Western Australia Four - 13 to 30 April 2011


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Oceania » Australia » Western Australia
May 24th 2011
Published: May 24th 2011
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We left Monkey Mia and headed further north towards Coral Bay, the journey was extremely long and took eight hours with a number of stops for refreshments and lunch on the side of the road. We passed a sign saying the Tropic of Capricorn along the route and stopped in Carnarvon the only town in the area to do some shopping before finally arriving in Coral Bay. Coral Bay is the southern gateway to the Ningaloo Marine Park which is Australia’s largest fringing reef and the second largest in the world after the Red Sea, with huge coral underwater gardens starting just yards from the shore. We booked into our campsite which was just across the road from the most beautiful beach and we snorkelled off the bay where there was an abundance of colourful fish and lots of large coral beds although the colours were not as bright as we had seen in the Red Sea in Egypt. Nevertheless the formations of the coral were staggering with huge boulders and ‘cabbage’ looking structures, very similar to the coral gardens in Belize. Apparently Western Australia’s Ningaloo Reef was in good condition compared with Queensland’s Barrier Reef where the Crown of Thorns Starfish had devastated vast areas of the coral reef. While there have been many theories on the causes of outbreaks of this devastating starfish, it is suggested that the removal of natural predators (mainly big fish and giant triton snails) has allowed populations to expand, so the monitoring of fishing was high on the agenda in WA and rightly so. The campsite in Coral Bay was very busy as this was a very popular spot with Western Ozzies as well as tourist and travellers like us. Even though it was in the middle of nowhere, lots of people we had met on our journey had told us to come here and now we could see why. We settled down for lunch and noticed this huge lizard under the motorhome opposite ours which then darted over to someone’s huge ‘eskie’ (ice box) and tried to get inside. We were not sure what it was but it was probably some sort of Monitor Lizard but hopefully it would not visit our motorhome! The next day we booked a turtle and snorkelling tour out near the edge of the reef and had a wonderful day snorkelling off the boat. We saw an abundance of marine life including several vivid midnight blue starfish, large green turtles and an extremely rare mother and baby dugong. Due to the vast seagrass meadows dugongs can be found year round and the area supports a large amount of the world’s population but we still had not expected to see them let alone up so close, we were really lucky that day. Often referred to as sea cows, because they graze on sea grass, the endangered dugongs can grow up to three metres in length and are the only vegetarian sea mammal. Unlike other marine mammals, they cannot hold their breath under water for very long, so they can be spotted coming to the surface for air. We got a good view as a mother and baby surfaced very close to our boat. Like the dolphin they swim by moving their broad tails up and down (fish move their tails side-to-side), and by using their two front flippers. Dugongs are usually found in shallow waters away from large waves, surfacing from the water only to breathe, and they never go on land. Female dugongs give birth underwater to a single calf which stays with its mother, drinking milk until it’s about one to two years of age. When we saw them in the aquarium in Sydney they were being fed lettuce all day long but here they were happily munching on the abundance of seagrass on the bottom of the ocean. We hope that the destruction we had seen of the seagrass meadows further down the coast does not have an impact on them as you cannot help but be enchanted by these graceful but bizarre creatures. Our cruise boat moored extremely close the reef and you could see the waves breaking over the top but our guide snorkelled with us to locate a ‘shark cleaning station’. This is where sharks repeatedly visit and swim slowly around usually with their mouths open, giving the cleaner fish, which nibble off parasites and dead skin, time to delouse them (Cliff much bigger than your ‘cleaner’ fish in the Seychelles). We saw two large grey and a smaller white tipped reef shark during this snorkel. We had an excellent day out on the reef and were so lucky to see so much on one trip. The next couple of days we relaxed and snorkelled off the beach and were rewarded with an eagle ray swimming and feeding in the shallows so we were able to get up really close. We were sad to leave Coral Bay but before we did we booked a few more days when we return on our way back in a couple of week’s time. Next day we moved up the coast toward Exmouth, situated near the Cape Range National Park and right on the reef, this was our final destination before our downward journey back to Perth next month. Exmouth is a small township situated just outside the national park with easy access to Ningaloo Reef and had several tour operators, a few shops as well as a really good bakery – the Feta and Spinach Dampers were divine…. The highlight of Ningaloo Reef though is the Whale Sharks and one of the main reasons for our visit to WA - indeed Australia itself. These giant sharks frequent the area between April and June each year and sometimes even longer as last year they were spotted well into September. We arrived at our campsite and the first thing we did was visit Ningaloo Blue to book our trip to see the Whale Sharks. We had been given a 10% voucher off the cost (it is very expensive) from a couple we had met in Coral Bay who had already been with this operator and they said that they were very professional. We were expecting to have to wait a few days to get to out to the reef and had indeed booked two weeks in the area to give us every opportunity of seeing them. We had been so disappointed when we had visited Belize a couple of years ago and could not get a boat to see them due to rough seas. Well you can imagine our surprise when they told us they had a couple of places on the boat going out the next day and we were so excited but nervous nonetheless! That night we hardly slept notwithstanding the fact that a huge cricket decided to visit us in the van and kept jumping all over the place before we managed to evict it! Morning did eventually arrive and we caught the coach outside the campsite and headed for our boat launching site near the Cape Range National Park. We had to wade through quite deep water to cross over the creek (Paul had to hold on to me otherwise I would have ended up down river) to get onto the zodiac which was going to take us out to our boat moored just off shore. There are only seven strictly controlled boats that go out to see the whale sharks when conditions are good, which they were with a very calm sea. One of the reasons the trip is so expensive is because apart from the cost of the boat and crew, the operation of getting people to see these sharks entails a spotter plane to accompany the boat as well. The plane flies overhead to try to locate whale sharks that may be swimming near the surface and maintains radio contact with the boats. Even this doesn't make it easy, however, for Whale Sharks can dive down to 3000 feet fairly quickly and there is nothing to do but wait for one to resurface within a reasonable range of the boat again. Once on board we were divided into two groups of those who wanted to get in the water (we were both in group two) and giving a briefing on what to expect and what to do once in the water. The boat supplied snorkelling gear and wetsuits if you wanted them but the water was so warm you did not need them. The Leeuwin Current is a warm ocean current which flows southwards near the western coast of Australia and therefore the sea even outside the reef was lovely and warm. A videographer was on board and she was going to take a video of our day which we could purchase at the end, although I was also going to try and get some footage myself with our underwater camera. We firstly went for a snorkel on the inside of the reef before crossing over the reef to the open ocean and then spent several hours moving along the outside reef looking for our ‘prize’ spotting lots of turtles, rays, flying fish and a number of sea snakes. At last the boat made visual contact with a shark and one of the crew jumped into the water, swam towards the shark and used a raised arm signals to indicate its trajectory. Then the boat manoeuvred into place and the first group jumped into the water and a few minutes later the boat manoeuvres again and drops us with the second group into the deep. Luckily our boat also had the backup of the zodiac which stayed in the water to keep and eye on any stragglers and if necessary pick them up! The sharks apparently usually swim in a straight line but this one was going around in huge circles so hopefully we were going to get a good view and be able to stay with it longer. So at last we were in the water and as instructed looked down (some people apparently look up!) and just as we got used to the vision through our masks there it was coming straight at us with this huge mouth and an amazing blue and white spotted body - we just could not believe our luck. Until you get up close you cannot imagine how big they are its tail fin alone is bigger than a human, yet despite its size it moved through the water with such grace and ease – surrounded by shoals of smaller fish darting about it. The fact that you can swim so close to such an incredible presence was awe inspiring. Both us could not quite believe that this was happening it truly takes your breath away. We snorkelled around it for ages as it circled us, a truly remarkable experience so hard to describe – just magic. Once back on board the crew said it was a young male adult and was about 18 feet which was a good average size. We had lunch which the crew had prepared and before we had finished eating they said it was time to get back into the water, so off we went again (on a full stomach). This time the shark was swimming in a straight line and three of us were told to try and get on the shark’s right side whilst the others followed one of the crew to the left. Paul, I and another lady quickly moved to the right to get out of its path as it eased gracefully up beside us and we began swimming as fast as we could to try to keep up. Our fins were going ‘nineteen to the dozen’ but the shark hardly moved its tail fin as it glided past us, so effortlessly and soon disappeared into the blueness. We were lucky enough to have one more encounter with the same shark, which we knew because the crew keeps logs of all sightings and records fairly specific information about each siting. This time it was again going in a straight line and we were told to go to its right side but we could also cross behind to the other side of the shark if we wanted. The three of us heading for the right hand side jumped in and I managed to keep up with the shark quite well and get some footage on our video camera but when I looked around I was all alone with the shark!! Paul and the other lady had snorkelled round behind it and were on the other side!! Luckily though the videographer swam over and took some footage before the whale shark disappeared into the blue and I was able to get some good shots myself. We were hoping to have one more swim with these huge creatures but the whale shark decided it had enough of swimming near the surface and decided to dive to the ocean bottom never to be seen (by us) again……………….Back on board the crew opened a bottle of champagne and everyone celebrated all the way back to dry land. We certainly will not forget our day swimming with the whale sharks and will have to think of what our next challenge will be! Paul did say to me later, “well now that we have seen the whale shark we can go home!”, I think not………………..The next day we set off to explore the Cape Range National Park and travelled to the Milyering Visitor Centre just inside the park. The centre was very informative with good displays about the National Park itself as well as Ningaloo Marine Park. There was excellent information about the Whale Shark conservation and if you are interested read on if not you might like to skip the next section. The Whale Shark, Rhincodon typus, is the largest known ‘fish’ on earth and not really a shark at all. It's reputed to reach 18 meters in length and can approach 15 tons – that’s big and heavy! Occurring around the globe in mostly tropical, but occasionally in temperate waters, there are few places where one can see them with such consistency as at Ningaloo Reef although we have heard that they are in abundance in Taiwan. Their appearance here tends to coincide with the annual coral spawn, but their spawning and migration habits are unknown, in fact a lot about them is still unknown adding to their mystique. Ningaloo tends to predominantly see immature males during this period, but even these are hardly small at about 6 to 8 metres (18 to 24 feet). Although they are massive and intimidating animals, they are planktonic feeders and harmless to humans – or so they say!! However even though the whale shark is a planktivore, it still has a mouthful of teeth—some 3000 teeth in 300 rows. That’s why the whale shark is known as Rhincodon, which means ‘rasp-tooth’ but these teeth are very small (less than 1/12 of an inch), so they essentially serve no purpose. In 1953, a shark egg case containing a 14.5 inch whale shark embryo was found in a trawl net in the Gulf of Mexico. The find created a controversy that lasted 42 years; some scientists speculated that whale sharks are oviparous (egg laying), while others believed they were live-bearers and the egg resulted from a premature birth. In 1995, the controversy ended when a team of scientists from National Taiwan Ocean University examined a 10 metre (35 foot) pregnant whale shark that had been harpooned by a Taiwanese fisherman. Her twin uteruses contained 300 embryos ranging in length from 16 to 25 inches. This was proof that whale shark embryos emerge from egg cases while still inside the mother’s body and that whale sharks are therefore live-bearers. Of the 300 embryos, 15 were fully-developed and ready to be born. Newborn whale sharks measuring 21 to 25 inches in length have been caught in the Pacific Ocean off the coast of Central America. Nobody knows how frequently whale sharks reproduce, and the gestation period for the animal is also unknown. In fact, no one has ever witnessed a mating or birthing event, again there is so much to learn. The mysterious lives of Ningaloo's whale sharks is gradually being unravelled with fresh evidence showing some of the marine beasts travel thousands of kilometres deep into the Indian Ocean and as far away as Sri Lanka. However the results have also confirmed fears that the population of older sharks at Ningaloo is declining. Though hunting them is banned, whale sharks are regularly killed for meat and fins in parts of South-East Asia. It will be a shame if we are the last generation to be able to swim with these graceful sharks………………………The Milyering Visitor Centre also had details of interesting bays to see in the National Park and we decided to first visit Turquoise Bay a beautiful bay for swimming and snorkelling. It is also the location where the reef starts just metres from the shore and along from the main beach there was a delightful ‘snorkel drift’. You just jump into the water at the south end of the beach swim out a few metres to the edge of the reef and then let the current take you over the coral beds to the other end of the bay. The currents were indeed very strong and it took us a while to ‘battle’ this to get out on to the reef but once there it was lovely to glide along and watch this amazing underwater world. However we had to make sure that we got out of the water before the sandbar at the other end of the beach where the current can sweep you out to sea through the gap in the reef, never to be seen again – I do not jest! We enjoyed the snorkel and saw huge boulders of coral as well as a multitude of fish, a small shark and several large schools of colourful parrot fish. Just as we were following a large fish we saw a large black tipped reef shark swim past.…. The next day we travelled back into the park and visited Oyster Stacks another snorkelling site which can only be accessed at high tide. To enter the water however you had to walk and swim over oyster shells and jagged rocks which were quite sharp and with the waves so strong I was unable to get into the water. Paul managed to get in and after a snorkel had great difficulty getting out again – no I did not say ‘I told you so! On the way back we decided to view the Midura Wreck just off shore, a cattle ship that was lost en-route from the Kimberley region during a cyclone in 1907. The hull sat on the reef until World War II when allied planes used it for bombing practice. These days it provides an ideal sanctuary for baby sharks. After a couple of days of doing nothing, which was lovely we headed out to the Vlamingh Head Lighthouse which was built in 1912 and offered sweeping views of the cape we then continued on to the Jurabi Turtle Centre which provides information about Ningaloo Marine turtles who nest here between November and March but we had just missed them this year. The marine park is an important breeding ground for three of the world’s seven species, including the loggerhead, green and hawksbill turtle. We had indeed been lucky enough to see and swim with the hawksbill in the Seychelles last April with all the family and have lovely memories of that occasion. A few days later we headed for Sandy Bay in the National Park and had to stop to let three emus cross the road – strange place this Australia. We called into the NP Visitor Centre again and attended an informative talk about Ningaloo Reef given by one of the park rangers. Later we had a swim at Sandy Bay before continuing on to Yardie Creek which is where the road ends as it meets the sea and creek. The only way across is with a large 4WD ute and even then it can only be tackled at a very low tide. As a matter of interest the Aboriginal word Yardie mean creek so it’s really called ‘creek creek’! We decided to take a short cruise up the gorge where the rust red cliffs give way to deep blue waters providing dramatic scenery particularly the water reflections. The gorge is home to an assortment of wildlife, including the rare black-footed rock wallaby and we saw a mother and Joey staring down at us from a cave on the side of the steep gorge as well as several nests of eagles and other birds of prey. The next day we noticed that the campsite was getting busier and it continued to do so for the next few days. Easter holidays had arrived, which this year also coincided with Anzac Day for the Australians. Anzac Day – 25 April – is probably Australia's most important national occasion. It marks the anniversary of the first major military action fought by Australian and New Zealand forces during the First World War and stands for Australian and New Zealand Army Corps. We were gradually getting surrounded with caravans, trailers, tents, boats, four by fours and children on cycles and scooters the whole camp was coming alive. Paul even had to ‘share’ the camp barbeque with others! We also had to move out for Easter Sunday and Monday as when we booked they could not accommodate us for these two days. As it stood however they opened up an overflow and we could have remained but because we had already made alternatives plans we moved to the other site for a couple of days which was only across the road. This site was had more permanent caravans and we met quite a few friendly locals who had moved up to the area from Perth to enjoy the surroundings. We did eventually move back to our original campsite and on our first night back the rain came. We had not seen rain for over a month and it was a real treat to see it and have the temperatures cool just a little. The next day we took a trip out to Pebble Beach which indeed was covered in pebbles a bit like Chesil Beach in the UK but the pebbles were mainly various colours of pink and intermingled with dead coral and shells. When we got back to the campsite the local vandals (Little Corellas) had decided to try and eat Paul’s crocs and had taken big chunks out of them. What we used to think were lovely parrots (they do have a lovely blue eye) were becoming quite a pest. The campsite had quite a number of them and you could not leave anything about outside and at night they were rather noisy! The next day after lazing around the van for a couple of hours we decided to walk along the beach which was about a 10 minutes away from the campsite through the bush and over the sand dunes. We were amazed at the huge lumps of dead coral and shells strewn across the beach. I did some fossicking for sea shells (I have quite a good collection now but probably will not be able to bring them all back to the UK!) whilst Paul watched the boats out at sea and we spotted a huge coral sponge being washed in which was bright orange in colour. As we walked along the beach to see where it came out a huge 4WD ute went speeding past doing ‘wheelies’ – it does not know what it is missing – what’s the rush anyway…………. The next day we decided to head back into the National Park to undertake the Yardie Creek Gorge rim walk and also to do some snorkelling at the drift snorkel in Turquoise Bay which we had enjoyed. On the way into the national park we saw a huge red kangaroo leap across the road in front of us and had to slow down but we soon continued on to Yardie Creek to do the walk. As we travelled along the park road as well as kangaroos and emus we saw a giant lizard the same one as we had seen in Coral Bay slowly cross the road in front of us. We managed to get some good photographs and took them into the visitor centre where we were going to pick up some hire fins for snorkelling, to find out what it was. They told us it was a Perentie (Varanus giganteus) and is the biggest Australian monitor lizard. It can grow to over two metres and the one we spotted was probably about that size and fully grown. Perenties live in the dry regions of inland Australia and particularly like rocky country, they hibernate during the cold time of the year, from about May – but this is warm!. Despite its huge size the Perentie is a rather shy lizard, and it is not a common sight so we were indeed lucky to see it as well as the one we had seen in the campsite at Coral Bay. We arrived at Yardie Creek and walked along the gorge rim with wonderful views to the river below. Alas we did not spot any black footed wallabies this time but enjoyed our walk even though it was quite strenuous with steep climbs as we wandered along the gorge rim. Several canoes were on the river bed far below as we walked back along the edge with some very steep drops but glorious views of the red rocks against the blue creek. We then continued to Torquoise Bay and dived straight in the beautiful ocean which was quite refreshing after the walk. We snorkelled for a while on the drift snorkel and the current was quite strong but we managed to get out just before the sandbar and had a rest and some lunch. We then decided to walk back along the beach to the far end to give us a longer ‘drift’ time as the current was still strong that you got to the sandbar really quickly and had to get out before you were washed across the reef and out into the open ocean. This time once we swam past the fast current we immediately saw a large white tipped shark slowly glide past….it was quite large but not interested in us at all. We continued for a while where there was some really good coral and large coral basins as well as a multitude of reef fish. Then Paul spotted a large Green Turtle and I turned the video on and we set off to follow it. We were extremely lucky to follow it for about 10 minutes as it slowly swam through the coral gardens. A truly lovely experience and we were so fortunate to have such a up close encounter with these adorable creatures – it made it so worthwhile. We left the turtle to travel back out over the reef and continued on with the current seeing many amazing coral formations as well as some bright colourful fish including several giant parrot fish and some small black starfish and sea slugs on the ocean floor. We had been in the water for ages, were getting quite chilled and had a bit of cramp in our legs and feet so thought we had better get out quick before we got to the sandbar as we might not have the energy to get back to shore. We did however final make it back to shore - another wonderful day on this amazing reef.………….. The next day we decided to have a ‘rest’ day and stayed around the campsite before deciding to walk through the bush to the beach across the sand dunes where we swam for a while before returning to the campsite. I wanted to watch the wedding of Prince William to Kate Middleton and asked at the campsite office if there was anywhere showing it locally but drew a blank…………. However I managed to locate it ‘live’ on the internet, so I spent a few hours watching the wedding on our laptop which was quite surreal (as mentioned in our ‘live blog note’ in Western Australia Two). Next day we stocked up our supplies, filled the tanks with petrol and water and then lazed the afternoon away at the camp swimming pool – its such a busy life…….. Tomorrow we head back South towards Perth but we have 11 days to get there before we hand the motorhome over and fly to Broome, so will take things slowly. We aim to stop for a few days again at Coral Bay to snorkel on the excellent reef - so see you there.

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