May 2016 - Ningaloo and whale sharks

Hi,

The purpose of this blog is to keep our friends, family and work colleagues up to date with our travels. PS Photos down the bottom of this blog.

.NINGALOO STATION

Left Dunsborough on Sunday 24 April for the start of our 4-month top end trip. After driving 700kms on day 1 spent the night at a roadside rest area (Galena Bridge) followed by two nights in Carnarvon (to sample tropical fruits and stock up on food/water) and then onto Ningaloo Station. So by this point we are about 1600kms from home and camped at Winderbandi Point. The road in to the station can get badly corrugated which makes for slow travel and is for the very keen camper, as you need to bring everything with you (i.e. water, solar power/generator, food, portable toilet etc).Ningaloo Station is a 50,000 hectare pastoral lease managed by the Lefroy Family since 1934. The station adjoins a stretch of pristine coast line. Sunsets and sunrises are fantastic, and it’s amazing how many stars you can see when the sky is clear. We have a great camp (site 24) as it is surrounded by bush, so slightly protected from the wind, but has beach access and views of the ocean and ranges, and our nearest neighbour is about 500 metres away. We have taken our surf skis and stand up paddle boards out to the reef, snorkelled on Ningaloo reef, gone for long beach walks and hiked up the range which provided views of the coastline. It is also popular for fishing and kiteboarding – so a water sports playground. We are careful with water, as it is a 5 hour minimum round trip to get some if you run out. After 3 weeks camped on the beach we had run out of food and water, so it was time to move on.

.EXMOUTH

We are staying with friends Sam & Mal who we met when we did our around Oz trip in 2003/04. So a shower and washing of clothes was the first thing on the agenda followed by shopping for fresh food and dinner at BBQ Father. We are using Exmouth as a base for a few days to do a whale shark trip and to do snorkelling at Cape Range National Park. Bernie has enjoyed his stay at Sam & Mals as he has been living on Gold Band snapper for lunch and dinner, and Exmouth tiger prawns as an entree. We are currently waiting for the wind to drop so that we can go on a micro-light flight for a birds eye view of the ningaloo reef - but it still too windy (i.e. unsafe) to take off in these high winds, so fingers crossed it drops.

. WHALE SHARKS

On Thursday 19/5 we did a Whale Shark Discovery Swim on the Exmouth Ningaloo Reef with Ocean Eco Adventures. We had a fantastic day out, spotted 3 different whale sharks and had about 8 swims with them. Did you know that the Whale Shark is the biggest and one of the rarest fish in the world's oceans and has been around for about 16 million years! At Ningaloo Reef an amazing opportunity awaits you from the end of March to early August to snorkel with Whale Sharks in the beautiful clear blue waters of the World Heritage listed Ningaloo Marine Park.

After leaving Exmouth (on Sunday 22/5) we are headed towards Tom Price to walk the gorges at Karajini National Park and then onto Broome.
Bye for now.