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Oceania » Australia » Western Australia » Exmouth
May 18th 2010
Published: May 19th 2010
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Saturday 15th May 2010 - Cape Range NP (1864km)

We sort of had a lie in this morning to get over from the last few days but we wanted to get some snorkelling in while the tides were high and before the winds picked up too much, so didn't hang around too much. Not that it made much difference, the wind has been strong here for a few days, cancelling whale shark trips and generally annoying everyone.

On the other side of the hills down the centre of the peninsular (and including most of the hills) is the Cape Range NP. Off the coast is the Ningaloo Marine Park. We drove through one and swam in the other. Most of what we saw of Cape Range NP was scrub and desert, though the scrub was pretty sparse. Thanks to some geocaches, we found several old stock watering holes / wells, some with waters still in them, some dry. At one, we saw two emu about 70m away. We thought this was good until we stopped for another cache at the only public access water source in the park. Here we saw loads (7-8) of emu and a couple of wallabies. Kind of obvious what they were there for, the place was much damper than anywhere else!

We drove as far as a recommended snorkel spot called Oyster Stacks. We'd been told that high tide was best, we'd missed that by an hour or two, but there were still plenty of people out in the water. Not sure why as the snorkelling wasn't that great. The water was cold, the coral patchy and while there were enough fish to look at, it was hardly worth writing home about! Have we been spoilt by better places? Are we now expecting too much from everywhere we go? Maybe we need to step back a bit and enjoy the place for what it offers.

So we hopped out and went back along the road to the “best snorkelling site in the park” - Turquoise Bay. At least this time there was a sandy entry/exit unlike the sharp rocks at the Oyster Stacks. But the water was still cold, the coral and rocks patchy, and the fish ok. Sure, we might have enjoyed it more had it been warmer! Strangely the water in the shallows was much colder than about 15m out over the better coral. So once out there, it wasn't too bad, it was just the getting in and out. It felt colder than the sea at home over summer, and this is meant to be in the tropics! Luckily outside the water, and sheltered from the wind, it was beautifully warm!

Sunday 16th May 2010 - Ningaloo Marine Park (still 1864km, left the car at the backpackers all day)

Today was the day we'd been planning for ages, more or less the whole point of the trip. We were heading out to see if we could find any Whale Sharks.

Whale sharks (Rhinocodon typus) are the largest fish in the ocean. They have been reported to reach up to 20m in length, and a huge 34 tonnes. Usually those seen around here are a much smaller, but still big, 3-10m. The Whale shark is currently classified as 'vulnerable to extinction', but are only protected by law in about 10%!o(MISSING)f the 100 countries they are known to visit. This means that in many places it is still alright to go out and kill one of these gentle giants, and even in some of those countries that have outlawed their slaughter, it is hard to police and prosecute those who still do. It is considered highly migratory, and is only recently receiving higher international protection through listing on CITES.

Little is known about the Whale shark. Ancestry of the Whale shark goes back to the Jurassic and Cretaceous periods of 245-65 million years ago, when the present groups of sharks began to appear. The first Whale shark was not known to science until 1828, and until the mid-1980's there had only been 320 documented sightings. They have been reported to travel up to 13,000km across ocean basins. Whale sharks are known to inhabit both deep and shallow coastal waters and the lagoons of coral atolls and reefs across a broad distribution in tropical and warm temperate seas. They are the thickest skinned on all animals (the skin around their dorsal surface is 12-15cm thick) and produce more young than any other species of shark (up to 300 live young). They are closely related to bottom dwelling sharks.

Whale shark flesh is considered to be low grade, but as it comes in such large quantities, it is still a bountiful harvest. Their fins, while not really wanted to shark fin soup, do fetch high prices for display purposes, mainly in Asia. Other than us, Whale sharks have few known predators. The most dangerous period is when they are young and small, and are prey for marlin and other sharks. Human threats, other than fishing, are boat strikes and plastic ingestion. On the other hand, Whale sharks are filter feeders and pose no direct threat to humans, unless you get too close and get swatted by their huge tail.

For more information, see www.whaleshark.org

Australia seems to be the one of the most reliable locations to find Whale sharks, and they are most common at Ningaloo Marine Park - hence the reason we are here! We were picked up from the hostel just after 7am for the drive round the peninsular to the boat ramp. There is no jetty here, so everyone is ferried out to the boats in small RIBs.

As the whale shark spotter plane doesn't go up until 10am, we had time for another snorkel in the cold waters inside the reef. While the water was as cold as yesterday, we at least had wetsuits on this time. The site we swam over was better too, although still not great. There was more coral and fish, and Karen even saw a turtle.

Once back on the boat, it didn't take long the for the call to come through that Whale sharks had been spotted. We were spilt into two groups as only 10 people can be in the water with them at any time. Once we've found “our” Whale shark, the boat pulls in a little in front of it and we all jump off the back. We split into smaller groups and go either side of the Whale shark, and basically hang out while it swims past, kicking hard to keep up for a while if its not moving too quickly.

Its really hard to describe the experience. They are huge, impressive, silently gliding past with their big, wide mouths open, hardly seeming to be making an effort to swim, smaller fish (like remora) swimming along underneath or around the dorsal fin. They are truly majestic giants, and completely non-threatening. If it wasn't for the fast paced swimming to keep alongside, it would be a really relaxing experience. At times it was hard to see much as even 10 people was too many, with people kicking wildly to keep up and filling the water with millions of tiny bubbles, pushing to get in front to see better. 'Course, there were times that we also pushed other legs out of the way to get a better view!!

Apparently today we broke the boat record with 14 different Whale sharks. We couldn't have been in the water for more than 5-10 minutes with each one, so we were constantly on and off the boat. Getting off the boat was easy - jump! But getting back on again without Karen battering poor junior got tiring. She even had to wear a wetsuit a size too big to give her expanding stomach space! And its not even that big yet.

During a break in Whale shark activity, we saw masses of Spinner Dolphins. They seemed to love playing around the boat, jumping and spinning to the delight of all, even the skipper. There were also a few flying fish joining in (or fleeing the hungry dolphins?!)

Monday 17th May 2010 - Exmouth → Denham (2710km)

Yet another early start as we had a lot of ground to cover today. We were aiming for Denham, the nearest “town” to Monkey Mia where we planned to see more dolphins, and the home of our couch surfing host for the next couple of nights.

We didn't just drive straight there though. We stopped a few times, at a lookout, some blow holes, a roadhouse and a supermarket in Carnarvon.

The lookout was on the way back down the peninsular, with views stretching over the Exmouth gulf and beyond. It was a bit hazy to see too far though.

The blow holes were at a place called Quobba, just outside Carnarvon. These were neat, and we would love to see them when the tide and swell are just right, they must be spectacular! The water was surging in and out of holes in the rocks, sometimes shooting right up in the air.

The supermarket was for obvious reasons, to get some food cheaper than in Denham. And the roadhouse was to top up the petrol tanks before reaching Carnarvon and a cheaper fill.

We drove past Denham and went the extra 20 or so km to Monkey Mia and met Rebekah, our CS host at her work.
back end of a Whale sharkback end of a Whale sharkback end of a Whale shark

slightly murky water and cheap camera case
She runs the kayak / paddle boat hire business there, and had invited us out for a beer after she finished work. We happily accepted, as the alternative would have been to sit outside her house till she got home. She seems a really nice person, friendly,and really popular with many of the other staff around Monkey Mia.

We did try and find out why the place is called Monkey Mia, but there seems to be many stories. Mia is easy, it means 'home of' or 'place of', and monkey could have come from various things, many now considered racist. There were a lot of Aboriginal tribes here, and Asian, mainly Malay, pearl divers and fishermen. It seems to have nothing to do with monkeys.

Tuesday 18th May 2010 - Denham & Monkey Mia (2767km)

We'd been told that the first feeding of the dolphins at Monkey Mia was at 7.30am, so we got to the park around then. But this week the times had changed, and the first feeding was at 7am, or as soon after that the dolphins came in. Given that they seem to be greedy beggars, we were in time for the third and last feeding of the day. We'll turn up earlier tomorrow!

When we got to the beach, there were about 60-70 people there, lining the edge of the water. The DEC staff were in the water with about 6 dolphins, including one baby. The dolphins were swimming in the shallows, posing and checking out the humans. Not just cute, but very intelligent too! After a brief intro from the DEC ranger, the buckets of fish came out (a set weight per dolphin) and the feeders lined up in the water. As if they knew exactly what to do (of course they did!) a dolphin swam up to each feeder and got its quota of fish. They swam out into the bay a bit, but soon came back in as if asking for more. The DEC ranger made everyone get out of the water and up the beach a little to encourage the dolphins to leave, which they did.

After that excitement, we did the 2km trail above and behind the resort, thinking we'd do it before it got too hot. The trail goes through the scrub and had sign boards describing what can be found in the area. Not that we saw a lot apart from footprints from various birds, animals and reptiles. All we could really identify were the emu prints, but we did a pretty good job of distinguishing snake from lizard from bird from animal!

We stopped and chatted with Beks for a while, but then left her to get on with her books - due tomorrow! We went into the Francois Peron NP, but only as far as the old homestead and shearing quarters. The rest of the park is strictly “real” 4WD only. There was also a hot tub there filled with artesian water (40°C) from a bore 540m down.

After lunch, we walked into Denham to the Shark Bay World Heritage Discovery Centre. This is a small but informative museum charting the history and biodiversity of the peninsular and islands. Marlyn sat this one out as she has all museum type places. She doesn't know what she is missing! This place filled us in on a lot of background and history to the area, and with all the references to things in the Western Australia Museum in Geraldton, made us more determined to stop there in the next couple of days.




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20th May 2010

Makes me envious. On my "places to go" list

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