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Published: February 11th 2007
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Emu
Local Exmouth resident. Well we made it to our most northerly point in WA, Exmouth (that's Ex-mouth not Ex-muth), after another Greyhound nightmare!! Lets just say, 3 hours waiting at a road house in the middle of nowhere between 2am and 5am!!
We got here at 8am and are only staying for 1 night, as we have so much else to see in the next 6 weeks. So we didn't hang around and headed straight for the Visitor's Centre, where we booked a Scooter and Snorkelling Tour, as it seemed more fun than just hiring a car again!
Exmouth is based at the most northern point of the Ningaloo Reef (which according to good old Lonely Planet rivals the Great Barrier Reef, but with hardly anyone around). The town is pretty quiet and all the good stuff is kind of spread out, hence needing a tour/some wheels!
We were surprised to find that we were the only people on the tour, so had our guide Matty all to ourselves! We quickly got the hang of our cool scooters and headed off north up the coast to the military base. It was a US base, but they moved out in the 60's
Scooters
How cool are we?! and the whole town still has a very military look about it, apart from the random emu's that roam the streets! The base is still used but is now Aussie-owned. We didn't stop there for long as we were keen to get into the water asap for some snorkelling action. We spent a good hour and a half exploring the reef and saw some amazing marine life. Matty claimed he saw a 3-foot reef shark, but we missed it (Laura was probably having another gulp of the sea water or something!). We hopped straight back on our bikes and headed further along the coast where we had a look at the Mandura Shipwreck (from 1907) and saw some turtle nests. Next stop was Exmouth's lighthouse, where we stopped for a look at the breathtaking views and some nibbles (including delicious home-made houmous and brie that was gooey like it had been baked in the oven, but it was actually just a result of the sun!). After whizzing back to the town centre on some very empty roads with plenty of space for having a good play on the scooter (don't be scared, mums!), the tour ended with some more fish
Coral Bay
Fantastic! and chips and a couple of delicious bottles of Carlton Cold!!! A highly recommended afternoon out!
After Exmouth, we started heading south again to the nearby village of Coral Bay (more of a street than a village). Coral Bay sits at the other end of the Ningaloo Reef and is probably better for backpacking snorkellers, as the reef lies a few metres off the beach, which is at the end of the street and pretty darn nice.
Everyone highly recommended doing a 'Manta Ray Snorkelling Tour', which takes place in the outer reef so we said goodbye to our budget for the day and set off! We headed out there on a small, but very cool boat for five hours where we got to see and snorkel with a Manta Ray, turtles, loads of incredible fish and reef sharks! We also saw a large family of dolphins who swam pretty near the boat. Unfortunately the Manta Rays were pretty scarce that day (they usually swim in pretty shallow waters over the coral) and we only swam with one who tended to stay quite deep but Luke managed to get a better look at it's approx 2-3 metre span
Coral Bay Turtle
From the boat trip. when he dove down to take some pics. As we went in for our third snorkel, the skipper threw handfuls of little crackers on to us, so that loads of massive fish swarmed all over us - one even had a nibble on Laura's ear! We went with Ningaloo Experience and highly recommend them if anyone is heading up that way! They also allowed us to keep hold of our snorkels for a while so we did some drift snorkelling along the inner reef too, with loads of other people from our hostel, the Ningaloo Club. It was a pretty cool place with a nice pool and excellent 'Happy Hour', although we couldn't tell if one of the staff disliked us or was just very deadpan and sarcastic!
Unfortunately, we couldn't stay around forever as we have so much else to do and reluctantly set off on the Greyhound to the small town of Cervantes and then back to Perth, so we'll tell you all about that next time...
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anonymous
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YOu two look so cool on your bikes...seen greece two?! I want a coooool riider, a coool rider....?! Enjoy love jen x x x