Exploring Yallingup area

We woke up around 4:30 again to some crazy-sounding birds (ever seen the movie Pitch Black? Well that's what they sounded like).

After taking our time getting up, we went in to town to find some breakfast.  It was still a little early so not many places were open yet but we found this cool little restaurant called Samundra.  It had a "kombi" inside as the coffee/smoothie bar and was a combination health food cafe/yoga studio/surf shop.  Oh, and AM was VERY excited about the all-vegetarian and organic menu!  They even seemed to grow some of their produce on site in a garden out back.  It had indoor/outdoor seating and was very airy.

Chai at Samundra

The food was great too.  No pictures but we had a tofu scramble with portabella mushrooms and buckwheat pancakes with lemon syrup and steamed bananas.  Even their desserts were good and AM went crazy over the chocolate mint spirulina balls with coconut :-)

Inside Samundra

After breakfast, we went into a local surf shop, Yahoo Surf, to get some information about surf in the area and to rent a board.  The owner (Mark) and employee (Thea) were super-nice and hooked Bernard up with a nice 6'0" fishy quad in expectation of the smaller surf.  The day was pretty blown out but since we had 4WD they suggested I try Three Bears which a reef break that was off the beaten track.  When Bernard asked Thea how far down the 4WD trail we needed to go to get to Three Bears, she just looked at him funny and said "All the way".  Ok, then!

We loaded the board up and headed out on our first adventure!  It was only about a 5 minute drive to the trail head and we started down the 4WD track.  It was a pretty gnarly with boulders and deep sand every where.  We tried shooting some video but it didn't come out.  It was only a 5km drive but took about 30 or 40 minutes.  The Xtrail was a trouper though and made it through without a problem.

Bernard surfed for about an hour but it was small and blown-out so there weren't too many waves.  The water was about 20C/68F but the hot sun made it very comfortable in just board shorts and wetsuit jacket.

After the surf we drove around the park and hiked a little bit.

Cape Naturaliste

We attempted to tour the Cape Naturaliste Lighthouse, but as soon as we exited the car we were swarmed by flies. We tried to ignore them and move on, but we each had about 20 flies buzzing around us and they were incredibly annoying. These flies don't just buzz around you, they land on your face and try to crawl into every orifice.  We decided it wasn't worth it and left to explore some other trails. After driving off-road for a bit, we decided to head back to Dunsborough to walk around. We did a little shopping (escaped to some A/C for a bit), then we stopped at a cafe for some iced coffee, where we discovered that "cream" actually means "whipped cream" haha. Good thing I got soy... B wasn't so lucky. You also have to specify no ice cream, as it's standard in their iced coffee. 

After relaxing outside for a bit, we realized how late it was and decided to go to a Thai place across the street called Thai Papaya. It was here that I (Am) met my match. As usual I ordered my dish Extra Hot because it never seems to be hot enough in the U.S. Well, by the time I was halfway through my meal, I no longer had feeling in my mouth. I could not even finish it - which is a first for me! Nevertheless, it was pretty tasty :) 

When we were finished eating dinner, we started to get tired and decided to head back to the campsite. Another early night .. cannot wait until we are fully acclimated! 

Tomorrow we head down to check out Yallingup - the surf is expected to be about 2.2 meters (7.2 feet), which we were told is barely enough to get the locals into the water ;-)