Whales, sharks and cliffs

---

Day 51 – Sunday August 19^th – Quobba Blowholes

When we woke up this morning the outside of the tent was covered in a heavy layer of dew. However it didn’t take too long for everything to dry out in the warm sunshine. Even though it is a Sunday and not a school day, Anna and Luke were forced into doing some diary writing and literacy work before we allowed ourselves a visit to the lagoon beach.

This time the tide was quite high and the lagoon was full of beautifully clear turquoise water. We could see the reef and the kids got straight in to check out the coral. Anna came back out of the water saying she had seen a shark and was not going to go back in! Luke did a big lap of the lagoon and hadn’t seen anything he considered scary. Mark and I were content reading until we needed to cool off. Mark swam across to the little island and encountered a large “gang” of reef sharks hanging around in the very shallow water as he was snorkelling back. “You should so go in and swim with the sharks, it’s amazing,” he said to me. Hmmmm, a challenge. So I asked Luke if he would come with me (thinking he is more tender than me if the sharks were going to make a meal of us). In the small depth of water there was a surprising number and size of fish, not to mention the herd of sharks that we found on the other side of the lagoon. Luckily they really were more scared of us than I was of them (Luke wasn’t that bothered) and kept swimming away at top speed when I tried to take photos underwater. We made it back to shore with all our limbs intact and without any bloodshed and did some more sunbathing to calm down from all the excitement.

After a late lunch we decided to go for a drive up the coast to see the memorial cairn for the HMAS Sydney (WW2 wreck), Quobba Station and Red Bluff, doing some whale and dolphin spotting on the way. The coast is spectacular, with impressive high cliffs overlooking the deep blue ocean. Near Red Bluff we came across a salt mine situated right on the edge of the bay, mining salt from the dried out bed of Lake McCloud. At various spots along the coast there are memorial plaques for people who have died while fishing off the cliffs, along with warnings about “king waves”. However beautiful this stretch of coastline is, you can imagine that it can be pretty brutal in different weather conditions.

We got back to base in time for sunset and enjoyed the blowholes and whales with a glass of wine/ lemon lime bitters. Mark cooked steaks on the campfire for dinner. Happy days!

---