Australia

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I wasn’t impressed when the alarm woke us up at 6.30am. Being woken up by a beep isn’t something I’ve ever enjoyed, but since being away I’ve begun to hate it more and more.

I dragged myself and Matt out of bed and by 7.30am we were climbing on board our safari 4x4 bus. There were seven of us in total on the tour - a couple from Barnsley, a mother and son from Melbourne and a lady from Switzerland. Dave was our guide for the day and after he’d given us a brief guided tour of town, we drove out to have a look at Charles Knife Canyon.

We were driven to the end of the gorge road, dropped off and were able to walk along the top of the canyon path to meet the bus a bit further down.

The scenery was awesome. The gorge was huge and looked like stacks of coloured rocks piled on top of one another. As well as grooves going horizontally across, there were channels running down the rock face created by streams of water. The whole area used to be under the sea bed millions of years ago. The rocks were once coral which fed on sealife, and grew in height as the bones and skeletons were piled on top of one another..

The colours were more muted than Uluru, but it was equally as spectacular. There were ambers and browns, with scatters of green along the floor of the canyon where the land collected the nutrients from the rain water. In places, lumps of rock had fallen out of the canyon face, leaving bright orange bite marks in the cliff. Below the discarded lumps lay in heaps - looking like nothing more than sugar lumps from our distant view point.

A tiny pathway was cut out of the valley floor, winding through the gorge. Matt and I looked at it longingly, thinking it would make a make a scenic afternoon trek. Not today though as there was lots more to see and do before the day was finished.

We took lots of pictures on the short walk, and were the last ones to arrive back at the bus, more than ready for the tea and cake that was being prepared.

The weather was actually perfect for the tour. It was hot but there was a strong breeze that stopped it from getting too hot. Unfortunately for us it didn’t stop the flies. They were worse than at Uluru. A second after you’d swished them away, you were covered again, and they seemed to go straight for your eyes, ears and mouth every time. Matt swore that I had one on my tooth at one point when I smiled for too long but I’m not sure whether I believe him or not.

After eating our cake as quickly as possible to stop the flies getting it, we got back into the coach.

Next stop was the turtle centre. This was an area designated for viewing the turtles as they come ashore to lay their eggs at night. During the day there wasn’t much to see apart from some information boards, so we decided to come back on one of the guided night tours instead.

Next Dave drove us into the national park. It was an area we‘d been keen to visit but many of the roads were unsealed and we weren‘t insured to take the van on them so a tour was our only option.

We had a short stop at the Visitors Centre at the cape where there was lots of information about the area, including lots of scary pickled creatures. Matt found the redback jar and read the information about them, which convinced him that he’d seen a harmless male, not a deadly female. I was pleased to read that for most of the snakes, anti venim is available from the hospitals - good to know when you’re walking back from the toilet blocks at night!

As we were walking around we saw a baby kangaroo standing just outside the centre, and went to get a better look. It was just sitting quite happily while it’s mother lay in the shade under the awning. We watched them for ages and took some pictures, I almost think they were posing for us as they really didn’t mind us being up close.

It was lunchtime already and Dave took us to Osprey Bay - a tiny little white sandy beach, framed with rocks on either side. There was a perfect lagoon gently lapping against the shore. It was heaven.

Apart from a couple fishing waist deep in the turquoise water, we were all alone. Dave unpacked the lunch while we all stripped down to our swimmers and went out to enjoy the water. I was more than ready to jump straight in, but was horrified to find the water was freezing! It was about 36 degrees air temperature, and the water was apparently around 26 degrees - quite a difference! After a bit of hesitant wading, inching in bit by bit, I eventually had to bite the bullet and get in. Matt was standing on the rocks taking pictures and thought I was hilarious.

The whole area was surrounded by a fringing reef which protected it from the heavy waves and kept larger animals out. It also meant that the colour stayed that divine shade of blue that we’ve come to love. After a few minutes of acclimatising, it felt wonderful. I swam around and enjoyed the feeling of being in the water without a stinger suit for the first time in weeks. I even saw a green turtle come up for air close by, and then dive back down again.

This was the first time we’d been in Australia and seen beaches reminiscent of the South Pacific islands. I was so pleased that we had decided to visit Exmouth rather than heading straight for Coral Bay. As we‘d been driving around the national park we had passed the entrance to lots of idyllic white sandy beaches, and had barely seen any cars - we were looking forward to finding out which beaches were accessible on sealed roads so that we could come back again on our own.

After half an hour in the cool water, it was time to dry off and have lunch outdoors on a picnic bench. It was a rustic, make your own sandwich sort of lunch which was actually nice even though we felt a bit cheated as the trip had cost us £80 each!

Our afternoon began with a boat trip down Yardie Creek. It was a small boat with a shade (lucky as it was so hot and we were all beginning to feel as though we were getting burnt) and there was plenty of room for us to spread out. The creek went through a gorge that looked like it was made from crumbles of rock. The walls were a deep red and were streaked with black and white. Although it initially looked like a flat face, there were actually lots of little ledges and caves in the rock. Perfect hiding places for rock wallabies. We managed to spot a few as our boat drifted down stream. There were massive osprey nests wedged onto outcrops. I couldn’t believe how big they were - they looked like they were made from branches rather than twigs! We got to see a few Australian Kestrels and one even stayed still as we pulled the boat right up along side.

As the boat retraced the journey we were treated to a stunning view of the lagoon meeting the mouth of the creek.

It felt like it should be approaching the end of the trip as it was getting late, but there was still more to come. Dave drove us to Turquoise Bay. As it’s name suggests, it was a beautiful stretch of white sandy beach with access to the blue lagoon. This spot was a renowned snorkelling destination - famous for it’s ‘drift snorkel’ ie you get in on one end of the beach and get out at the other without having to do any work as the current takes you.

It was a bit unnerving having little control over which direction to travel, but when we relaxed and went with it it was fun. It was some of the best snorkelling we’d done in a long time. There were so many unusual fish, and far less of the usual suspects. Although we were trying to stay together, we separated and I drifted over to some coral with a shark lurking behind it. I turned to show Matt but he was quite far away. I knew he’d want to see too, so I swam over to him as quickly as my fins would take me. I tried our usual snorkel language - repeating the word ‘ ark, ark’ and pointing, but Matt was equally as excited and pointed ‘ingray, ingray’ back to me. I looked down and beneath me was a small, very pretty, blue spotted stingray. It was the first one I’d ever seen snorkelling - we’d seen plenty of other kinds over the past few months just not one this colour and it was really pretty. It distracted me for long enough, and when I looked up to tell Matt about the shark again he’d already moved on and was out of range to hear me.

I stuck with him - if there were sharks in the lagoon I at least wanted someone next to me even though we’d been told they were harmless. As I caught him up, we both looked around at the same moment and saw another shark. This one was different to the last one I’d seen and it was bigger than me. I stopped and looked down for a better look, only to panic myself by almost backing into a coral head. Had I not stopped when I did I’d have scraped my back along it, killing it and probably doing myself a lot of damage in the process. It gave me enough of a fright to decide it was time to get out as we’d already drifted to the spot where we’d been warned to get out or risk being carried off by the current. As I told Matt I was heading in, he pulled me out of the water to look at the surface. Hundreds of fish were leaping out of the water about fifty feet in front of us. It was amazing. I guess the shark had headed in their direction and they were trying to escape before he trapped them up against the reef edge.

I started to make my way to the beach, when Matt grabbed me again and pointed down. There was a big green turtle swimming along just in front of me. Unlike the ones in the Whitsundays, this one was more than happy with us being close. I swam right above him expecting him to try to get away, but he didn’t - he just moved along slowly without even noticing me. After a while I decided to continue with my plan to get out and lay on the beach so left him with Matt. Matt carried on swimming, and followed him as he came to the surface to take a breath. They looked at one another on the surface, before the turtle ducked back down again and went to the bottom of the lagoon. After a bit more stalking,, Matt skin dived down and stroked his shell, before swimming off to leave him alone again.

I got out and enjoyed laying on the beach in the sun while Matt got out and went back to the start of the snorkel to do it all over again.

By the time we’d eaten afternoon tea I really was starting to flag. It was getting late and we’d been on the go since 7.30am. I wasn’t sure how Dave kept this up - but then again he had told us he only works three days a weeks so I guess he gets plenty of time off in between tours. He was actually a surveyor by trade but had bought this business three years ago as he’d had a holiday home in the area for a long time and loved it. It sounded like a good living to make - showing off a place that you loved to visiting tourists.

I thought we were on our way home but instead we had a final stop at the lighthouse. Up on the hill we had a fantastic view over the water and around the coast. After taking some more photos, Dave announced that it was ‘beer o clock’ which meant it was time to leave.

As he pulled into the campsite to drop us off we caught sight of the pool and decided to have a quick dip on our way to the van. The water was freezing and the sun was already getting low as it was 6.30pm but we didn’t care. I only stayed in for about thirty seconds - just enough to chill me though, before getting wrapped up in towels, grabbing our wash gear from the van and going for a lovely warm shower.

By the time I started cooking dinner it was getting late and Matt went online just to check our emails using the voucher that we’d just bought. Within minutes we had a queue of skype callers wanting to speak to us. I gave up on dinner and let the spag bol sit on the hob waiting until we finally got chance to eat at 10pm when all of the internet we‘d bought had run out! By that time we weren't even hungry anymore and just wanted to go to bed.

We were so exhausted that we fell asleep with all of the lights on.

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