Western Australia's Ningaloo Reef: Just Move On Up

End of the West
Cory Maley

Preamble:

I couldn't help as I began to shift my thinking away from Denham north to the Ningaloo of Curtis Mayfield's "Move On Up." I was ready to move on up and so here is the end of one adventure and the beginning of another.

Last Days in Denham

After a good number of days, perhaps even spiraling into weeks, the people of my world were anything but constant. In a backpacker's life, there isn't much as far as consistency in companionship is concerned. But this was about to change, if only for a stationary moment in time. Mike, Sam, Rosanne, Jace, Amelie, and Abi by the end of it, became a source of constancy for a good block of time. They became known to me as "THE CREW" It was a real change in pace, and a refreshing one at that. They proved to be a constant source of good times for me each contributing their own unique element of humour and conversation. I'm certainly going to need to make a trip to the UK and Quebec to visit them.

Not long after they arrived, I plotted to move in downstairs at the hotel in order to live out my phantom of the opera existence, but circumstances deteriorated quickly when Des and B told me I'd have to split a room. "No problem," I said, "so we'll just split the rent." Negatory good buddy! They wanted full rent for half space in the dungeon, as it has become known to those unfortunate souls who inhabit it. It turned out to be a good decision, since one of the girls was viciously mauled by what must have been a marauding horde of bedbugs - legions working overtime - either that or full body herpes (which she didn't think was as funny an assessment as I did).

So I stayed at the backpackers and had a great time with the crew, whiling away most of my off hours playing pool volleyball, watching movies, drinking, eating, and being otherwise quite merry.

As a nice surprise, My Melbourne friends, Patrice, Ludz, Heidi, Matt and Lorie came into town, albeit ever so briefly. It was great to see them, and had a nice visit with them before they took off the next morning way too early for me to see them off.

One of the exciting things we managed to go do was to go shooting. I killed three kangaroos! No, just kidding. I'm not big on shooting for sport, or alive things in general. We went shooting beer bottles at 120 meters, or so. I've never shot a gun outside of a video game, and didn't think I stood much of a chance of hitting anything. As it turns out, I was right - in the first round. Looking through the sight, it wobbled around as if I were a Parkinson's sufferer trying to line this up. But by my second attempt, I blew the bottle clean off the drum. I was Ver- escited, to quote Borat. It was team Canada clearing up that day. Jace and I were the only ones to hit anything. John managed to knock one down, but it may have just fallen since there was no noticeable damage - I didn't feel moved to tell him though.
While Mr. Miyagi would simply have said "Oh, Beginner's Luck," there certainly would have been some greater ego management issues to deal with in John.

That night we went four wheeling to a barbecue in the fullest clown-car of an off-road vehicle you can ever imagine. People were crammed in there like cows in a cattle-car, bouncing around, knees breaking, quads bruising, beer being spilled - oh the humanity - that my friends is alcohol abuse. Getting there was half the battle, the other half leaving, and everything in between was simply gravy. The fire and bush BBQ was brilliant. Who doesn't love a well contained fire?

More importantly, I took it upon myself to enlighten the united nations that was the campfire crowd of the glory of S'mores. S'mores, so named because you always want some more - S'more, are one of the glorious treats to come out of my Canadian background, like Poutine. And like poutine, S'mores remain consistent to the idea that Canadian cuisine must not contain anything of any value to your physical health. It is, however, good for your soul. It is in another sense similar to Poutine, insomuch as it is impossible to find the proper ingredients to make it authentic - but the strawberry marshmallows and the biscuits would have to do that night.

To round out my experience here in Denham, I managed to finagle a night off to go out. Jace and I were intent on teaching our friends how to two step, since there was going to be a country band playing. I danced my feet off, but it was good fun being the one who most knew how to dance for one in my life. I've always described my dancing abilities as being akin to a shovel with two left feet. But I managed to fool at least a couple of people into complimenting me on my dancing prowess. Hahaha Fools! It was a blast, and again I drank a good deal, but stuck to beer all night, which is always a blessing. The worst getting mixed up in my belly was a little bit of gas to be expelled noxiously in the morning.

I worked on my last evening in Denham. I wanted to end on a good note after calling in sick on Saturday with a raging and snotty head cold. The girls took pleasure in calling it man flu, until I asked them if I had once complained about it - I had the pin to their balloon. Sunday I was feeling better, and that was both a curse and a blessing.

Random Thought: Superglue is an essential item. By the end of my 5 weeks of work I had glued together the heal of my shoe twice - I was not about to spend another 3 dollars on another pair (which I would have to drive 600 kms to retrieve. I glued my glasses back together, and the sole of my sandals back on. This my friends takes up so little space, but can do so much in return. Duct tape has been mostly unhelpful, but I'd still bring it along. in case you need to use it on some poor sap's head.

Admission: I really am trying to drink less
Fact: This is a Sisyphean goal in Australia, especially when you are around Australians and Poms all the time.

My co-workers and boss insisted that I be let off early so that there would be time for them to light me up. I decided to stick to Gin and T - since that would result in least evil morning. But Des made me a monster of a drink that proved to be a tko as far as any hopes of my remaining sober that evening. It was a good time. For the next hour or so I played pool with THE CREW and despite moments of shit play, ended up owning the table owing in large part to my excellent partners. The party moved on to Disco's house where I scored the long sought after Cricket set I'd been eying. The events that followed go something like this:

1. Wrote an offensive message on Disco and Danny's "offensive message fridge"
2. Played Playstation Crazy Taxi for a few minutes. The only drunk driving I've done.
3. Danced crazily
4. Walked Amelie to the corner where she recognized where to go from thence.
5. Chucked my shoes and socks in a bush somewhere as a drunken act of liberation (this is another danger of drinking - you tend to forget you previously had a moral code - in this case not contributing to environmental degredation vis-a-vis littering).
6. Lost a pen war with Danny - ending with a Penis drawn on my face (thankfully they don't make indelible pens like they used to.
5. Danced crazily
6. Shook my hands in the air and was viciously attacked by a low ceiling fan
7. Was told it was time to go home by Rosanna (I complied gratefully to THE CREW's mother hen)

Although knowing the way home. Des's concoction seems to have had a disorienting affect upon my system - perhaps because it was made with alcohol - Note to readers: Alcohol may result in fan-cut hands, extreme disorientation leading one to walk aimlessly away from town and into the barren outback with a penis drawn on your face. Drink responsibly, or have someone with you who is going to - Rosanna. She got me home in one piece, much to her amusement and my gratitude.

Moving on Up to Exmouth

Various circumstances led me to cut short my time here in Shark Bay: Bus schedules, drama at work, itchy feet, and deciding to head back to the East coast earlier than planned when Mel's plans to come out here fell through. Truthfully, the latter is the big one.

Coral Bay and Exmouth have been full of the most wonderful snorkeling around. It's so beautiful on the Ningaloo reef, and there is so much to see so close to shore. The coral formations are exquisitely coloured, myriad in shape, and so chock a block full of life that if you didn't eventually become both sun burnt and hypothermic, you could very well stay out there forever. Anyone who loves snorkeling or diving, this is the place to be. Virtually untouched by the rampant tourism of the East on the Great Barrier, there is a healthier, more readily protected, and more readily accessible reef.

Coral Bay is quite a resort, and Exmouth is not very friendly to backpackers without a car, as good snorkeling spots are hard to come by, but the diving here is supposed to be much better. That being said, I'm lucky to be here at all. Easyrider, like so many others before me, screwed up my reservation and there was no room on the bus for me. The driver asked me nicely if I would be picked up in Coral Bay on Thursday, and I said no. I said, I'll give up my seat, but I was not getting off the bus come hell or high water. The booking agent even had the nerve to say he remembered my call a week earlier and had told him I wanted something I didn't at anytime want. I told him that I was sorry he was confused but I wasn't going to get off the bus. The driver stuck his neck out and let me stay, so I bought him a beer that night. It was a bad day for him all around, it was the least I could do, seeing as it wasn't his fault, but he was the one who had to cop it.

I decided to nix the Whale Shark Snorkeling adventure. Sure, snorkeling with whale sharks does sound cool, but not $330 for 5 minutes cool. I'm much happier signing up for a a three dive + barbecue including a cool night dive for only $200. That's a much better deal all around, I'd say.

The dive WAS amazing. The second one especially when I got to see the giants of the deep at a dive site called Blizzard Ridge, so called because the waves push white sand over the top of the coral walls. We saw a huge sea snake and a bull ray that seemed as if it had jumped straight out of a Jules Verne novel. I could not have reached across it if I stretched my tips of my fingers out and done the same to the tips of my toes. I just noticed this huge "thing" swim over me, darkening the sky, then I saw it for what it was, saving myself from crapping my pants. But it decided it wanted to come in for a closer look (rays are curious creatures after all). As it got close though, it saw another large ray and wasn't having any of it; it was quickly distracted by chasing it off. I also saw lionfish, octopi, all sorts of cool tropical fish, and an aenenome (forgive the spelling) the size of a large throw rug, and my first reef shark.

The night dive was also exciting. There wasn't much to see, but as an inexperienced diver there was quite enough for me to worry about without seeing much. At one point I lost control of my boyancy when I nearly ran into the coral on the side of me I wasn't shining the torch on. With a little help from my dive master I recovered my equalibrium, but not before bumping the coral at the bottom and again on one side. See, and apparently I'm certified, but they drag people down who've had no training at all here in Australia - no wonder the reefs are in such a bad way. The Ningaloo Reef: It once pristine, once protected (until they let Cory dive on it).

The hostel we stayed in was not so much a hostel as it was a trailer park, which is cool. I've never stayed in a trailer park before. And as it turns out, Australians with Foxtel (the satellite tv out this way) love Trailer Park Boys, one of the great TV shows to come out of Canada. I would also argue that Corner Gas while completely different in style and type of humour is equally brilliant. It's been a good chance for me to drop my overused Borat impression and pick up my underused Bubbles impersonation. Life in the trailer park in Exmouth is considerably less Drama filled than Sunnyvale, Nova Scotia though - which has been a sweet relief, although it is considerably less funny as well. There was no Bubbles, but I did briefly share the room with a really inconsiderate English girl from the North with a daft lisp and a penchant for waking everyone up.

Back Down To Perth

The trip down to Perth covering a distance roughly the same as a drive from Vancouver to Regina, or Seattle to San Francisco as it might be, was a long one, but enjoyable enough. It passed mostly uneventfully, or if there was a great deal of eventfulness I was too engrossed in my Bill Bryson book to pay any attention. When I wasn't reading it, I was chatting to Vanessa, a lovely German girl who was also interested in environmental pusuits.

When I got to Perth, I bumped more-or-less randomly into Stacey, a mate from Denham who left to go up North several weeks ago and Yuki, who left Denham about the same time I did. We went out for beers and made our way down to Freemantle to take another trip to the wonderful Little Creatures brewery. The beer is good, and I had a book to exchange. It was slim pickings for such a large wall of books, but I finally settled on a Mark Twain book, that should once again satiate my appetite for good writing, as well as the Coetzee book, I managed to score off of a German fellow on my dive.

Tonight I'm back over to the East coast to head, this time, North from Sydney, in hopes of following the summer sun, just a little bit longer before it declines into a noteably mild winter here and to celebrate my 30th Birthday tomorrow.

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