Exmouth

Thursday 2nd/Friday 3rd November 2006

Passing through the ToC on the 'other side'!!

I think after Sydney, the 3 weeks we’d spent in Karratha were the longest I’ve spent in any one place – so it was kinda weird to be trundling down the road again – kinda weird but actually amazing to back on the road! Night was falling fast so we really couldn’t get too far, but a rough and ready roadhouse, Fortesque, was about 150 klicks down the road and it was to here that we mooched for an overnighter, thinking we’d be able to get an early start to Exmouth. I have to say that I reckon I was dreaming thinking we’d drive here in a day before we broke down as it’s a long way! Where isn’t in this country though?!

The main attraction here is the diving and snorkelling – there’s a place called Turquoise Bay which is just the most beautiful spot to both camp and swim and the diving here is done on the local reef, Ningaloo, which I’d heard a lot about.

Saturday 4th-Monday 6th November

The National Park is wonderful here, leading down to Coral Bay, although sadly you need 4WD to actually drive it as south of a river crossing – but we could still get around most of the park in Harriet, which is what we did!

Turquoise Bay - Beeeeewtifool!!

Turquoise Bay is better than the propaganda describes, with crystal clear water and an amazing amount of fishy’s – even in the shallows. Our first dives were pretty cool, seeing Lion fish, gropers and a few wrasse. We tried snorkelling in a couple of places at dusk too, in the hope of seeing some Sharks but we were out of luck this time!

Tuesday was a good day, as the Melbourne Cup was on so Nick, Dave and I mooched down to the local boozer where we had a flutter on the race. I lost everything – bugger, but the wimmin were nicely done up, it was great to see!! Even here in Hicksville, the chix like to stick on the hat and make a day out of it!

The remainder!!

The only thing for me during the week after the boys had left for Coral Bay was to try and catch up my Blog so most days found me down the library desperately trying to get the blog up-to-date! Those regular readers of ya will know that I failed – miserably!!

Bless - a little reef shark!!

This reef beats the hell out of the GBR – where the GBR is dead, white and has no fish, this reef is teeming with life – everywhere you turn. I also saw my first seasnake – which seemed to keep following us throughout the dive! There was also octopus, which you rarely see, let alone in day time…