We arrived at the car rental shop just as the clock ticked over to 8am so we were all sorted and on the road by 8:30! We had already stocked up on supplies so we were able to drive for about 11 hours straight with only a couple of toilet and change of driver stops! The scenery was beautiful and not at all what we had expected with lush green fields and the stunning blue waters of the coastline. We could see why people say the west is more impressive than the east. There were several view points and places to stop but we decided to bypass everything to drive as far as we could today and then stop off at these places on our more leisurely drive back to Perth in a few days time.
 
We were hoping to make it to Coral Bay for the night but by the time we reached Carnarvon the sun was just about to set . As we've learnt before sunset is the worst time for driving in places like these so this gave us a chance to stop and decided what to do. We were still 5 hours from Exmouth and 3 hours from Coral Bay so getting all that way was getting out of the question. A lady in the petrol station suggested Minilya Roadhouse which was an hour and a half away so we decided that may be a better idea. As we set off it was already starting to become difficult to drive as cows, goats, sheep, possums, kangaroos and a fox(?!) were all making their way closer to the edge of the road and it was very dark by now. We even had one kangaroo who was sat in the other lane but then decided to jump out in front of our car and sit in the middle of the road enjoying the light from our headlights?! Matt soon made him jump though with a surprising beep from the horn. That made the decision for us, we would stop at Minilya Roadhouse and finish our journey in the morning! We had originally talked about sleeping in the car somewhere but after sitting in it for nearly 12 hours already it didn't seem a very appealing idea anymore so we booked ourselves a bed for the night.