South to Perth again

Thurs 27th
We awoke to light rains but strong winds... how lucky had we been, the whale shark trip today had been cancelled and we had seen one of the largest whale sharks ever seen in the area, and the first for a few days. Feeling rather pleased with our escapade we set off to go back south again. Plan today to cover at least 500km, and we did that and more, probably about 650km as well as stopping to take lots of photos of termite mounds, the Tropic of Capricorn sign and loads of birds and flowers that we spotted by the road. We pulled off the road into some bush at around 5pm as it was starting to get dark. The place was deserted but had had visitors in the past, mainly dumping old rolls of carpet it seems - very odd as we are miles and miles from anywhere. Celso found some geckos rolled up in the carpet and some spiders in a tree so he was happy.

Friday 28th - Sunday 30th
Celso spent 3 hours in the morning on Friday creeping around the bush following birds and trying to get the perfect shot, and in fact this is pretty much how we spent the next three days, we drove a bit then parked up and went for walks in the bush to see what we could see. We free camped for 2 nights, just driving off the road and into the bush at around 5pm as the light started to fade and finding a flat area. We found loads of plants and critters. Celso was thrilled to find a Shingleback (a large type of skink with a blue tongue), he was sunbathing just before sunset and gave us a good agressive show as he defended himself. We left him for about 5 mins and when we returned he had vanished. Another critter that Celso was pleased to see was a Praying Mantis, apparently there are loads in Australi but we hadn't seen one before now.
On Saturday night we stopped in a campsite in Toodayay (or something like that) to allow us to have showers, do the laundry and pack up our bags. We drove back into Perth around 5pm on Sunday. We stopped on the way in some nature reserves, one was next to the Avon River where we saw the strange looking duck with the big throat and the amazingly beautiful blue bird - the Superb Wren. After washing the van with a power washer (they are all very concious here about conserving water), we dropped it off (just a key drop as the office was closed). Our flight wasn't until 1am in the morning so we waited around in the airport trying to catch up on the blog.
All photos now loaded.