Exmouth Was Excellent!

After hanging at the very laid back Coral Bay for a few days and exploring all that was on offer of the south end of Ningaloo Reef, we were very excited to drive the next 180km to the place where the famous reef begins - Exmouth. We'd talked this place up since leaving Perth as we'd heard nothing but good reports of how amazing this part of Western Australia is, and this would be the place where after a week in the sun, Simo and Jenna would leave our little travelling convoy and head back to Perth for work.

The drive between Coral Bay and Exmouth is kinda interesting too, with hundreds of bright red earth termite mounds lining the road, plus the remains of a the once huge Australian Navy presence (random war-looking bunkers included). But as we drove into the town of Exmouth itself, we couldn't help but feel a little disappointed. The town is set back from the beach, so there were no lovely ocean views, the main street of Exmouth consisted of a few fish and chip and dive shops next to an IGA and the reef was a good 40 minute drive from town! We were starting to think we should have extended our stay at Coral Bay...

First impressions aside, we booked into the Big 4 Caravan Park which had great facilities (including an outdoor cinema with free movies, a beautiful pool and a good camp kitchen) and decided to explore Cape Range National Park and the Ningaloo Marine Park the next day.

And this is all it took to win our hearts and make every single kilometre of our long trip from Perth and every sandfly bite and every burnt coffee at the only cafe in all the small towns along the way, worth it.

Cape Range National park is a spectacular place of rugged limestone ranges, breathtaking deep canyons and 50km of pristine beaches. You can look one way and see red earth and deep rocky gorges teeming with wildlife like red kangaroos and huge eagles, and then turn the other way and the contrast of aqua ocean with amazing coral reef gardens just metres off shore is amazing.

We did a self guided drift snorkel at Turquoise Bay (you can get a brochure about this from the National Parks headquarters) but basically you swim out onto the reef at one end of the beach and the gentle current takes you all the way around to the next tip, while you look down through your snorkel at sea turtles, sting rays, manta rays, coral, tropical fish that put Finding Nemo to shame and even the odd reef shark and sea snake. It's like swimming inside Sydney Aquarium, only you can get so close to the fish (I reckon they're totally onto the fact that these waters are a marine sanctuary and we can look but not touch or eat!) that you could stay in the water for hours. I kept making this funny "Aw! Ooo! Wow!" sound into my snorkel because the marine life was so beuatiful, forcing Luke to set up some sort of hand signal, so he didn't freak out and think I'd spotted a Great White Shark every time he heard my weird underwater noises!

But the reef is only one amazing aspect of Exmouth which sees people travel from all over the world to visit this tiny town. Exmouth is also home to some pretty unreal diving spots. The old Navy Pier, just 20 minutes out of town, is rated by many world famous diving figures as one of the top ten shore dives in the world. At last count there were at least 200 different species of fish, including big schools of trevally, snapper and barracuda, as well as highly photogenic specimens such as graceful firefish, colourful angelfish, moorish idols and large Queensland gropers. The site can only be accessed if you join a tour and you have to have at least six months worth of diving experience to go along. This place is so amazing, that the site has a 24 hour security guard (armed with a gun, mind you!) patrolling the area to keep out unwanted fisherman who would have a field day at this marine wonderland.

So if diving or snorkeling is your thing, you have to get over to Ningaloo Reef...well...now! (It's the best time to visit and you know you deserve a holiday, don't cha?) And if underwater action isn't your thing, come anyway, because the fishing, bush walking, camping under the stars in the National Park and the history of Exmouth (Like did you know it has a tower as tall as the Eiffel Tower which was set up in the 1970's by the Australian and American Navy that detects any submarine movement for two kilometres underwater, all the way from our west coast to the west coast of America? Or that Exmouth is home to the only collapsible set of wind turbines in Australia, so if a cyclone hits, the turbines can be folded to the ground to prevent being damaged? Crazy, I know!)

So c'mon, yeah it's expensive and this place is in the middle of nowhere but tomorrow we're diving with whale sharks! Where else can you do that, hey?!

Yours starting to resemble a mermaid after so much snorkeling,
Odette