It was a really, really long road to Monkey Mia.

We left home around 5am, to make sure we beat any city traffic. It was a pretty quiet drive until our first stop in Lancelin – Matty was just too sleepy to respond to my excitement. Once we got to Lancelin sand dunes we drove halfway up a dune and parked up to have some breakfast and watch the sun rise.

After breakfast we had some fun on the sand dunes. We brought the body board solely for this purpose, but it was a bit of a dud. Pro tip: if you are going to ride the dunes, buy or rent a sand board. We never really got above walking pace, and no matter the method it was either a slow ride down the dune, or a slow stack.

Back on the road until lunchtime, when we stopped in Geraldton to check out the Jaffle Shack and the HMAS Sydney II Memorial. The Jaffle Shack was quite average; it was lacking in cheese.

The HMAS Sydney II Memorial is a collection of monuments commemorating the loss of those on the HMAS Sydney. The series of components all represent different things;

The Dome of Souls has 645 birds shaping the roof of the dome, each representing one of the lives lost at sea.

The Stele is based on the concept of ancient Standing Stones found throughout the World, used as markers of graves.

The Waiting Woman represents all the families left waiting for those lost to return home.

The Pool of Remembrance represents the location of where wreck of HMAS Sydney II was found in position 26 14 45 S – 111 12 55 E.

The rest of the day was just boring roadhouse stops for drinks and a pee stop… sometimes the pee stop had to be on the side of the road. Road houses were few and far between. Usually around 120km between each of them. I’ve never pee’d on the side of the road so much in my life.

It was glorious when we got to Shark Bay and were on the final leg. The drive was perfected by a spotting of emus 15 mins outside of Monkey Mia. I caught it all on the video below.

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-smjowL49HE&w=560&h=315%5D