusiastic, informative and funny. They were as intrigued with our cruise ship as we were with their lifestyle in this remote area. They treated us to a great morning of snorkeling along a beautiful reef off a gorgeous pristine beach. Along the one hour drive out to the snorkeling area, we saw pretty much nothing but a few kangaroos, a couple of emus and huge termite mounds. The 2 guides were so much fun and the snorkeling was so good we hated for the tour to end and so did they. They joked with us about trying to sneak them aboard or at least tossing them some beers overboard if they came by in their fishing boat. All of us on the tour were thrilled with our experience in Exmouth even though there were no real "touristy" areas to visit.

These 2 remote stops gave us a wonderful balance to the big cities we have visited and wound up our almost month long visit to Australia. We enjoyed all of our stops in this huge country of diverse landscapes and cultures.