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In Hamelin
I love my sunsets! It was around 10 am on Sunday when we set of on our adventure and it was quite sad to leave Chris, Bryan, John and Nikki behind as they have been great to me over the past week! It took us a little while to find highway one, we ended up driving a little too far up route 60 but eventually we realised and were on our way! We had originally planned to head straight to Geraldton but we discovered that the Pinnacle Desert was on the way so decided to pay it a visit. It is basically millions of limestone pillars which look like termite mounds in the orange sand, some are up to 4 metres tall. The minute we got out of the van and walked to them the heavens opened, typical we are in the desert and it starts pouring it down, it could only happen to us. So after getting a couple of photos we ran back to the van and were drenched, to the extent that we had to get changed before seetting off again!
414.1 km into the journey and we still weren't in Geraldton, it was getting dark so we found a
caravan park, which was more like a petrol station with a power point, and parked up for the night. We were advised not to drive at night as there are no street lights, as there is nothing but bush land for the majority of the time and animals such as kangaroos come out at night, we saw three dead ones on the road side and we didn't want to be hitting one of them!
I made chilli con carne for are tea and we cracked open the wine box, beauty mate! After a few games of cards, which we are getting very good at now we made up the bed and got some sleep, although not being used to sleeping in a camper van it wasn't the best nights sleep i've ever had.
On Monday we got to Geraldton for lunchtime and we ate near the sea after stopping on the way for photos at Port Denison. We visited St Xavier Cathedral, which took 22 years to build, it is quite a beautiful building, i do like churches. We then headed as far north as possible before it got dark passing through Northampton, which was a
lovely little place, Binnu which if you blinked you'd miss it, and Billabong, the only buildings there being a small caravan park, petrol station and a restaurant. We drove for a total of 512 km and ended up staying in a place called Hamelin, were we made it just in time for a cup of tea before walking to the beach to watch the sunset.
On Tuesday we drove to Monkey Mia, Shark Bay where wild dolphins come daily to be fed, unfortuantley we had missed it and they weren't doing it till the next day, so after sitting on the beach for a while hoping they would come back we decided to carry on driving. We passed through Denham (twinned with Buckinghamshire, England) and stopped at some view points on route before reaching Carnarvan where we stayed the night, a total of 509 km
After dinner we had a walk around town and discovered that nothing happens after dark, the only place that was open was Woolworths (which is a supermarket in Australia not a dodgy sell everything shop like in the UK).
On Wednesday we decided that we would be able to
make it up to Exmouth as it was just 407.5 km. I had wanted to do the whale shark trip as i have always wanted to swim with them, but it was rather expensive so i settle for a couple of dives which we booked for the following day. By lunch time we had made it to Coral Bay, a small coastal town and we had a quick walk on the beach. We made it to Exmouth by 3 pm and we went to the dive shop to pay for our dives before finding a caravan park nearby.
On Thursday we were up early and at the dive shop for 7.30 am. Our first dive spot was called Labryinth, it was a nice site which lived up to it's name, lots of chambers of coral everywhere. We reached a maximum depth of 14 metres and there was a slight current which made it lots of fun, we saw nudibranches, bat fish, hump head parrot fish, sailfin catfish, long tail banner fish and a blue spotted fantail sting ray.
The next dive was much better, this time in a site called blizzard ridge, again a maximum depth
More desert,
Its what we see most of the time! of 14 metres but this one started off on sand and then dropped down to the ridge where lots of fish were about, including a 3 metre shovel nose ray (although it does look like a guitar fish! I'm not sure which it is really). I really liked this fellow and i couldn't stop taking his photo, i even managed to get in one with him too. We also saw wobbegong sharks, which are funny looking fellas, a sea snake, lion fish, scorpion fish and the largest moray eel i have ever seen!
We had planned to travel up north in the afternoon, but i couldn't come to Exmouth in whale shark season and not see them, they are one of my all time favorite animals, so i booked on the trip the following day.
Friday couldn't come fast enough, it was an even earlier morning and we headed out to the boat, on the way to the boat we were briefed about the appropriate behaviour around these beautiful creatures. It is the law that you cannot diver with whale sharks, instead you snorkel with them, therefore if you choose to dive on the same trip
you have to do it before the searcher planes go up looking for them. You could be lucky enough to see one on a dive but its highly unlikely. Needless to say i didn't, we went to a site called Nicks Lumps where we reached a maximum depth of 18 metres. There was a strong current and it was quite difficult to swim against it, it seemed to take forever to reach the coral, when we finally did we saw a couple of hawksbill turtles, a grey sting ray, flute mouth fish, just one nudibrach and lots of others.
Not long after we were back on the boat and had put our dive equipment away we got a call from the spotter planes saying they had located a whale shark, so it was all systems go. We were the first boat to get there and Erica and I were the first group in the water, but we didn't see her that time, after the second group went in we got to go in again and this time she was right next to us, she was 6 metres long and gorgeous. Seeing one up close i realised why i love
these creatures. A few other boats had arrived so we had to take it in turns to go in the water, which was quite good as you got to catch your breath as it got quite tiring trying to keep up with her. All in all she stayed at the surface for about 4 hours, which was great as sharks don't need to surface as they breath through their gills, they think they come into shallow water as it is warmer but no one is really sure why. We were all told how to behave in the water as if we swam to close we could disturb her and we weren't to swim over the top of her or go underneath her as if she was threatened she'd just drop down and we would have lost her. My pictures weren't very good, as i was looking at her and didn't want to have a bad experience as i had paid enough to swim, so i took a couple of videos which are better then left my camera on the boat so i could really enjoy myself. I am so glad that i decided to do it, it has been one
of my dreams, not many people get to live them out, i am so fortunate.
That evening Erica added up how many different sharks we have swam/dived with, nine
1, Bamboo sharks
2, Black tip reef sharks
3, White tip reef sharks
4, Grey reef sharks
5, Port jackson sharks
6, Grey nurse sharks
7, Sandbar whaler sharks
8, Wobbegong sharks
9, Whale sharks
On Saturday we traveled 821.3 km as we needed to get some distance as we stayed for an extra night in Exmouth. We drove through Roebourne and Port Hedland before stopping at a caravan site on the road up to Broome just outside Port Hedland.
On Sunday we had a drive of 630.8 km and arrived in Broome around 2 pm. Once we arrived we headed straight to Gantheaume Point, north of cable beach, there are dinosaur tracks here that go 30 metres into the sea, they can only be seen at low tides and unfortunatley we couldn't see them, but we did visit the casts. They are thought to have been made by Theropod, a carnivorous species which are from the cretaceous age, 130 million years ago.
After visiting
the supermarket we we parked up at a caravan site which was right on the beach, we managed to get a spot with a great view. We had cheese and biscuits with a glass of wine and at 8.20 pm we sat on the beach to watch the stair way to heaven. This happens when there is a low tide and the moon sits low in the sky, the reflection on the sea makes it look as though there are stairs up to the moon, which was a lovely red colour, i've never seen the moon any colour than white before and it was a lovely experience.
On Monday we woke up early but enjoyed lazing around, when we did finally get up we drove to cable beach. The sea was quite far out to start of with but as we were sunbathing it came in, we ended up moving three twice. The sea was lovely neither too hot or cold, just nice and refreshing. We had lunch on a picnic area over looking the beach.
The evening was spent playing cards (yet again) and drinking the extremely cheap wine that Australia has to offer.
Shovel nose sting ray
he was massive, about 3 metres long! Tuesday was a very exciting day, we got picked up at 11am to do a sky dive. I actually thought that there would be more teaching involved but as it was a tandem we didn't need to learn much at all. There was only one guy who did it and an extremely small plane, so we had to decide who was going first, i wasn't nervous so Erica vollenteered herself to go first, so as she took off i went in the car to pick her up from the racecourse near cable beach. When we first got there i couldn't see the plane at all, it was very small and at 12,000ft it was just a small dot. I heard Erica scream before i saw her, with delight i must say.
Next it was my turn, it seemed to take forever to get the plane up to the right altitude, once at 11,000 ft i had to sit on Ralph's knee whilst he strapped us together, then at 12,000 ft he opened the door, which made me shiver it was only about 10 degrees up there and quite windy. I positioned myself so that my legs were outside and
my feet were on the wheel and before i knew it we were no longer on the plane. My stomach turned like when i was a kid and my dad used to go over hills to fast in the car, but it soon disappeared and i enjoyed free fall, which lasted about 40 secs, it was amazing. The air hit my arms so hard that they didn't really feel like they belong to me as i could hardly move them,when the parachute opened we jerked up and the chute got twisted, so by the time it had unraveled itself i was a little dizzy, no change there then. It had got much warmed and i could really take in the view, i felt like a bird, I could see for miles up there as Broome is so flat, and most of what i saw was bush land, but the view of the peninsular was fantastic. I had a go at steering it, but when he pulled sharply one way it set my dizziness off again! It ended too soon and before i knew it i could see Erica and we were about to hit the ground, time really goes FLY
Ahhh!
Really, how big is my mouth! when you are having fun!
On Wednesday we had some driving to do as we had stayed an extra night in Broome to do the skydive. We drove through Derby where we visited the Boab Prison Tree, an extremely girthy tree (14 metres) which was once used to tie prisoners to en route to Old Derby Gaol. Although it is also said that indigenous people were captured and tied here before they were made to be divers or boat hands to collect pearls. We then headed through Fitzroy crossing (known for its crocodiles) before heading to Berrangi Bridge where we spent the night at a free 24 hr car park where crocodiles are also known to be in the river next to the site. In the evening we realised we had miss calculated our trip and needed to drop the camper van off a day earlier, so we had a few long drives in front of us.
On Thursday we set off early, we passed over a creek which shared the same name as my Nana Mable Springs (had to take a photo of that!). We drove through Kununurra before crossing the border for the Northern
Territory....
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