Earth's initial oxygen source, Morse Code and dolphins

Continuing south from Coral Bay, we re-joined the North West Coastal Highway at the Minilya Roadhouse and then it's a mere 139 km to Carnarvon. Here we bought fresh fruit from one of the many plantations that line the river (which looks dry but there is water in there somewhere). One of the items we purchased was prepared mango, frozen for convenience and our later delight. Have you ever eaten anything better than defrosting mango when the temperature is in the mid thirties?? It was delicious.
Just another 206 km south is Overlander Roadhouse and that was our turnoff to Shark Bay Marine Park.

Our first stop was at Hamelin Station, another ranch but in complete contrast to Bullara in the north, this is an ultra modern campground in an utterly arid ranch. I honestly don't understand how any livestock can be raised here. There is nothing on the ground just a load of stumpy bushes.
The facilities are perfect and maintained by a farm employed husband and wife team; similar to others we have seen, they have quit their normal life and are doing something different.

Hamelin station is at the southern end of Hamelin Pool, a huge area of highly saline sea, part of the even bigger Shark Bay. It is famous for Stromatolites, as they still live in this area. Why are they so important? I hear you ask. Well many years ago, 3.5 billion to be precise, there was little alive on Earth and Stromatolites, some sort of special bacteria, started to form at the edge of the seas. These produce oxygen, just as plants generate it through photosynthesis now, and little by little, over the following billions of years, the oxygen generated by these things built up to a concentration that supports life as we know it.
At Hamelin Pool you can see these organisms; they look like rocks but bubbles are visible when the tide comes in. It's amazing really.




Also at Hamelin Pool is a little museum housed in the old morse telegraph building and housing a nice Stromatolite exhibition and also memorabilia of the Telegraph Office - a morse code repeater station that was established there in 1884, for the purpose of relaying telegraphs sent using morse code, up the wire to north west Australia. They even had a morse key like mine. (di dah  di dah di  dah di dah).

From Hamelin we continued west and then northwest to Denham, by now 128 km from the Overlander turnoff. This is a lovely village on a peninsular or cape, jutting north and splitting Shark bay into two.
There was an amazing stop-off at Eagle Bluff, a vantage point high above a shallow bay, that turned out to afford great views of sharks ( it's not called Shark Bay for nothing). We saw a Lemon Shark and a few Nervous Sharks, something that we would have been had we not been up on Eagle Bluff.
Close to Denham is the Monkey Mia 'resort' where each day, wild dolphins arrive for a feed on the beach. They have done so for tens of years and provide a great spectacle early in the morning. It's a no touch experience but nevertheless quite exhilarating.

Coral Bay: snorkelling with turtles and manta rays

21 October 2013

We left Exmouth for the second time, bound for Coral Bay, a much recommended location south of the North West Cape and Ningaloo Marine Park. Coral Bay is very remote as it is 152km south of Exmouth and 247 km north of Carnarvon. So you take your pick when you need to go shopping.
At Coral Bay there are two campsites, a smal hotel and a backpacker hostel, plus some accommodation for seasonal workers. That's it!


It's a two minute walk to the beach...and it's stunning. The lighter colour water shows where the shallow water is covering soft sand and the slightly darker area is over coral.
After our snorkelling experience the previous week, it was a little strange to go back into the water and we had several sessions before we felt relaxed. I have also found myself watching and listening to other swimmers far more than I should!
We signed-up for an outer reef snorkelling trip of six hours. The attraction was the possibility of swimming with manta rays and seeing the bigger coral. We were a little hesitant until the nice lady in the office told us that the little aeroplane that we had seen over the bay that morning, was in fact a manta ray spotter. This convinced us that it might be money well spent and so we committed.
The next morning we joined about twenty others on a small boat and were only a few minutes out when we spotted a Lepoard Shark, possibly a metre long.

There were several opportunities to snorkel over the coral near the edge of the reef and well within earshot of the deafening sounds of the ocean breakers on the other side. No wonder ancient mariners struggled to sail through barrier reefs.
We were briefed about snorkelling with manta rays (they don't sting and they can swim quickly) and split into two groups. The basic idea was that the leader (powerful swimming Italian young lady) got into the water close to the rays and swam with very long fins, keeping her arm stretched out above the water to signal that she was staying with them. It was our task to enter the water very quickly and then follow in a rough V formation. If we got left behind, then we regrouped and the boat picked up and repositioned.
Now snorkelling on your own, pottering around a bit of coral is one thing, but trying to keep up with a pair of manta rays is something else! However, it's FANTASTIC to see them and both Dawn and I did have a couple of sessions, over quite quickly as the rays were swimming quickly.
There were two rays which the leader managed to follow for about an hour. My view was of both rays swimming below and almost towards me, one behind the other. As I hooked in behind, the first one performed a full roll, showing about half a dozen keeper fish on the white underside. These rays had a wingspan of about 2 metres, so you can imagine just what a sight they are.
Photos will have to be added at a later date as although we have a full set, they are on a USB stick which I can't load onto the iPad. It might be possible to edit this blog post online at an Internet cafe where I can maybe add the pics.
After the rays, we had some food and then a free snorkel during which we had a sustained view of a turtle, in quite deep water. These are slow swimmers that need to surface to breathe every 30 minutes or so. There are countless other sights to see such as giant clams, myriad colourful fish and beautiful coral. The stars of the show though were the manta rays.


A further wildlife sighting was at the campsite early one morning. Dawn was leaving the toilet block and right there in front of her was a kangaroo complete with joey in her pouch. Both parties stood and stared but as it was an unplanned meeting, neither had brought their camera and so it has gone un-recorded but they each have their memories.

A taste of The Outback

The first stop on the slow journey south from Exmouth was to a homestead - Bullara Station, www.bullara-station.com.au
This is a large ranch which offers a variety of options to stay: Shearer's quarters, places for caravans, trailers and they also accept the occasional odd mad English campers. We keep telling people that were are camping-with-a-tent and not a camper-van. The place was almost deserted, as the holiday season this far north is almost over. Temperatures are now rising and will exceed 40 C frequently through the next few months. It provided our first dark nights with the Milky Way easily visible and a waxing moon (doing it from the opposite side too).
Bullara is about 95km south of Exmouth - a mere 60 minutes at a steady pace. It's a mixed cattle and sheep farm employing a couple working as farm hands and temporary Backpackers otherwise known as WWOOFers (Willing Workers On Organic Farms), who are working for board and lodging in order to get some sort of credit towards a working visa application. The most recent were from the UK and apparently not familiar with country life, let alone the 40+ km rides out into the bush on trials bikes in order to round-up livestock!
This stay is best described as rustic, on account of the way in which they have established the necessary services such as showers and other ablution facilities, as the Australians refer to toilet blocks. All water is from bore holes. They lift bore hole water with those familiar windmills that operate a piston pump (think Southfork Ranch). What we didn't know is that the water is then pumped vast distances across the ranch to supply local tanks for livestock.
The showers are outdoor and heated by intriguing methods loosely based on old boilers now burning dead wood. It's a great experience to shower under the stars.

We met a couple of grey nomads, with Pommie roots. Tom was happy to show me the solar panels and control equipment on his caravan that allows them to be off the power grid for most of the time. Kate cooked a pineapple cake which we all enjoyed as we sat around the open-air camp kitchen. Tom was bothered by flies and killed as many as possible with a fly swatter but this was purely therapy, as for each dead one, a replacement alive and irritating one began to pester him.
As with a lot of Aussie on the road, these are retired people who have embarked on a long tour around the country, towing a caravan, trailer or in one case, a roof tent. We met one couple who have been away for over four years. They have a return ticket however in that they have held onto a pice of land on which they will build a house. Most have left houses with house-sitters; quite a nice idea I think.
On a wander around the ground near the homestead we saw many snake tracks, plenty of bird life and one kangaroo. Of greater interest for me was the contents of the sheds and various bits of equipment only very slowly decaying in the dry climate.


All-in-all this was a very pleasant stay, marred only by a bit of a medical issue for Dawn which she thought she had overcome a couple of days earlier. Rather than continue further south and thus further from Exmouth, we decided on Sunday morning, to return there in search of a doctor. This was at the hospital and Dawn was given a prescription which we couldn't present until Monday morning at the pharmacy. So for her comfort we checked into a holiday lodge for an overnight stay and sleep catch-up.
On Monday 21st Oct '13 we then travelled to Coral Bay, a very remote 'resort' further south on Ningaloo Reef.

The Ningaloo Reef, wildlife and a new friend from Tiawan

Exmouth (pronounced as in eyes, nose and mouth), is on the eastern side of a peninsula which forms the Gulf of Exmouth to the east and the Ningaloo Reef to the west. It's a major centre for watching whale-sharks, humpback whales and turtles, as well as for exploring the coral reef itself.

The first wildlife we saw were emus, at the side of the road outside the town. Later we saw one walking up the main street. We finally saw kangaroos near the visitor centre at the reef. We haven't been driving at night so that probably explains why we've only seen dead ones at the side of the road. Kangaroo dung is similar to that of rabbits - just bigger.


It would be wrong not to mention flies. It's not that there are lots; there aren't. It's just that they have very specific behaviour and that is, they fly straight onto your face. They don't fly around, they go straight for your nostrils, eyes or ears. That's why we are perfecting the Ozzie wave. They are much easier to deal with than midges. So far, anyway.

Exmouth is very quiet and there's lots of space at the campgrounds. The temperature steadily increases now as the summer develops further south, peak season is finished and most holiday makers have gone south. In Exmouth it is in the mid thirties now and will increase so that it can be forty degrees frequently.
There are plenty of young Europeans here, all seem to be on extended trips around the country. Also there are "Grey Nomads". These are Ozzies who are on major touring trips around the continent. They all seem to have a house somewhere but are away for many months. Almost all are driving Toyota Landcruisers and pulling caravans or trailers. Landcruisers are the vehicle of choice here, old and new, there are hundreds. We have spotted just a few Land Rovers (and none of these are Series).
At the north of the Cape is a lighthouse lookout. From there we got first glimpses of the Humpback whales making their way very slowly south. They are distinctive as they exhale and blow through the water creating a distinctive plume. 
These are huge creatures and it was a privilege to watch them playing and tending their calves. They move gracefully through the water but spend a lot of time almost stationary as they sleep in the afternoon. We went on a late afternoon whale-watching boat trip. Only ten minutes out of Exmouth we saw the first whale and over the next couple of hours we saw many more mothers and calves. A few put on a show of "pec (pectoral fin) slapping" which is quite a sight to see from a beast that is several metres long and weighing many tonnes.

Later, using binoculars from the shore, we saw a whale jumping almost clear of the water.

At Ningaloo Reef on the Indian Ocean side of the Cape Peninsular, we went into the National Park and to Turquoise Bay specifically. It's a magnificent place, easily the most beautiful beach we've ever been on.



Turquiose Bay was recommended for our first snorkelling (having first practised at the beach nearer Exmouth). We were careful to go into the easy bit of the bay with no drifting in the current. All went well for the first twenty minutes and we were getting used to the technique and started to watch the beautiful coloured fish. We were 20-30 metres from the shore when there was a cry and I realised that someone was in trouble.
A guy on shore was looking out to sea and that helped me to locate a person not too far away. By the time I reached him he was below the water and as I tried to remember my Altrincham Baths STA lifesaver badge technique he grabbed my mask and ripped it from my face. I pulled him towards the beach but with fins on it was hard and I was trying to get his snorkel out of his mouth but his jaws were tightly closed. The other guy came into the water and as soon as we got within our depth I gave him mouth to mouth, not much but enough, as he appeared to have stopped breathing and was a horrible colour. He made a few gurgling sounds and we put him into the recovery position and he slowly came round on the beach.


It all ended well, as he was taken to hospital got checked over for 24 hours and then given the OK. We met the next day and exchanged details. He's a young guy from Tiawan, on a slow tour around Oz who has assumed I saved his life and promised me that he will never to go snorkelling alone again!

The reef stretches for mile and miles along this coast. There are some campsites but it is a little extreme for tents as there is no shade and no facilities. During these days the temperature reached 37-39 C and we were happy to be at a site in Exmouth with camp kitchen facilities ( more on these in a later post).

Sleeping is easy as the temperature falls always rapidly once the sun goes down (18:30) and so cool nights contrast with hot days. Maybe it's the time of year coupled with the abundance of sandy soils that create the rapid heat loss.

Into the Tropics

Saturday 12 October 2013

Perth's Spring was struggling to take hold as we left the city. It was raining and 14C but we knew things would change as we drove north. It doesn't take long to leave the city and we soon turned onto the Great Northern Highway.

It's 1,200km to Exmouth so we settled in for a steady three day drive, with the first leg to Northampton (472km).
There's nothing at all along the road save for the occasional roadhouse and a few turn offs to even more remote places. These might be shown as 125km away and it will be a gravel road.










The road north is very easy and the driving is definitely the most relaxing we have experienced anywhere. The speed limit is 110km/hr and for 99% of the time, that's what you do.
Many returning holidaymakers were travelling south after the two week mid-term break. Almost all travellers we meet are pulling caravan or trailers. However these are no ordinary caravans; for the most part they are twin axles ruggedised beasts unlike the soft options seen the UK.

By lunchtime on Saturday we had hit the sun and it was warmer but very windy
This is Port Denison and it was almost deserted.





 
We are finding that Auzzie campsites are very well organised with plenty of gas powered bbqs available and surprisingly there are fridges and freezers with open access. Not having a cool box is not such a problem after all.



Nothing prepares you for the swift twilight of the sub tropics and it's dark within 30 mins of sundown so most people are in bed early and then up at 6:30 the next day.

The second day drive was to Carnarvon and the road continued as before but with the bush either side beginning to thin. The road trains all seemed to be passing in the other direction. The signs say they have a maximum length of 36.5m. So far we haven't caught up with one.
There's masses of kangaroo roadkill and they are hefty lumps so not only do you keep a look out for them jumping across the road, you also haver to judge whether or not to straddle them and drive over or go around.

It really does feel like the outback, especially with warnings about carrying sufficient water and fuel. "No fuel or supplies for 185 km" reminds you of the remoteness. It's not the middle of Africa, granted, but it is pretty inhospitable.



In the photo above, you can just make out a dust devil (is that the correct term?) It seemed quite large and was drawing-up a far bit of sand.
Carnarvon is a 'growing centre' due to the water available from the Gascoyne river, which flows through natural tunnels and hence moving water to the Carnarvon area. The riverbed was looking very dry as we drov away on Monday morning, after buying tomatoes at the kiosk with an honesty box.





Now it was very hot, over 30 and in some places it was 37. Generally it got hotter as we continued north towards Exmouth.


There were hundreds of termite nests along the way and they are very big, plenty around 2m tall. They are also much fatter than ones we have seen in Queensland. According to a signpost at a rest area, the Queen in a colony can live for forty years.


Somewhere south of Exmouth we crossed an important imaginary line...


Now we are at Exmouth and relaxing for three or four days. This place is idyllic with a remote feel but still all the normal food and services are available. The busy season is now over (Southern Australia winter) when the temperature here is mid 20s. Now things are warming-up towards the mid to high 30s. (Not sure when it rains; not sure that it does as they are between the wet/dry north and the summer/winter south)

Perth - first impressions, plus preparations for camping

The flights went well and passage through Perth airport was very smooth. Sonja at Thrifty car rental was a bubbly sort, very happy to see us and to explain (as several have done since), that WA is much the best part of Australia.

The hire car deal has been great. At £17 per day we thought that there might be a catch but the car is great - with plenty of ground clearance and 4WD with diff lock ( not planning to use that feature but you never know).


We are getting over jet lag whilst staying with hosts Judy & Peter, at an Airbnb place in a northern suburb. It's really good to have what's effectively an apartment to ourselves ( we have upstairs plus use of the kitchen).
Today (Wednesday) we have been shopping for the camping gear we couldn't bring and non perishable food. So Kmart was first stop where we bought a cheap picnic table and the chairs that once you sit in them, you can't get back out, a big plastic box for all the bits, a water container etc. etc.
Then it was off to Coles for food, because as we go further north, the shopping opportunities are scarcer.
Once the shopping was over we headed west to Scarborough and Brighton beaches. The sky was clear blue, but it's a little cooler than normal. Max today was 21C (over in Sydney it's a staggering 39C). So it's been very pleasant although with a stiff breeze the beach felt a little cooler.
Typical Australia: look at the first warning sign we saw...

We enjoyed our first glimpse of the Indian Ocean.

Then it was south, skirting Perth City to go to Cottesloe beach in time for a drink and sit on the grass to watch the sunset over Rottnest Island

Not a bad first day.

Trip preparation

What preparation is required for a trip that involves a camping road trip to a country that doesn't allow the import of most foodstuffs as well as dirty tents?!

There's not a lot to do except to check the usuals such as phone and iPad chargers, maps and routes. Plus we are making a list of all the stuff that we'll need to buy when we arrive. Most importantly however, the tent must be CLEAN!

We are embarking on a five week road trip up the western coast of Australia. We will start in Perth, swiftly drive 1,200 Km north to Exmouth and then turn around to make a slow journey south.





Australia covers a huge area...




Highlights will include seeing kangaroos (hopefully not on the road), dolphins, emus, humpback whales and plenty of remote scenery such as Cape Range National Park.

Stretching for around 150 miles is Ningaloo Reef - this is the world's largest fringing reef, meaning that we should be able to swim out to it from the shore.






Further south is Shark Bay and the Stromatolites - examples of the oldest organisms found on Earth