5 humans, 1 world, lots of adventures!

On our third real snorkeling adventure, we graduated 2 kiddos to "master snorkeler." On the drive to Coral Bay (approximately 158 km away), S was talking about how she was "ready" for her fins and tube. If you know S, you know that once she has confidence she can do something, she can absolutely do it. So when we got to Coral Bay (after we had lunch at Finn's Diner), we marched into the ocean and put her mask, breathing tube and fins on. Away she went! Ii used only her mask at first, but once S was done, Ii used S's breathing tube and ALSO graduated!!! Unfortunately, C got salt water in her eyes so today wasn't her day. But she said "tomorrow, I'll be ready" so we'll try again tomorrow. For now, though, we have 2 hard core snorkelers. S is in the blue flippers / dark blue floaties, and Ii is in the green floaties. Once the girls were all out of the water and just playing in the sand, G and I switched off snorkeling so we got ...

We had a wonderful night's sleep in our Exmouth Hotel / Resort room. Everyone woke up refreshed and ready to explore. We had breakfast in the room and then packed up our things (while doing so, C took some photos of herself and things around her). We were going snorkeling! We made sandwiches and packed the cooler we bought in Broome with all the things we'd need for a picnic - grapes, popcorn, watermelon, pouches and a beer for G! We headed off through the town of Exmouth and out the other side, direction Ningaloo Reef National Park. Ningaloo is on the UNESCO World Heritage List (https://whc.unesco.org/en/list/). We bought a day pass (which we later upgraded to a 4-week holiday pass so we can enter other National Parks (like Shark Bay in Monkey Mia, which is next on our itinerary!). We parked and started the 500+ meter walk in to do our first snorkeling with the girls. We rented a beach umbrella from the local visitor's center and set that up for some shade. We found s...

We woke up in Karratha after a lovely night sleep in a quiet, air conditioned room. We headed to their restaurant for breakfast and then G and the girls headed to the pool for an hour while I packed the car. We decided we'd rather get to the World Heritage Site, Ningaloo Reef, than stay another day / night in Karratha so off we went! We left Karratha at 10:30, bound for Exmouth and the Ningaloo Reef. The drive distance today was 547 km / 340 miles and G did the whole thing again (despite me offering multiple times to drive!). C has been obsessed with the Famous Mr. Ed for many months now, despite never really seeing anything more than a 1 minute youtube clip and hearing stories from me about him. She got a 30 year anniversary book (published in the 90s) from her Auntie Courtney for Christmas and brought the book with her. She was excitedly telling the server at the restaurant this morning all about him and showing off her book. The book made it to Karratha! Off we went. The...

We started off the morning - our last in Broome - by going to The Zookeeper's Store for breakfast. Then we headed to Gantheaum Point, a spot where we could find more confirmed dinosaur tracks. We climbed around the rocks looking for more tracks. G found one early on and I found another, but the location was slippery. We had been warned it wasn't the best place to go with kids, so we didn't get to find the mother load of real-life, confirmed dinosaur tracks. Nevermind, thought, because the beach was spectacular. We then stopped at the Good Cartel one more time on our way out of town. We had anticipated driving to a spot called Boondari, about 5 hours away. We hit the road around noon. Knowing there were only a few gas spots between Broome and Boondari, we stopped at the first one we found (a few hours into the trip). There, we found some popsicles and a peacock! We also found the pothos plant, one that many households in Portland will recognize as an indoor plant. At the...

S was awake at 4:30 but her sisters slept until 5:30. YAY! We had some food at the house and then the girls and I drove to The Good Cartel for some coffee while G took a 35 minute run on Cable Beach. Mind you, it was already 90 degrees and humid so it probably felt like a 4 hour run to him and he certainly looked like it when he came back in! We then all headed to "city centre" and the original "downtown Broome" for breakfast. We dined in "Chinatown" which was only recently named that after a slew of derogatory names. The Chinese came to Broome to work in the pearl industry, in other industries and as indentured servants. We ate at the "Mango Cafe" this morning and had a blast. Facebook reminded me much later in the day of a picture of G and the girls having "breakfast with daddy" 4 years ago. They just started going out in January 2014, when they were 13 months old. What a difference 4 years make! After breaky, we headed to "E...