Carnarvon to Exmouth WA

April 28—May 1 The North West Coast Highway: Carnarvon to Exmouth
Hello out there in “Blog Land”. We have been struggling make entries to our 80 Days Around OZ travel blog . There has been limited access to Wi-Fi connections and even when we have had them they have not always been cooperative. All of you who know Mike and I understand our limited computer prowess, and then to have difficulties doing what we try to do, well you can probably read the frustration in my words.  Anyway when you are reading this you will realize that we found a link once again. If there are no photos, it is because we struggled and lost the battle to get them to “down load”. We will continue to write and edit past blogs, try and add the photos, so stay tuned to our attempts and see what happens. Breathe deeply, count to 10 and don’t throw the lap top!
We left Monkey Mia on Monday and headed back on our route along the west coast. We stopped at Shell Beach, which was truly amazing. As the Aussies would say there are “heaps” of shells there; little tiny white cockle shells that are layered up to 20-30 feet deep along this beach. As you walk along you see where the shells have been crushed by people, but when you scratch down below the surface there are millions of the little shells. Scientists are puzzled as to why they are along this small beach and how there continue to be so many of them. By mid afternoon we got to the town of Carnarvon. We took a walk along their 1 Mile Jetty that was built in 1877 to load live stock and materials on to ships to be sent to Perth. The jetty is in pretty rough shape, I felt like I needed to keep my eyes on the boards so as to make sure I didn’t step through into the ocean below. There were quite a few fishermen out on it, supposed to be good fishing there. We gave the caretakers, (that were sitting there collecting the $2.00 a head fee), a bit of a tip to try and help them with the rebuilding fund, it will cost about $2,500. for each of the 200 pylons that hold the structure up.
Tuesday we are off to Exmouth. The scenery along the way is dotted with very BIG termite mounds. They are home of the spinifex termite who lives there with 1000s of their family members. The mounds are so well built they last up to a 100 + years. We took a lunch break in Coral Bay, it was drizzling so the ocean wasn’t as beautiful as pictures has led us to believe, but there were a lot of people there, so must have been a good spot to stay. We had our eyes set on Exmouth and got there by about 3:00pm. We called and confirmed our Ningaloo Reef glass bottom boat and snorkeling tour for Wednesday and then read about the tour that will take you out to swim with the Whale Sharks. We were hooked, whipped our plastic money card out and before we knew it we had spent a chunk of change and we were going to be swimming with the biggest fish in the ocean!
Wednesday Morning was cloudy but calm, and warm. We were picked up at our camp site and driven to the boat launching area in Tandibidi Beach a few miles across the North West Cape from Exmouth. Along the way we saw some interesting sights. We drove past these enormous transmission towers that been put up by the “crazy yanks” in 1967 during the cold war, there are 13 of these incredibly tall antennas. The tallest being 387 meters or about 1200 feet tall. That one also now serves as the light house, with the light being installed only about half way up the tower, because any higher and it might be obscured by the clouds. We also saw the remains of the wreck of the Mildura, in the Exmouth Gulf; she went down in 1907 during a cyclone. We got to our boat and boarded for a nice 2 hour cruise. We really enjoyed snorkeling the Ningaloo Reef. The ocean was quite calm and there were some areas where we were only a couple of feet above the reef so it was great. We saw a lot of colorful fish, corals, and plant life. We saw a very large cod fish, and a sea turtle. It doesn’t quite look like what one sees on the Discovery Channel, because the ocean blocks out the color of red and so unless you use artificial light under the water everything is a bit grayer and duller than might be expected. It was a great morning. We then were delivered back to camp where we cleaned up and headed out for our own tour of the area. We drove down the peninsula to see the other beaches including Turquoise Bay in the North Cape National Park. We ended our afternoon up at the old light house hoping for a good sunset, but there were too many clouds so we headed back to camp.
Thursday – day # 60; how quickly our trip is going. We woke up to gray skies and winds, hmm not quite the picture perfect day we were hoping for being out on the ocean most of the day. We met our bus and were driven back out to Tandibidi Boat Launch. We took a small rubber tender out to the boat that we would snorkel from. There was a very friendly group of about 20 of us snorkelers plus a very friendly and helpful crew. We sailed out past the area of the reef that we had visited previously and we were invited to take a morning snorkel. Oh my goodness, we had seas reminiscent of the Pacific on the Great Barrier Reef. Very rough water, choppy with white caps, not what I like to swim in. Because we are good sports, because we will only be here once, because we spent a lot $$$ on this adventure, we jumped in. We swam, we swam and we struggled to get out to see the reef and struggled even more to get back to the boat, because of course the current had swept us further away. Well barely breathing and our arms and legs shaking from the work-out we huffed and puffed our way back up onto the boat. Oh my! What had we gotten ourselves into? The staff then served a very nice morning tea: coffee or tea and a nice assortment of sweet and savory type of snacks. That helped to wash away the salt from my mouth and replenish our strength of what was to come. The boat then lifted anchor and sailed further out to sea. The captain of the boat was in contact with a spotter air plane that flew over the Ningaloo Reef looking for Whale Sharks. The Whale Shark is not a whale, but a very large fish (the largest fish in the ocean) that eats only plankton. They can grow up to almost 60 feet in length. These “gentle giants” are incredible, they have 1000s of tiny teeth in 300 rows that they strain their food through. It wasn’t more than a half an hour when the crew gave us the heads up that one of our desired Whale Sharks had been seen and we would be getting our chance to swim with it. We were poised on the back of the boat with our masks and fins on; given the command we jumped into the water and swam some 50 yards or so to see our target. Remember again choppy seas, very fast fish – you get the picture, we swam for all we were worth over to our guide, we saw this very big fish; we saw the very big fish swim away. Wasn’t quite what I had expected, guess I was thinking trained fish, swims quietly, and calmly with the old lady! Old man takes pictures. End of adventure. Well we did it, we saw it, Karen once, Mike twice, and Mike was able to capture it amazingly on the little underwater camera. After about a couple of hours of moving the boat spotting the fish, snorkelers chasing the fish, the Whale Shark took a dive and left the area, phew enough fun for one day. We then were served a nice lunch and sailed back in closer to land. We did snorkel again in the afternoon, the seas had calmed a lot and it was nice, not as much to see as the day before, but we swam over some beautiful coral and enjoyed a more relaxing swim. We had a memorable day and can say we have had the chance to: Swim with the biggest fish in the ocean. Oh ours wasn’t the biggest only about 12-15 feet long, but it was amazing none the less. Tomorrow we continue north planning an overnight stop at 80 Mile Beach. Enjoy, we may not find wifi again for a few days