Wet and Wild in WA

I've finally escaped from the world of expensive and slow internet so here's the latest. I love coral bay. It is really chilled out and as a backpacker it's really easy to do stuff. I wanted to go whale watching, but apparently the humpbacks have left, so I decided to go swimming with a manta ray. This is not what killed Steve Irwin - I don't have a deathwish! Manta rays are pretty big, but have no sting. THe one we found was 2.5m wide, but they can get some 4m wide in the bay. THe one we found was very chilled out and happy to have 11 snorkellers following it aropund for 40mins. I managed to get some photos with an underwater camera, but haven't got it developed yet, but we were about 2m away from it most of the time. Then we headed out to the outer reef and went to find some reef sharks. THere were about 9 of them circling under us which wasn't so bad from above, but when they turned side on they looked pretty vicious. Luckily they don't eat humans and actually are more likely to swim away from you if you head their way. That was pretty cool and we also saw some turtles, so was a good trip.
That night a load of friends I met earlier on arrived, so we hit the beers and cheap backpacker special pizzas and planned a bbq for the next night. Food here is really expensive and it took us 30mins to find any chicken, but we made some great kebabs. Alas the hostels don't trust you with real fire, so the bbq's are flat and just heat up, this meant only the pumpkin touched the surface and was getting cooked, so we had to take everything off the skewer and just cook it all together. It still tasted pretty good and better than the dodgy pasta meals I've been cooking. That night me and ira headed to Monkey Mia to see the wild dolphins.
Monkey Mia is just a resort on a beach where the dolphins come in to be fed there is no town there, so it's a bit isolated and the internet is really expensive and slow. The dolphins just come into shore when they want to, and in the morning they get fed, I was very lucky and got to feed one, which was pretty cool, but alas I have no photgraphic evidence of it, so no-one here believes me!
Then I headed onto a place called Kalbarri where I did a bit of Kayaking in the bay and then went on a walk to the gorges nearby. THe walk turned into a bit of a climb up and down rocks along a river. It was a lot more fun than a dull walk and we swam in a nice pool a few kms down the river. The next day I was pretty achy, but have decided I need to get a bit fit again, so maybe it'll kickstart that.
At the moment I'm in Geraldton with Sally and Uli who are also doing the west coast. Yeasterday we went to see a cathedral which the lonely planet raves about. I was a bit underwhelmed. It's more like a church than a cathedral, though it is painted with orange stripes over alot of the inside which is kind of odd. WE took a guided tour with a sweet old retired guy who unfortunately was one of the worst tour guides I've ever had. He didn't know an awful lot about the cathedral and kept saying "oh yes I meant to find out about that" or "Oh yes I meant to add that to the talk". His best effort was when he didn't know what a stained glass window was about, but there was a plaque on it that I read to him that explained it all!
Anyway it was quite amusing. Am staying in a hostel at the moment which is very retro with 80's sofas and bar and high ceilings in all the rooms. It has free a pool table though, which is great. Am hoping to go windsurfing tomorrow which should be funny as I haven't done it for 15 years.