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Published: December 5th 2007
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Oh my oh my, it's the 1st of December already - can't believe it!
As a rare treat we get a bit of a lie in this morning - only a 8am start instead of 6 and 7am but it's good enough.
We all head to the beach office to book our tours and as ours only goes at 12.30pm we have a couple of hours to ourselves. The office says we can loan some snorkel gear for free so after learning how to fit myself up with fins and a mask we head off for my first ever snorkel adventure - how exciting!
The reef is fantastic - the best I have seen so far. Just cannot get over how clear the sea is.
After putting on my equipment in the sea it's time to pop my snorkel cherry and away we go! Am a bit scared at first as you have to get used to breathing underwater which is strange but its so worth it. The colours of the coral are fabulous and the fishes that you see are just like swimming in a tropical fish aquarium, only everything is real and wild!
Teacher Diane did a great job
and I was a pro at breathing by the time we had done - although my swimming needed a bit of work (di kept laughing at my attempt to breast stroke with my fins - very impossible to do and apparently I looked like a fish out of water, ha ha).
We got a spot of lunch at this little bakery (they sold meat pies believe it or not!) and then it was off to our glass bottom boat to see those cheeky turtles.
As we were going out you could see all the coral through the looking glass of the boat, I've seen pictures but nothing compares to seeing it real life.
The turtles are quite shy and can swim under water for 5 minutes before they need to come up for air - they usually try and keep away from the boats when they do this but who can blame them? Man are the biggest danger to them so they're not daft. We were able to go over quite a few of them and see them up close, great animals (and no Christine I don't think you would be able to stick 2 of them together by their
bellies and watch them roll over - they were way to big!).
We stopped at 2 snorkel sites and now I was a pro! The fish would all wait around the back of the boat as they knew that they was found to be given out so when you first got i the sea you were just swimming through schools of fish. We also got to see a Puffer Fish, an Octopus, a giant clam (the middle glows up bright blue - fantastic), clown fish and loads of snapper fish.
All four of us (me, di, Suzi and Kim) decided to club together for a CD of all the photo's, we're all going to be in Sydney at new year so Suzi is going to get copies for us all - how cool is that!
We returned to the harbour a little late and as all the rest of the group's activities had started and finished earlier - they were waiting and ready to go (it wasn't our fault, honest!)
So it was back on the bus for a 1 1/2 hour drive to our final destination in the north - Exmouth and the top of Nigaloo Reef.
On the
way there were loads of natural termite mounds - didn't realise how big they are.
We finally arrived at Exmouth Cape and Blue Reef Backpackers where we were staying for 2 nights and this was the best hostel on the whole tour. It was just like a holiday camp with a swimming pool, wild emu's just walking around, bottle shop across the road and of course a bbq!
Dinner tonight was a traditional Ozzy bbq of burgers, steaks, sausages and beer - life could not get any better. We watched the sunset at a lighthouse on the coast, accidentally spoiling someone's champayne sunset in the course (there were 8 women drinking champayne outside a white limousine sophisticatley watching the sunset and then our western xposure van rocks up with us lot carrying aload of beer - no wonder they were impressed!)
When we got back and we had our bbq, good ole Yugo got the guitar out and after a couple of rounds of Waltzing Matilda we gave a little thank you presentation to Steve our tour guide and driver. We had a collection for him and he was so thrilled by it he was almost in tears! But he'd
done a great job so far, nothing was too much trouble and the amount of driving he did whilst we were all snoozing in the back was unbelivable - I couldn't do it.
The bbq area closed at 10pm so we moved to a spot where they said we could carry on partying. Only I don't think they expected Mateo (the italian) to start playing 'Wonderwall' whilst 14 drunken backpackers started to sing-along loudly so we all got booted off the camp and directed to the beach - woo hoo! The camp warden told us it was only a 10 minute walk - little tip for everyone now, if any Ozzy tells you the distance of something, add an extra 20 minutes onto it and that will be the correct figure! After walking around with a cool box of beer for 30 mins we finally found the beach and had a little party!
Poor Kozo (the young japaneze lad) got a little carried away and ended up being sick on the beach, but we all made him feel better by saying it's a rite of passenger to growing up! He wouldn't be doing this on his school break! Thankfully his
dad got drunk off 2 gulps of beer so always went to bed at about 10pm, don't think he would have been too proud of his son then.
Steve even came along with us to the beach and ended up skinny dipping in the sea with Teressa (the swedish girl!) Suzi got some very incriminating photo's - all to try and bribe steve to get some free beer on the company account but it didn't work!
But it was a wicked night and at 1.30am we decided to head back to the camp - tomorrow was Turquoise bay.
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