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| Ningaloo |
Wednesday, June 3, 2009
Post 14 - Greetings from the Coral Coast, WA. Nature's Adventure Playground - Journal
Greetings from the stunningly beautiful Coral Coast in W.A- home to picturesque Coral Bay, the township of Exmouth, plus the famous conservation zones of Ningaloo Reef Marine Park (affectionately known as “Natures Aquarium”) and the Cape Range National Park! To those who may argue that Ningaloo Reef is not as good as the Great Barrier Reef (QLD) in terms of the colour of it’s coral etc we counter - by arguing that what the Ningaloo Reef may lack in the coral-colour department it more than makes up for in its stunning coral formations. And, where else can you access so much fish and coral just 5-10m from the shoreline? Not the Great Barrier Reef that’s for sure! Plus of course the Ningaloo Marine Park protects Australia’s largest fringing coral reef. It’s a conservation park whose enormous 5000square kilometers of waters are said to be home to over 200 species of hard coral, 50 species of soft coral and over 500 species of tropical fish, many varieties of shark, as well as species of turtles, humpback whales, manta rays and dugongs. And if all of that didn’t have you agreeing with us, there’s no denying that the Barrier Reef cannot boast the world’s largest fish (the whaleshark) coming regularly like clockwork every year for you to swim with! In short then, it’s fair to say we have had a blast and will most definitely be back. Whilst most of the action by us has been had on and in the water, (having once-in-a-lifetime wildlife encounters through swimming, fishing, snorkeling, kayaking and sailing), the land and air have proven to be draw-cards in their own right too - luring us with 50km of some of the best, empty and most pristine beaches in the whole of W.A; amazing and unique flying experiences not to mention a zany quadbiking trek! We’ve enjoyed some stunning ocean sunsets whilst enjoying a sundowner or five at the bar or whilst sitting alone peacefully on isolated sand-dunes, watching orange turn to red or a yellow hue give way to ever darker shades of blue until these reach the first star of the night, The Evening Star, followed eventually by a full and huge canopy of stars and the amazing Milky Way. And whilst this place was never about food for us, we nevertheless have had some great feeds – including a range of sensational home-made pizzas at friends of ours in Exmouth; locally caught Moreton Bay Bugs, sensationally cooked melt-in-the-mouth soft scallops; a surprisingly brilliant prawn and chicken curry (first since leaving Perth!) and 2 or 3 repeated visits to our drinks place at Coral Bay that did brilliant chips and gravy (a wonderful throwback to University days if ever there was one!) In total we have spent about 2 weeks here but could easily spend more, so it goes pretty high up on our list of places to come back to. So, allow us to regale you with our little stories we are sure you will enjoy and don’t hate us too much when you get up for work tomorrow!
Chasing the World’s Biggest Fish – Part 1: Gordon doing it the easy way…..
Hi Gordon here! At Ningaloo Reef there are 3 main things people want to do: swim with a Whaleshark; snorkel/dive the coral reefs or do some kayaking around the reefs (many come here to go fishing, but this wasn’t on our list so I’m not counting it). This bit is about the first in that list – swimming with a Whaleshark.
We were to discover for ourselves during the onboard briefing that Whalesharks are mysterious creatures. Mysterious in that very little is known about them and their habits and where they actually go during the year, and mysterious in that they can be very difficult to find. One thing that is known about them that is constant is that they return here to Ningaloo at this time of year every year. I joined 18 or so other hopefuls for a trip to not only try to find a Whaleshark, but also to try and swim with it.
The day starts at the dive shop being fitted with a wetsuit and with flippers for the day. This is not an everyday thing for most people and a bit of anxiousness is evident with some of the group. We are then taken down to the jetty to board our boat for the day – the Encounter II, skippered by Yoda look-alike Steve.
First activity for the day once on board is to get ready for our first snorkel, which is a compulsory affair to allow the crew to asses whether we are capable of swimming with a Whaleshark in the open ocean – or, as the crew put it ‘to see if you sink or swim’. After confirming none of us actually sank (by doing a roll call once back on board) it was time for briefings on Whalesharks in general, the Code of Conduct for swimming with Whalesharks, and the various signals used by the spotter swimmers and crew to communicate with us while we are in the water. While the briefings were taking place the skipper was guiding the good ship Encounter II through a passage in the reef to the open ocean beyond.
A good question about this time is; “despite it being the biggest fish in the world, how do you actually find one in the open ocean??!” The answer is generally that they are spotted from a plane doing a grid search pattern above. The plane is in the air from 10am until around 3:15pm spotting for the boats below. Sometimes, however a Whaleshark can be spotted directly from the boat. And this is what happened on this day – as we were waiting for the plane to commence its searching and we were still heading out to the area where we would wait for the plane, one was spotted just off the port side of the boat by the crew.
At this point the crew leapt into action with Macca, the chief organizer of everything on board, revving us up and getting us all ready for the ‘first drop’ of swimmers. Before this the dive master has to get in to confirm that it is actually a Whaleshark and not some other type of less desirable shark (e.g a tigershark that eats humans!). Whalesharks are a very ‘desirable’ type of shark to swim with as they are not just magnificent creatures who swim fairly slowly – more importantly…. they won’t eat you! Despite their huge size (up to 18 metres in length) they eat very small stuff like plankton and krill.
After the dive master confirmed that it was indeed a desirable type of shark, group 1 gently slid into he water to join their leader to swim with what turned out to be a 7 metre male Whaleshark. After their first turn group 1 stopped swimming and my group then entered the water and started flippering towards our leader. At this point nothing can be seen other than some flippers directly in from and, when I raised my head, the leaders raised arm (our instructions were to ‘follow the arm’). Then all of a sudden there was nothing in front of me except for a huge yet graceful and completely non-threatening Whaleshark. As I said, quite simply a magnificent creature. On this first swim I stayed by its left hand side just about level with it’s pectoral fin – trying to observe the no closer than 4 metres rule. It was swimming slowly, right at the surface with its mouth wide open feeding.
Under the rules laid down by the Dept of Conservation & Environment controlling interaction with Whalesharks you must (among other things) not impede its normal course. This rule can become something of challenge when the shark suddenly turns and heads straight for you, which happened to me on the next swim. Rather than a calm swim along with the shark it becomes a mad scramble to get out of its way! We had the great fortune to have encountered a Whaleshark which allowed us to have 5 separate swims with it. Towards the end I think it was starting to play with us. We were swimming trying to keep up with it when it started to make repeated turns in fact it was circling us – it wasn’t menacing in any way, it was actually rounding us up into a fairly tight group in the water. Once it had achieved this and had us successfully herded into a group it swam off! I reckon it was laughing as it went!
It is a very special thing to do, and I felt privileged to have had the chance to swim such an incredible creature. Awesome!
Chasing the World’s Biggest Fish – Part 2: Caroline doing it the harder way!
I think Gordon would agree with me when I say that his whaleshark experience was, overall, easy and straightforward on a day graced with perfect weather and perfect sea conditions. I was booked onto that tour too. Difference was that I bailed out at the last minute and didn’t even get out of bed to go - freaking myself out with the re-playing of memories of a scary deep-ocean snorkel I did years ago on The Great Barrier Reef. Oh how unbelievably cross I was with myself for the rest of the day – the pain! I hated that I had let fear get the better of me! The next day, accepting that there was no refund for the no-show on my part, I paid my fee again (and for Gordon!) and rebooked for two days later, which was the next available tour – still scared but determined to beat the fear. It seemed however that the Universe had it in mind to give me some opportunities for “spiritual and personal growth” – or put another way, “learning to accept disappointments gracefully”, “surrender to what is” and “don’t get so emotionally attached to outcomes happening”. You see, what followed can best be described as a very, very unlucky set of events. In short, the day I tried again, I became a record-breaker for all the wrong and most painful reasons and I was to be known as “day 32” – the first day in the whole of the season that the weather changed, with blanket grey cloud obscuring the sun and stiff winds causing surface chop. This translated to a dark grey/black ocean with lots of white-capping from the chop and in the end, zero possibility for our spotter plane to see any dark whaleshark shape in what was essentially a black sea with heaps of white froth all over it. Looking for a whaleshark in a total space of 500 square metres of ocean is like looking for a needle in a haystack on the best of days, let alone in the conditions in which we set off in. It was a gut-wrenching day in which I got to do the ten-minute initial compulsory snorkel on the outer reef (they need to see you can do it before they let you go out in the deep ocean!) only to find that this was to be the only time for the rest of that day in which I was going to find myself in water. The rest of the 6hour day was spent on board our boat, with nothing to do except fruitlessly go round and round in huge circles in the ocean – and I am not too proud to admit that I did NOT accept the disappointment gracefully!
When a tour finishes and you don’t see a whaleshark you get to re-book one more time for free. A whole 10 days were to pass before we embarked on another attempt but it would seem the Universe still wanted to give me opportunities for “growth’. Yes, you guessed it – another day in which there were no whalesharks!!! This time the weather played ball but the sea conditions did not, with a huge 3-3.5m swell and big 2.5m seas causing all sorts of problems for spotting the elusive whaleshark. Again, all I got to do was the compulsory snorkel – and I was very bitter at the Universe not “rewarding” me for all this “feeling-the-fear-and-doing-it anyway” snorkeling I had been doing in rough conditions! There were a couple of small comforts that I tried to hold on to – like at least this time, with the weather being nicer, it was great fun to stand at the bow of the boat and watch this huge wall of turquoise water coming at you, only to see it gracefully slip under the boat at the last minute (or, put another way, the boat ride over it at the last minute) while you got a good spraying of wonderfully warm water! Also, from onboard we did spot and see a huge 3m tiger shark very close to our boat (they are NOT friendly sharks!) as well as a couple of early humpback whales who were treating us to a wonderful display of tail flicks and water-blowing – but the irony was not lost on us that we had seen a shark and two whales but not a whaleshark!
After this second failed attempt it took me a few days plus our final departure from Coral Bay before I could put my bad luck behind me and decide to “let it go” – that there was a whaleshark out there that I was to have a date with twelve months from now (and that he owed me BIG TIME!). So imagine my own surprise when, due to a couple of “signs” from the Universe and synchronistic happenings, I paid out again and tried a third time to swim with whalesharks - this time 125km further north in Exmouth. Unlike Coral Bay, Exmouth had not had a “miss” since the season began in March, so I reasoned that what with Fate sending me some signs and those kind of encouraging statistics, I stood a high chance of my wish finally coming true.
As it turned out, this story does indeed have a very happy ending and I became a statsistic in the very best way – namely, I got to do quite possibly the coolest thing in the ocean and be 1 in 300million people who swim with a whaleshark in their lifetime! YEEHAR!!!!! My day was quite different to Gordy’s so what follows is my (hardwon!) story…………..
“In one second we go from tranquil and cruisy to the boat suddenly lurching forward dramatically, tearing full speed ahead with the now cranked-up engine noise deafening us! Cold, salty spray hits our faces as we all race to the side of the boat, leaning over the side and craning our necks to see where we are headed and what’s going on! Immediately our adrenaline pumps as we see two other boats racing in the same direction too – all of this a likely sign that the plane-spotter has found a whaleshark. Sure enough, as all 3 boats keep speeding (first tour-company to arrive there gets to have first swim!), our deckhand shouts “WhaleShark!” and my heart starts pounding with both fear and excitement! For a split second I regret having eaten so much at morning tea but then have to shove that thought from my mind as it’s now GAME ON! Just as our boat and a competitor reach our destination we hear from the captain that another whaleshark has been spotted and that we are going for that one instead, so that we can be the only boat with that shark. Off we race again, just a very short distance and then our deckhand (a bloke with a broader and more Aussie accent than the entire nation put together!) yells at us to get our fins and masks on because “We’ve got a 7m shark guys ….and WE’REGAHININ!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!” (that last bit is translated as: “We’re going in!” -and, as it turned out, this was to be one of very many calls to action that day!). No sooner has group 1 entered the water and are off, than group 2 (me) is being asked to come down onto the marlin board at the back of the boat, ready for entry. At this stage I am terrified to be standing here and want to be sick! The swell causes the ocean to lap over my fins already. My face mask is on, my mouth biting down hard on the snorkel mouthpiece as I breathe fast and heavily. With knees literally knocking for England AND Australia I know that I am about to do a big walking split off the marlin board any second now – my least preferred way of getting into the water! Thoughts rush through my head from “I am about to come face to face with the biggest thing I have EVER seen in the ocean – and it’s BIG….S***!!!!!!!!!!!!” to, “what if a tiger shark comes?” and, paradoxically, a split second stress of “what if I miss the whaleshark?????!!!” (which, on hindsight, was a very silly thought to have but, I have since been told, quite a common one!) And then it’s all systems go with no more time for thinking. The boat sounds its horn; the deckhand yells “Group 2: WE’REGAHININ!”; we immediately do our huge splits stride off the marlin board; for a horrible second or two I am completely submerged and scrabbling with hands and fins in order to surface as quickly as I can and lose the bubbles. My head bobs up - I look to see where our tour leader is and find her arm in the air as directed. I hit the swell and oncoming current in a bid to swim over to her as per our instructions, breathing very fast now and trying to slow the breath down - but there’s no time as I see our tour leader point her finger on the outstretched arm downwards to the water, motioning us to look NOW and I duck my face under…….. to see the HUGE face of a massive whaleshark about 4m away from me!
I see it but its not sinking in somehow – it’s all very unreal. I linger a fraction too long and before I know it, two thirds of its size has swum past me and I am playing a failed game of catch up swimming after that – the very thing they warned us about! As everyone else keeps up with it and swim away, I am left treading water waiting for the boat to come and pick me up so that I can join Group 1 who are already back from being first swimmers of the day. I’m excited about what I have seen and a little disappointed I didn’t keep up - but not too much because I know we still have the whole day ahead of us.
In five minutes Group 2 returns and the whole boat is pumping with everybody being on a total high. This is short-lived though as the deckhand calls Group 1 again - “Group 1: We’regahinin!” - and we, Group 2 are then back on the marlin board! I barely have time to recover my breathing from the first swim and then I, too, am back in the water again, following the boats horn and the deckhand’s rousing call to action! This time I get to the tour leader quicker, am near the head of the shark from the word go and stay this way for a thrilling swim that goes on for at least 10 minutes. Although, like everyone else, it takes all my swimming power to kick my fins as fast as I can, I am ecstatic that I keep up the whole way with such a gigantic fish that for his part, is just doing a cruising speed! And then it’s back on the boat and again, before I know it, Group 1 are getting ready to go in AGAIN, followed again by our group 5 minutes later. It’s all insane and when, by the end of those three swims, this particular shark finally dives and is lost to us forever, I finally have a chance to get my breath and try to process all that has just happened in the last half hour!
Ten minutes is all I get for this and then we see a manta ray and the crew get animated and very excited – it’s the first one they have managed to get a swim with so far this season and a complete “bonus” for us. I am a little unsure as whilst the spot where we are is much shallower (nearer to the outside edge of the reef) there are lots of the Red Bell jellyfish which pack a very painful (though not life-threatening) sting if they brush you. Nevertheless I want to see a manta ray, so I join in the party. This time we do as Gordon did, and sit down on the marlin board in order to do a “slide-in” water-entry. The ray is medium-sized and not doing any of its famous “rolls” or anything but it lets us swim with it for a short while, which is very cool indeed and a lovely experience.
Back on board and again, barely ten minutes pass before the spotter has found ANOTHER shark nearby! This time we swim with a 4m and I get to do not only the comparison of size but also choose to deliberately swim right up behind it in order to get a magical rear-end view of its big tail swaying and sashaying from side to side – a beautiful and incredible sight to witness its power in this way. We get two swims each with this shark before it, too dives down deeper like the last and we lose it. However, after our first swim with it, I am needing a break so don’t go in for the second. Good job too because after this one goes we get a NEW 3m – I am so puffed by now but I go in and swim with it if only for a few minutes before swimming alone back to the boat, too knackered for words. While both groups go in again to swim with it, I go up to the Captain in the boats wheelhouse – and from there, I suddenly spot a huge sea snake right on the surface of the water a little way starboard! The Captain promptly informs me that the sea-snake is one of the most absolute venomous snakes of the world and I am instantly glad I spotted it from on-board rather than through snorkeling!
By the time they spot our final shark for the day (ANOTHER 3m one!) I am pooped and figure I have indeed “swum with the whalesharks”, so me and two other swimmers decide to sit it out. Since this very cute whaleshark ends up swimming unbelievably close to the boat, playfully interacting with all snorkellers for ages and swimming very slowly indeed, one could be forgiven for thinking that I am now missing out on what may well be the most easiest and special of all the whaleshark swims that day. On the contrary however – I get the most amazing opportunity to witness the whaleshark in a whole new way, watching it from above on the boat as the sun lights up its beautifully grey and white-dotted skin just under the surface of the turquoise-shimmering water! For half an hour I am absolutely captivated and keep taking photos, having to pinch myself at the way the whole day has turned out! By 1pm we are done – all back on board where a sensational smorgasbord lunch is waiting for us and our humungous appetites. As we tuck in, swapping our stories, the boat cruises us back home with a once-in-a-lifetime-experience forever locked in our hearts and in every cell of our tired-out little bodies that swam like mad to keep up with the largest fish in the world!”
Motorcycling the skies – getting “high” on Ningaloo Reef!
In what must surely be one of the most unique and picturesque environments in the whole of Australia, Gordon and I got a birds-eye view from canyon to reef, of W.A’s beautiful Coral Coast during a one hour Microlight flight. For those of you who may not know what one of those is, it’s basically a fibreglass open pod-capsule that looks to all intents and purposes like a motorized trike, seating you and the pilot, which then has a huge 11m wing balanced on the top – sort of a cross between a plane and a hang-glider only cooler than either! And, as I was to find out for myself, it was even cooler than the one time I paraglided off a mountain in New Zealand! Take-off in a Microlight is less scary than with paragliding too - back then in New Zealand I had to literally run off a mountain with an instructor behind me (attached by various ropes etc) and a parachute behind him. On a Microlight take-off however, I was sitting down and speeding along the runway in this small capsule - even closer to the ground than in a small bi-plane! In two shakes of a lambs-tail we were airborne and the wind came rushing up towards us – just one of the many adrenalin-rushes to come! It was the weirdest thing to be climbing high into the sky in such a crazy-looking contraption where it seemed like witchcraft that it should be even airborne at all! By the time we were flying over the canyons and folded, crumpled limestone ranges that were 3,500ft below us, the pilot said over my headset: “Well, Caroline, welcome to my office – isn’t it cool?!” and we both laughed out heads off! By now the air was very cold, the wind rushing around the back of my neck, buffeting my half open flying jacket and flapping my long trousers and I felt SO ALIVE! It was all such an adrenalin-rush and just when I thought it couldn’t get much better than that, we made a turn and the beautiful blues of Ningaloo Reef were ahead of us and Gav put on some Chilli Peppers and we turned the volume up in our headsets – both of us cruisily bopping our heads in time to the music whilst the reef loomed closer and closer. (For Gordon, he put on the music to Top Gun!). Sensational – both the view, the flying AND that he put on my number one favourite band! Life can’t get much better than this I thought! Yet it did get better as he put another Chilli’s track on (another of my absolute favourites…”fly away on my zephyr….”) and we made our descent down to 500ft and the reef itself – at which point I heard Gav in my headset saying “Caroline, say hello to Ningaloo!” which was followed by much whooping from both of us!
Now, Gordon and I are both in agreement here – Ningaloo Reef from just 500ft above it is, quite simply, the most extraordinarily breathtaking, picturesque, unique and stunning landscape we could ever think of Microlighting over. At this level the air is much warmer and the visual display put on by Mother Nature is simply awesome. For a start, the contrasts in colour are absolutely exquisite – looking down or ahead of you and you have the golden sun shimmering over deep blue ocean and then frothy white waves where ocean then meets the reef and lagoons which in turn are anything from turquoise, to emeralds and jades – all of these then meeting up with golden and white beaches which themselves eventually extend backwards into the olives, greens and browns of the land. Looking up and you have nothing but uninterrupted blue sky, blinding sunlight and the deep red of the Microlight wing!
For the next half an hour we simply cruised north, tracking the spectacular curves and headlands of the coastline which looked like they had been carved out with a handyman’s jig saw. Every now and then we did thrilling 360 degree spins where one second you are blinded by the sun and the next you are face down with turquoise water rushing up towards you and then before you know it, you are back to facing straight again! At times, there were stretches of the reef and lagoon that were quite literally streaked with different blues, each one “bleeding” into the other. From our birds eye view this sometimes gave it the impression of a beautiful mosaic and at other times made it look like a glue-and-coloured-sand piece of artwork – as if someone had tipped up the card and let all the sand slide down to the bottom. In other parts, surface ripples on the water caused by the light breezes created a subtle yet gorgeous “mottled” effect.
It’s amazing what marine life you can see when you are airborne like this too. On my go we spotted a solitary dugong in shallow waters near a beach – there were three people standing on the beach that could have swum just a few strokes and got to it but they would have had no idea it was there. From the air it looked like a glossy brown submarine torpedo! Gordon saw a leopard shark giving chase to a poor turtle (and reckons he would have been dinner 2 seconds later for sure), not to mention a dolphin, an eagle-ray (bit like the shape of a manta ray only smaller), as well as another dugong further along.
For Gordon, Gavin did something a bit different too at this stage. As Gordon heard the words “I’m going to do something now that will blow your socks off” over his headset, Gavin swooped once or twice to lose height to just 10ft, and then maintained that incredibly low altitude as they practically skimmed the water. This of course gave rise to quite a different perspective for Gordon – as if the view now was as if standing on the beach rather than being high in the sky. They flew past fisherman on the mudflats who were collecting worms for bait and then did a swerve to the right in order to fly over some sand-dunes and, beyond them, to follow the line of a dry creek-bed. Gordon also did the sunset flight so got to see the sun in the process of setting and the purple hue of the sky that reflected in the water.
Sadly all good things must come to an end and we did finally have to turn our backs on Ningaloo Reef and head back towards the helistrip. As we cleared the canyons again we tracked a short way up the Exmouth Gulf (the other strip of water here), where I was given the opportunity to have a go at flying after a very brief set of instructions on how to! Ahem! For those of you who don’t have a clue how these things fly, all you need to know is that it is a weight-shift controlled aircraft – which means that speed and direction are controlled by the pilot moving his weight backwards and forwards and from side to side. By pushing the bar forward you are putting the capsule backwards in relation to the wing, which makes you climb and tends to slow you down – and vise versa for descending and going faster. If you push it sideways it makes the wing slant therefore your weight is effectively being shifted away from where you have pushed the bar – so push it to the left and your weight shifts to the right and so the direction you travel in is right. Bringing the bar back to the centre after that move then enables you to keep going straight in that new direction. Gordon of course, being an existing pilot, was allowed to sit in the front of the Microlight right from the start and spent much more time at the controls than me. It’s not as easy as it sounds though – and even Gordy will testify to that! Very subtle movements can make a big difference and its very common for the beginner to be holding the bar so rigidly that they unwittingly make big moves, which is what I did when I sent us on a couple of sharp and deep turns right! I thought I had returned the bar back to centre but it was in actual fact still left, so we were turning even sharper in the same direction by the second! Hilarious! Of course at no time were we spiraling out of control because Gavin could correct it very easily thanks to dual controls – but that feeling for a minute that you don’t know how to correct it yourself, leaves you feeling very vulnerable for a moment!.
As a finale to the whole flying experience, Gavin picked up some height as we approached the helistrip and then cut the motor, leaving us like birds, with the gentle contrast of silence in our ears as we did three big spiral glides down towards the runway, meeting the tarmac in an amazingly smooth transition of air to earth! The huge grin that I had become during the whole flight was what Gordon met when we pulled in to the hangar – and the roles were reversed exactly when he pulled in a hour later! To say that we were both buzzing was an understatement and Gordon now wants to get his licence. Being a private pilot already, he only needs to do 5hrs tuition to get his licence – for me it would be between 20 and 35 lessons….and we are seriously considering both of us doing it after this trip, in readiness to go round Australia again with more of a flying theme in mind! All we can say is………watch this space!
Snorkelling the Coral Coast – how to become a wrinkled prune!
We have managed to do quite a bit of snorkeling and have loved it all – each snorkel brings new things to discover and its been great to often just step into the water from the beach, wade out a few large strides and find yourself already amongst coral and fish – in fact in some places we had schools of fish such as silver dart with their three black spots, literally just 2 or three steps into the crystal clear water, hanging around near our ankles to see what things we might kick up for them in the sand with our toes – amazing! At all times we’ve been snorkeling in waters just 2 or 4m deep, which is pretty shallow indeed and that’s been just amazing. We’ve had conditions ranging from still and calm waters to waters with strong currents that you have to either fight against to get where you want to go, or be careful of or they could rip you out of the reef and out to sea (this actually happened to an Irishman, who died on the very same drift-snorkel site that we snorkeled on a day later - a sobering reminder that even though they are pretty looking lagoons, you always have to be respectful of wild nature).
Snorkeling in beautiful Coral Bay right by the main beach was lovely and our first taste of what these Ningaloo waters had on offer. Standout here was the sheer number of huge Spangled Emperor and other large snapper varieties that we swam with – their big glassy eyes staring at you but totally nonplussed by you. Also a couple of spectacular Ragged-finned Red Firefish – their fins splayed out in all directions like a tattered fan but somehow to me they looked like a Samurai Warrior that you wouldn’t mess with!
Doing one of the best snorkel sites in the area - the “drift snorkel” at stunning Turquoise Bay in the Cape Range National Park - was also pretty unforgettable. Wading a little from one end of the beach out into the water, you then simply drift with the (pretty strong!) current over the reef for fantastic snorkeling. Yes, we did unfortunately have to deal with dodging the Red Bell Jellyfish in their numbers but thankfully we incurred no stings. Here the water was like a gorgeous warm bath and visibility was probably the best we had all round – it was crystal clear and the most like being in an aquarium that we had experienced until then with yet new varieties of fish to delight and intrigue us, such as brightly coloured Angelfish and Butterfly fish, as well as heaps of pretty little Neon Damsels and the cute black and white Humbugs, both of which certainly didn’t have a problem swimming right under your chest! Funny Parrotfish – their mouths like the beak of a parrot and just as brightly coloured in the body – were banging their “beaks” into the sandy floor to see what they could dig up, or were bashing into coral repeatedly with their mouths as they “bit” at it and munched away. You could hear their sound everywhere – like a constant sound of popping that reminded me of the noise of a popping dust that you could buy as a kid, where it exploded in your mouth and when your mouth was shut you could hear it everywhere in your head! It was also here that we saw a beautiful example of electric-blue staghorn coral!
Perhaps the highlight for both us however, was our half-day trip on a lovely catamaran back in Coral Bay, where we got to see a gorgeous 2.5m adult brown Dugong come pretty close to the boat, which was pretty special. Also known as a seacow, they are quite shy and elusive creatures with a mermaid tail, a more rotund body than a dolphin, and almost-flattened-out walrus snout - and yet for all these similarities their closest relative is actually the elephant! To see one of these so close was a good omen for the day and after this we snorkeled two different sites for as long as wanted to. First up was an amazing site of extensive and enormous plate corals in beautiful jade water. Each plate was easily wider in diameter than mine and Gordon’s bodies side by side and they came just one after the other, all intricately interwoven and too stunning for words. Drifting over these with the current and eventually back to the boat, the water was surprisingly shallow and at times it felt like you had to suck your tummy in, in case you scraped them with your body! After that, a much longer snorkel was had in our next location where we saw the most varieties of fish (known to us and new) and in greater numbers than we had seen until then. It was here that we saw huge schools of yellow surgeon fish going right past our face masks, dramatic splashes of colour against the backdrop of bright blue water and there were other huge schools of fish that came by too not to mention smaller groups, such as the 10 or so silvery-grey Smooth Flutemouths – long and thin bodied with an even thinner, longer mouth (which, as the name suggests, looks like a flute!). Time just seemed to stop as drifted and directed our gaze under rocks or coral to see what might be hiding there – such as the odd black Catfish with bodies like eels and funny whiskers coming off their face or giant, bright, neon-blue Starfish either peeping out from under hard coral or sprawled flat on the sandy floor. A couple of huge Honeycombed Cods, covered in dark leopard-like spots and with miserable down-turned mouths hung back by the coral, unsure of our presence and what it meant. Meanwhile the odd Stingray either leisurely skimmed the floor like a hovercraft, scurried towards the bottom of a coral formation so that they can hide in wait for their food or simply lay perfectly still on the bottom of the floor – covered in sand for disguise as they were, and looking to all intents and purposes like ghosts with their stand-out ridge of their tail being the only clue to alert you that anything is even there at all. Huge clams with exquisite lilac, green and silver interiors instantly “clammed” shut the minute we passed over them – a constant source of amusement for me! Excited to finally see my first Ningaloo turtle, I followed its graceful flight for a while, another magical experience. In the end he was faster than me faster and I lost him into the blue.
At this snorkel site we also saw the best examples of the sheer expanse of coral varieties. An underwater rock garden, it comprised cabbage and broccoli corals, plate corals, brain corals, and some good bombies (tall towering corals), all of which at times gave way to patches of open water and beds of sand hosting big fat sea slugs and sea-cucumbers. Of these corals, the odd one was vivid green, or pale pink, or lavender, making for a beautiful standout contrast against the majority of browns.
Poor Gordon - at times he had to keep getting me and motioning me to come the other way as I was going too far with the current or too far on the wrong side of the boat! Hilarious – but when I am being “in the now” like this, I apparently have zero “situational awareness”!! It was however simply enthralling to be in that world - sometimes just hanging there in the water, breathing really deeply and slowly, or as Gordon liked to do, pausing at the end of an out-breath just so he could have more silence and experience of stillness! Hanging over fish, suspended as if you were in air, with hands crossed behind your back or on your hips or arms simply folded on your chest as you float over them was a wonderfully tranquil experience. Watching all things going about their general business in this magical water-world seemed somehow to be a rather humbling privilege and, as with all the snorkel sites we visited, it was just so cool to have fish coming right up to you and waving their dorsal fins at you, as if in surprise that you are there or as if to say “Well hello! Welcome to our world!”
What an amazing set of experiences - is it any wonder that both of us became snorkel-hogs and started to look like wrinkled prunes by the end of our stay on the Coral Coast?! We think not!
Kicking up the sand….Quadbike-style!
Doing a sunset quadbike trek along the Coral Coast was another exhilarating and fun way to experience this fantastic adventure-environment and needless to say, we had a blast doing it! On cherry-red quad bikes (and for those who don’t know, they are like a cross between a motorbike and a big fat tractor), we pulled out of Coral Bay, one by one until we were a procession of 12 people going down the road – our combined noise sounding like an entourage of cool Harley bikes. Gordon was at the very back, I was in front of him and the other people who booked were all in front of me (we planned it that way in part, so as, at times on the trek, we would be able to wait for everyone else to go ahead while we then went full speed!) So, off we went down the road, some of us smoothly – some of us, like me, not so smoothly. Though Gordon was a pro, for me, getting used to not squeezing the accelerator handle too tight took me a little bit of time and until then I looked like a witch on a possessed broomstick, alarming the guy in front of me on more than one occasion as I kept “kangarooing” forward!
The drive on the road was short-lived – just a means to get to the start of a trek, which was going to be on private land around the coast of Coral Bay. Once we arrived at the start of the real trek, it was GET SET, GO! What followed was a very mad, very funny, and at times, bit of a hair-raising trek on bush tracks that went over dunes, along cliff-tops and on pristine beaches of some of the more remote parts of this stunning coastline.
It’s a funny thing being on a quad bike – on one hand, the machine is very sturdy and capable of everything you throw at it, so it’s quite a secure and comfortable experience. On the other hand, there is the fact that at times, your whole legs are just flailing around and shaking about on the bike as you drive over rough sand-corrugations (hard ripples in the sand that make for extremely juddery and bumpy riding!) and you feel like you are waaaay out of control! One minute we were speeding up quite narrow sandy bush tracks that would veer sharply left or right at the top, the next, trying to see where the person in front of us has gone so that we know where to go next! Sometimes we were even unable to see the track ahead, so couldn’t even know the twists and turns until we were right on them, which made for some pretty thrilling moments at speed! Other times, you couldn’t see ahead for the sheer sand that had been kicked up by the person in front of you! But it wasn’t all just “eyes on the track” – now and again, we were rewarded with stunning views of the coastline from both above on the cliffs and below from the sand and at one point, stopped to see a lone turtle swimming in the waters below. A little later into the trek we sped down a track only to have it bend sharply left at the bottom and I found myself instantly on a beach that I didn’t know was there or was coming, with me just feet away from crashing into the water – but a sharp turn of the handlebars…. and she’s good! We both loved driving on the remote empty beaches that formed part of the tour. For us the fun was increased by letting the person ahead of you just go… and then waiting a minute or so until you yourself rev up, so that you can let rip and go full speed ahead – the witch now in full control of her broomstick, whooping and cackling her head off like a mad woman as the wind hit her face and the surf pounded the sand! Oh, the sheer sense of freedom! At one point we were all given the opportunity to drive straight up the middle of a very steep sand-dune – our instructions were basically to not veer from the middle and to just go full speed the whole time otherwise we would be in danger of sinking into the dune. One by one the guys ahead of us successfully did the ascent and then it was my turn – what can I say other than it was just so exhilarating and then, once up the top, I was greeted as everyone else had been, with a round of applause. Gordon took it all in his stride as he so often does and of course made it look really easy! Now, going up steep sand-dunes was one thing – but coming down them was another. Later on in the tour, we came back to that same sand-dune, only at the time I didn’t realize, as we drove up it from the other side (which wasn’t nearly so steep). It wasn’t until I was at the top and could see the view that I realized where we were! First thought was, quite naturally, “oh shit!” as me and my quadbike completely tilted forwards and downwards. The idea was to go down in a controlled way and fairly slow but I didn’t realize that I had my hand on the accelerator! So I had a fast ride down and I think subconsciously I just wanted it to be over and to be at the bottom already! As we watched the sunset over the ocean, there was just enough time to reflect on how cool the whole experience had been, only to have to get back on the bikes and drive the rest of the tracks home!
Well my friends, we hope you enjoyed our adventures and so now, if you would please excuse us – WE NEED A BLOODY REST! So until next time, goodbye!
Chasing the World’s Biggest Fish – Part 1: Gordon doing it the easy way…..
Hi Gordon here! At Ningaloo Reef there are 3 main things people want to do: swim with a Whaleshark; snorkel/dive the coral reefs or do some kayaking around the reefs (many come here to go fishing, but this wasn’t on our list so I’m not counting it). This bit is about the first in that list – swimming with a Whaleshark.
We were to discover for ourselves during the onboard briefing that Whalesharks are mysterious creatures. Mysterious in that very little is known about them and their habits and where they actually go during the year, and mysterious in that they can be very difficult to find. One thing that is known about them that is constant is that they return here to Ningaloo at this time of year every year. I joined 18 or so other hopefuls for a trip to not only try to find a Whaleshark, but also to try and swim with it.
The day starts at the dive shop being fitted with a wetsuit and with flippers for the day. This is not an everyday thing for most people and a bit of anxiousness is evident with some of the group. We are then taken down to the jetty to board our boat for the day – the Encounter II, skippered by Yoda look-alike Steve.
First activity for the day once on board is to get ready for our first snorkel, which is a compulsory affair to allow the crew to asses whether we are capable of swimming with a Whaleshark in the open ocean – or, as the crew put it ‘to see if you sink or swim’. After confirming none of us actually sank (by doing a roll call once back on board) it was time for briefings on Whalesharks in general, the Code of Conduct for swimming with Whalesharks, and the various signals used by the spotter swimmers and crew to communicate with us while we are in the water. While the briefings were taking place the skipper was guiding the good ship Encounter II through a passage in the reef to the open ocean beyond.
A good question about this time is; “despite it being the biggest fish in the world, how do you actually find one in the open ocean??!” The answer is generally that they are spotted from a plane doing a grid search pattern above. The plane is in the air from 10am until around 3:15pm spotting for the boats below. Sometimes, however a Whaleshark can be spotted directly from the boat. And this is what happened on this day – as we were waiting for the plane to commence its searching and we were still heading out to the area where we would wait for the plane, one was spotted just off the port side of the boat by the crew.
At this point the crew leapt into action with Macca, the chief organizer of everything on board, revving us up and getting us all ready for the ‘first drop’ of swimmers. Before this the dive master has to get in to confirm that it is actually a Whaleshark and not some other type of less desirable shark (e.g a tigershark that eats humans!). Whalesharks are a very ‘desirable’ type of shark to swim with as they are not just magnificent creatures who swim fairly slowly – more importantly…. they won’t eat you! Despite their huge size (up to 18 metres in length) they eat very small stuff like plankton and krill.
After the dive master confirmed that it was indeed a desirable type of shark, group 1 gently slid into he water to join their leader to swim with what turned out to be a 7 metre male Whaleshark. After their first turn group 1 stopped swimming and my group then entered the water and started flippering towards our leader. At this point nothing can be seen other than some flippers directly in from and, when I raised my head, the leaders raised arm (our instructions were to ‘follow the arm’). Then all of a sudden there was nothing in front of me except for a huge yet graceful and completely non-threatening Whaleshark. As I said, quite simply a magnificent creature. On this first swim I stayed by its left hand side just about level with it’s pectoral fin – trying to observe the no closer than 4 metres rule. It was swimming slowly, right at the surface with its mouth wide open feeding.
Under the rules laid down by the Dept of Conservation & Environment controlling interaction with Whalesharks you must (among other things) not impede its normal course. This rule can become something of challenge when the shark suddenly turns and heads straight for you, which happened to me on the next swim. Rather than a calm swim along with the shark it becomes a mad scramble to get out of its way! We had the great fortune to have encountered a Whaleshark which allowed us to have 5 separate swims with it. Towards the end I think it was starting to play with us. We were swimming trying to keep up with it when it started to make repeated turns in fact it was circling us – it wasn’t menacing in any way, it was actually rounding us up into a fairly tight group in the water. Once it had achieved this and had us successfully herded into a group it swam off! I reckon it was laughing as it went!
It is a very special thing to do, and I felt privileged to have had the chance to swim such an incredible creature. Awesome!
Chasing the World’s Biggest Fish – Part 2: Caroline doing it the harder way!
I think Gordon would agree with me when I say that his whaleshark experience was, overall, easy and straightforward on a day graced with perfect weather and perfect sea conditions. I was booked onto that tour too. Difference was that I bailed out at the last minute and didn’t even get out of bed to go - freaking myself out with the re-playing of memories of a scary deep-ocean snorkel I did years ago on The Great Barrier Reef. Oh how unbelievably cross I was with myself for the rest of the day – the pain! I hated that I had let fear get the better of me! The next day, accepting that there was no refund for the no-show on my part, I paid my fee again (and for Gordon!) and rebooked for two days later, which was the next available tour – still scared but determined to beat the fear. It seemed however that the Universe had it in mind to give me some opportunities for “spiritual and personal growth” – or put another way, “learning to accept disappointments gracefully”, “surrender to what is” and “don’t get so emotionally attached to outcomes happening”. You see, what followed can best be described as a very, very unlucky set of events. In short, the day I tried again, I became a record-breaker for all the wrong and most painful reasons and I was to be known as “day 32” – the first day in the whole of the season that the weather changed, with blanket grey cloud obscuring the sun and stiff winds causing surface chop. This translated to a dark grey/black ocean with lots of white-capping from the chop and in the end, zero possibility for our spotter plane to see any dark whaleshark shape in what was essentially a black sea with heaps of white froth all over it. Looking for a whaleshark in a total space of 500 square metres of ocean is like looking for a needle in a haystack on the best of days, let alone in the conditions in which we set off in. It was a gut-wrenching day in which I got to do the ten-minute initial compulsory snorkel on the outer reef (they need to see you can do it before they let you go out in the deep ocean!) only to find that this was to be the only time for the rest of that day in which I was going to find myself in water. The rest of the 6hour day was spent on board our boat, with nothing to do except fruitlessly go round and round in huge circles in the ocean – and I am not too proud to admit that I did NOT accept the disappointment gracefully!
When a tour finishes and you don’t see a whaleshark you get to re-book one more time for free. A whole 10 days were to pass before we embarked on another attempt but it would seem the Universe still wanted to give me opportunities for “growth’. Yes, you guessed it – another day in which there were no whalesharks!!! This time the weather played ball but the sea conditions did not, with a huge 3-3.5m swell and big 2.5m seas causing all sorts of problems for spotting the elusive whaleshark. Again, all I got to do was the compulsory snorkel – and I was very bitter at the Universe not “rewarding” me for all this “feeling-the-fear-and-doing-it anyway” snorkeling I had been doing in rough conditions! There were a couple of small comforts that I tried to hold on to – like at least this time, with the weather being nicer, it was great fun to stand at the bow of the boat and watch this huge wall of turquoise water coming at you, only to see it gracefully slip under the boat at the last minute (or, put another way, the boat ride over it at the last minute) while you got a good spraying of wonderfully warm water! Also, from onboard we did spot and see a huge 3m tiger shark very close to our boat (they are NOT friendly sharks!) as well as a couple of early humpback whales who were treating us to a wonderful display of tail flicks and water-blowing – but the irony was not lost on us that we had seen a shark and two whales but not a whaleshark!
After this second failed attempt it took me a few days plus our final departure from Coral Bay before I could put my bad luck behind me and decide to “let it go” – that there was a whaleshark out there that I was to have a date with twelve months from now (and that he owed me BIG TIME!). So imagine my own surprise when, due to a couple of “signs” from the Universe and synchronistic happenings, I paid out again and tried a third time to swim with whalesharks - this time 125km further north in Exmouth. Unlike Coral Bay, Exmouth had not had a “miss” since the season began in March, so I reasoned that what with Fate sending me some signs and those kind of encouraging statistics, I stood a high chance of my wish finally coming true.
As it turned out, this story does indeed have a very happy ending and I became a statsistic in the very best way – namely, I got to do quite possibly the coolest thing in the ocean and be 1 in 300million people who swim with a whaleshark in their lifetime! YEEHAR!!!!! My day was quite different to Gordy’s so what follows is my (hardwon!) story…………..
“In one second we go from tranquil and cruisy to the boat suddenly lurching forward dramatically, tearing full speed ahead with the now cranked-up engine noise deafening us! Cold, salty spray hits our faces as we all race to the side of the boat, leaning over the side and craning our necks to see where we are headed and what’s going on! Immediately our adrenaline pumps as we see two other boats racing in the same direction too – all of this a likely sign that the plane-spotter has found a whaleshark. Sure enough, as all 3 boats keep speeding (first tour-company to arrive there gets to have first swim!), our deckhand shouts “WhaleShark!” and my heart starts pounding with both fear and excitement! For a split second I regret having eaten so much at morning tea but then have to shove that thought from my mind as it’s now GAME ON! Just as our boat and a competitor reach our destination we hear from the captain that another whaleshark has been spotted and that we are going for that one instead, so that we can be the only boat with that shark. Off we race again, just a very short distance and then our deckhand (a bloke with a broader and more Aussie accent than the entire nation put together!) yells at us to get our fins and masks on because “We’ve got a 7m shark guys ….and WE’REGAHININ!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!” (that last bit is translated as: “We’re going in!” -and, as it turned out, this was to be one of very many calls to action that day!). No sooner has group 1 entered the water and are off, than group 2 (me) is being asked to come down onto the marlin board at the back of the boat, ready for entry. At this stage I am terrified to be standing here and want to be sick! The swell causes the ocean to lap over my fins already. My face mask is on, my mouth biting down hard on the snorkel mouthpiece as I breathe fast and heavily. With knees literally knocking for England AND Australia I know that I am about to do a big walking split off the marlin board any second now – my least preferred way of getting into the water! Thoughts rush through my head from “I am about to come face to face with the biggest thing I have EVER seen in the ocean – and it’s BIG….S***!!!!!!!!!!!!” to, “what if a tiger shark comes?” and, paradoxically, a split second stress of “what if I miss the whaleshark?????!!!” (which, on hindsight, was a very silly thought to have but, I have since been told, quite a common one!) And then it’s all systems go with no more time for thinking. The boat sounds its horn; the deckhand yells “Group 2: WE’REGAHININ!”; we immediately do our huge splits stride off the marlin board; for a horrible second or two I am completely submerged and scrabbling with hands and fins in order to surface as quickly as I can and lose the bubbles. My head bobs up - I look to see where our tour leader is and find her arm in the air as directed. I hit the swell and oncoming current in a bid to swim over to her as per our instructions, breathing very fast now and trying to slow the breath down - but there’s no time as I see our tour leader point her finger on the outstretched arm downwards to the water, motioning us to look NOW and I duck my face under…….. to see the HUGE face of a massive whaleshark about 4m away from me!
I see it but its not sinking in somehow – it’s all very unreal. I linger a fraction too long and before I know it, two thirds of its size has swum past me and I am playing a failed game of catch up swimming after that – the very thing they warned us about! As everyone else keeps up with it and swim away, I am left treading water waiting for the boat to come and pick me up so that I can join Group 1 who are already back from being first swimmers of the day. I’m excited about what I have seen and a little disappointed I didn’t keep up - but not too much because I know we still have the whole day ahead of us.
In five minutes Group 2 returns and the whole boat is pumping with everybody being on a total high. This is short-lived though as the deckhand calls Group 1 again - “Group 1: We’regahinin!” - and we, Group 2 are then back on the marlin board! I barely have time to recover my breathing from the first swim and then I, too, am back in the water again, following the boats horn and the deckhand’s rousing call to action! This time I get to the tour leader quicker, am near the head of the shark from the word go and stay this way for a thrilling swim that goes on for at least 10 minutes. Although, like everyone else, it takes all my swimming power to kick my fins as fast as I can, I am ecstatic that I keep up the whole way with such a gigantic fish that for his part, is just doing a cruising speed! And then it’s back on the boat and again, before I know it, Group 1 are getting ready to go in AGAIN, followed again by our group 5 minutes later. It’s all insane and when, by the end of those three swims, this particular shark finally dives and is lost to us forever, I finally have a chance to get my breath and try to process all that has just happened in the last half hour!
Ten minutes is all I get for this and then we see a manta ray and the crew get animated and very excited – it’s the first one they have managed to get a swim with so far this season and a complete “bonus” for us. I am a little unsure as whilst the spot where we are is much shallower (nearer to the outside edge of the reef) there are lots of the Red Bell jellyfish which pack a very painful (though not life-threatening) sting if they brush you. Nevertheless I want to see a manta ray, so I join in the party. This time we do as Gordon did, and sit down on the marlin board in order to do a “slide-in” water-entry. The ray is medium-sized and not doing any of its famous “rolls” or anything but it lets us swim with it for a short while, which is very cool indeed and a lovely experience.
Back on board and again, barely ten minutes pass before the spotter has found ANOTHER shark nearby! This time we swim with a 4m and I get to do not only the comparison of size but also choose to deliberately swim right up behind it in order to get a magical rear-end view of its big tail swaying and sashaying from side to side – a beautiful and incredible sight to witness its power in this way. We get two swims each with this shark before it, too dives down deeper like the last and we lose it. However, after our first swim with it, I am needing a break so don’t go in for the second. Good job too because after this one goes we get a NEW 3m – I am so puffed by now but I go in and swim with it if only for a few minutes before swimming alone back to the boat, too knackered for words. While both groups go in again to swim with it, I go up to the Captain in the boats wheelhouse – and from there, I suddenly spot a huge sea snake right on the surface of the water a little way starboard! The Captain promptly informs me that the sea-snake is one of the most absolute venomous snakes of the world and I am instantly glad I spotted it from on-board rather than through snorkeling!
By the time they spot our final shark for the day (ANOTHER 3m one!) I am pooped and figure I have indeed “swum with the whalesharks”, so me and two other swimmers decide to sit it out. Since this very cute whaleshark ends up swimming unbelievably close to the boat, playfully interacting with all snorkellers for ages and swimming very slowly indeed, one could be forgiven for thinking that I am now missing out on what may well be the most easiest and special of all the whaleshark swims that day. On the contrary however – I get the most amazing opportunity to witness the whaleshark in a whole new way, watching it from above on the boat as the sun lights up its beautifully grey and white-dotted skin just under the surface of the turquoise-shimmering water! For half an hour I am absolutely captivated and keep taking photos, having to pinch myself at the way the whole day has turned out! By 1pm we are done – all back on board where a sensational smorgasbord lunch is waiting for us and our humungous appetites. As we tuck in, swapping our stories, the boat cruises us back home with a once-in-a-lifetime-experience forever locked in our hearts and in every cell of our tired-out little bodies that swam like mad to keep up with the largest fish in the world!”
Motorcycling the skies – getting “high” on Ningaloo Reef!
In what must surely be one of the most unique and picturesque environments in the whole of Australia, Gordon and I got a birds-eye view from canyon to reef, of W.A’s beautiful Coral Coast during a one hour Microlight flight. For those of you who may not know what one of those is, it’s basically a fibreglass open pod-capsule that looks to all intents and purposes like a motorized trike, seating you and the pilot, which then has a huge 11m wing balanced on the top – sort of a cross between a plane and a hang-glider only cooler than either! And, as I was to find out for myself, it was even cooler than the one time I paraglided off a mountain in New Zealand! Take-off in a Microlight is less scary than with paragliding too - back then in New Zealand I had to literally run off a mountain with an instructor behind me (attached by various ropes etc) and a parachute behind him. On a Microlight take-off however, I was sitting down and speeding along the runway in this small capsule - even closer to the ground than in a small bi-plane! In two shakes of a lambs-tail we were airborne and the wind came rushing up towards us – just one of the many adrenalin-rushes to come! It was the weirdest thing to be climbing high into the sky in such a crazy-looking contraption where it seemed like witchcraft that it should be even airborne at all! By the time we were flying over the canyons and folded, crumpled limestone ranges that were 3,500ft below us, the pilot said over my headset: “Well, Caroline, welcome to my office – isn’t it cool?!” and we both laughed out heads off! By now the air was very cold, the wind rushing around the back of my neck, buffeting my half open flying jacket and flapping my long trousers and I felt SO ALIVE! It was all such an adrenalin-rush and just when I thought it couldn’t get much better than that, we made a turn and the beautiful blues of Ningaloo Reef were ahead of us and Gav put on some Chilli Peppers and we turned the volume up in our headsets – both of us cruisily bopping our heads in time to the music whilst the reef loomed closer and closer. (For Gordon, he put on the music to Top Gun!). Sensational – both the view, the flying AND that he put on my number one favourite band! Life can’t get much better than this I thought! Yet it did get better as he put another Chilli’s track on (another of my absolute favourites…”fly away on my zephyr….”) and we made our descent down to 500ft and the reef itself – at which point I heard Gav in my headset saying “Caroline, say hello to Ningaloo!” which was followed by much whooping from both of us!
Now, Gordon and I are both in agreement here – Ningaloo Reef from just 500ft above it is, quite simply, the most extraordinarily breathtaking, picturesque, unique and stunning landscape we could ever think of Microlighting over. At this level the air is much warmer and the visual display put on by Mother Nature is simply awesome. For a start, the contrasts in colour are absolutely exquisite – looking down or ahead of you and you have the golden sun shimmering over deep blue ocean and then frothy white waves where ocean then meets the reef and lagoons which in turn are anything from turquoise, to emeralds and jades – all of these then meeting up with golden and white beaches which themselves eventually extend backwards into the olives, greens and browns of the land. Looking up and you have nothing but uninterrupted blue sky, blinding sunlight and the deep red of the Microlight wing!
For the next half an hour we simply cruised north, tracking the spectacular curves and headlands of the coastline which looked like they had been carved out with a handyman’s jig saw. Every now and then we did thrilling 360 degree spins where one second you are blinded by the sun and the next you are face down with turquoise water rushing up towards you and then before you know it, you are back to facing straight again! At times, there were stretches of the reef and lagoon that were quite literally streaked with different blues, each one “bleeding” into the other. From our birds eye view this sometimes gave it the impression of a beautiful mosaic and at other times made it look like a glue-and-coloured-sand piece of artwork – as if someone had tipped up the card and let all the sand slide down to the bottom. In other parts, surface ripples on the water caused by the light breezes created a subtle yet gorgeous “mottled” effect.
It’s amazing what marine life you can see when you are airborne like this too. On my go we spotted a solitary dugong in shallow waters near a beach – there were three people standing on the beach that could have swum just a few strokes and got to it but they would have had no idea it was there. From the air it looked like a glossy brown submarine torpedo! Gordon saw a leopard shark giving chase to a poor turtle (and reckons he would have been dinner 2 seconds later for sure), not to mention a dolphin, an eagle-ray (bit like the shape of a manta ray only smaller), as well as another dugong further along.
For Gordon, Gavin did something a bit different too at this stage. As Gordon heard the words “I’m going to do something now that will blow your socks off” over his headset, Gavin swooped once or twice to lose height to just 10ft, and then maintained that incredibly low altitude as they practically skimmed the water. This of course gave rise to quite a different perspective for Gordon – as if the view now was as if standing on the beach rather than being high in the sky. They flew past fisherman on the mudflats who were collecting worms for bait and then did a swerve to the right in order to fly over some sand-dunes and, beyond them, to follow the line of a dry creek-bed. Gordon also did the sunset flight so got to see the sun in the process of setting and the purple hue of the sky that reflected in the water.
Sadly all good things must come to an end and we did finally have to turn our backs on Ningaloo Reef and head back towards the helistrip. As we cleared the canyons again we tracked a short way up the Exmouth Gulf (the other strip of water here), where I was given the opportunity to have a go at flying after a very brief set of instructions on how to! Ahem! For those of you who don’t have a clue how these things fly, all you need to know is that it is a weight-shift controlled aircraft – which means that speed and direction are controlled by the pilot moving his weight backwards and forwards and from side to side. By pushing the bar forward you are putting the capsule backwards in relation to the wing, which makes you climb and tends to slow you down – and vise versa for descending and going faster. If you push it sideways it makes the wing slant therefore your weight is effectively being shifted away from where you have pushed the bar – so push it to the left and your weight shifts to the right and so the direction you travel in is right. Bringing the bar back to the centre after that move then enables you to keep going straight in that new direction. Gordon of course, being an existing pilot, was allowed to sit in the front of the Microlight right from the start and spent much more time at the controls than me. It’s not as easy as it sounds though – and even Gordy will testify to that! Very subtle movements can make a big difference and its very common for the beginner to be holding the bar so rigidly that they unwittingly make big moves, which is what I did when I sent us on a couple of sharp and deep turns right! I thought I had returned the bar back to centre but it was in actual fact still left, so we were turning even sharper in the same direction by the second! Hilarious! Of course at no time were we spiraling out of control because Gavin could correct it very easily thanks to dual controls – but that feeling for a minute that you don’t know how to correct it yourself, leaves you feeling very vulnerable for a moment!.
As a finale to the whole flying experience, Gavin picked up some height as we approached the helistrip and then cut the motor, leaving us like birds, with the gentle contrast of silence in our ears as we did three big spiral glides down towards the runway, meeting the tarmac in an amazingly smooth transition of air to earth! The huge grin that I had become during the whole flight was what Gordon met when we pulled in to the hangar – and the roles were reversed exactly when he pulled in a hour later! To say that we were both buzzing was an understatement and Gordon now wants to get his licence. Being a private pilot already, he only needs to do 5hrs tuition to get his licence – for me it would be between 20 and 35 lessons….and we are seriously considering both of us doing it after this trip, in readiness to go round Australia again with more of a flying theme in mind! All we can say is………watch this space!
Snorkelling the Coral Coast – how to become a wrinkled prune!
We have managed to do quite a bit of snorkeling and have loved it all – each snorkel brings new things to discover and its been great to often just step into the water from the beach, wade out a few large strides and find yourself already amongst coral and fish – in fact in some places we had schools of fish such as silver dart with their three black spots, literally just 2 or three steps into the crystal clear water, hanging around near our ankles to see what things we might kick up for them in the sand with our toes – amazing! At all times we’ve been snorkeling in waters just 2 or 4m deep, which is pretty shallow indeed and that’s been just amazing. We’ve had conditions ranging from still and calm waters to waters with strong currents that you have to either fight against to get where you want to go, or be careful of or they could rip you out of the reef and out to sea (this actually happened to an Irishman, who died on the very same drift-snorkel site that we snorkeled on a day later - a sobering reminder that even though they are pretty looking lagoons, you always have to be respectful of wild nature).
Snorkeling in beautiful Coral Bay right by the main beach was lovely and our first taste of what these Ningaloo waters had on offer. Standout here was the sheer number of huge Spangled Emperor and other large snapper varieties that we swam with – their big glassy eyes staring at you but totally nonplussed by you. Also a couple of spectacular Ragged-finned Red Firefish – their fins splayed out in all directions like a tattered fan but somehow to me they looked like a Samurai Warrior that you wouldn’t mess with!
Doing one of the best snorkel sites in the area - the “drift snorkel” at stunning Turquoise Bay in the Cape Range National Park - was also pretty unforgettable. Wading a little from one end of the beach out into the water, you then simply drift with the (pretty strong!) current over the reef for fantastic snorkeling. Yes, we did unfortunately have to deal with dodging the Red Bell Jellyfish in their numbers but thankfully we incurred no stings. Here the water was like a gorgeous warm bath and visibility was probably the best we had all round – it was crystal clear and the most like being in an aquarium that we had experienced until then with yet new varieties of fish to delight and intrigue us, such as brightly coloured Angelfish and Butterfly fish, as well as heaps of pretty little Neon Damsels and the cute black and white Humbugs, both of which certainly didn’t have a problem swimming right under your chest! Funny Parrotfish – their mouths like the beak of a parrot and just as brightly coloured in the body – were banging their “beaks” into the sandy floor to see what they could dig up, or were bashing into coral repeatedly with their mouths as they “bit” at it and munched away. You could hear their sound everywhere – like a constant sound of popping that reminded me of the noise of a popping dust that you could buy as a kid, where it exploded in your mouth and when your mouth was shut you could hear it everywhere in your head! It was also here that we saw a beautiful example of electric-blue staghorn coral!
Perhaps the highlight for both us however, was our half-day trip on a lovely catamaran back in Coral Bay, where we got to see a gorgeous 2.5m adult brown Dugong come pretty close to the boat, which was pretty special. Also known as a seacow, they are quite shy and elusive creatures with a mermaid tail, a more rotund body than a dolphin, and almost-flattened-out walrus snout - and yet for all these similarities their closest relative is actually the elephant! To see one of these so close was a good omen for the day and after this we snorkeled two different sites for as long as wanted to. First up was an amazing site of extensive and enormous plate corals in beautiful jade water. Each plate was easily wider in diameter than mine and Gordon’s bodies side by side and they came just one after the other, all intricately interwoven and too stunning for words. Drifting over these with the current and eventually back to the boat, the water was surprisingly shallow and at times it felt like you had to suck your tummy in, in case you scraped them with your body! After that, a much longer snorkel was had in our next location where we saw the most varieties of fish (known to us and new) and in greater numbers than we had seen until then. It was here that we saw huge schools of yellow surgeon fish going right past our face masks, dramatic splashes of colour against the backdrop of bright blue water and there were other huge schools of fish that came by too not to mention smaller groups, such as the 10 or so silvery-grey Smooth Flutemouths – long and thin bodied with an even thinner, longer mouth (which, as the name suggests, looks like a flute!). Time just seemed to stop as drifted and directed our gaze under rocks or coral to see what might be hiding there – such as the odd black Catfish with bodies like eels and funny whiskers coming off their face or giant, bright, neon-blue Starfish either peeping out from under hard coral or sprawled flat on the sandy floor. A couple of huge Honeycombed Cods, covered in dark leopard-like spots and with miserable down-turned mouths hung back by the coral, unsure of our presence and what it meant. Meanwhile the odd Stingray either leisurely skimmed the floor like a hovercraft, scurried towards the bottom of a coral formation so that they can hide in wait for their food or simply lay perfectly still on the bottom of the floor – covered in sand for disguise as they were, and looking to all intents and purposes like ghosts with their stand-out ridge of their tail being the only clue to alert you that anything is even there at all. Huge clams with exquisite lilac, green and silver interiors instantly “clammed” shut the minute we passed over them – a constant source of amusement for me! Excited to finally see my first Ningaloo turtle, I followed its graceful flight for a while, another magical experience. In the end he was faster than me faster and I lost him into the blue.
At this snorkel site we also saw the best examples of the sheer expanse of coral varieties. An underwater rock garden, it comprised cabbage and broccoli corals, plate corals, brain corals, and some good bombies (tall towering corals), all of which at times gave way to patches of open water and beds of sand hosting big fat sea slugs and sea-cucumbers. Of these corals, the odd one was vivid green, or pale pink, or lavender, making for a beautiful standout contrast against the majority of browns.
Poor Gordon - at times he had to keep getting me and motioning me to come the other way as I was going too far with the current or too far on the wrong side of the boat! Hilarious – but when I am being “in the now” like this, I apparently have zero “situational awareness”!! It was however simply enthralling to be in that world - sometimes just hanging there in the water, breathing really deeply and slowly, or as Gordon liked to do, pausing at the end of an out-breath just so he could have more silence and experience of stillness! Hanging over fish, suspended as if you were in air, with hands crossed behind your back or on your hips or arms simply folded on your chest as you float over them was a wonderfully tranquil experience. Watching all things going about their general business in this magical water-world seemed somehow to be a rather humbling privilege and, as with all the snorkel sites we visited, it was just so cool to have fish coming right up to you and waving their dorsal fins at you, as if in surprise that you are there or as if to say “Well hello! Welcome to our world!”
What an amazing set of experiences - is it any wonder that both of us became snorkel-hogs and started to look like wrinkled prunes by the end of our stay on the Coral Coast?! We think not!
Kicking up the sand….Quadbike-style!
Doing a sunset quadbike trek along the Coral Coast was another exhilarating and fun way to experience this fantastic adventure-environment and needless to say, we had a blast doing it! On cherry-red quad bikes (and for those who don’t know, they are like a cross between a motorbike and a big fat tractor), we pulled out of Coral Bay, one by one until we were a procession of 12 people going down the road – our combined noise sounding like an entourage of cool Harley bikes. Gordon was at the very back, I was in front of him and the other people who booked were all in front of me (we planned it that way in part, so as, at times on the trek, we would be able to wait for everyone else to go ahead while we then went full speed!) So, off we went down the road, some of us smoothly – some of us, like me, not so smoothly. Though Gordon was a pro, for me, getting used to not squeezing the accelerator handle too tight took me a little bit of time and until then I looked like a witch on a possessed broomstick, alarming the guy in front of me on more than one occasion as I kept “kangarooing” forward!
The drive on the road was short-lived – just a means to get to the start of a trek, which was going to be on private land around the coast of Coral Bay. Once we arrived at the start of the real trek, it was GET SET, GO! What followed was a very mad, very funny, and at times, bit of a hair-raising trek on bush tracks that went over dunes, along cliff-tops and on pristine beaches of some of the more remote parts of this stunning coastline.
It’s a funny thing being on a quad bike – on one hand, the machine is very sturdy and capable of everything you throw at it, so it’s quite a secure and comfortable experience. On the other hand, there is the fact that at times, your whole legs are just flailing around and shaking about on the bike as you drive over rough sand-corrugations (hard ripples in the sand that make for extremely juddery and bumpy riding!) and you feel like you are waaaay out of control! One minute we were speeding up quite narrow sandy bush tracks that would veer sharply left or right at the top, the next, trying to see where the person in front of us has gone so that we know where to go next! Sometimes we were even unable to see the track ahead, so couldn’t even know the twists and turns until we were right on them, which made for some pretty thrilling moments at speed! Other times, you couldn’t see ahead for the sheer sand that had been kicked up by the person in front of you! But it wasn’t all just “eyes on the track” – now and again, we were rewarded with stunning views of the coastline from both above on the cliffs and below from the sand and at one point, stopped to see a lone turtle swimming in the waters below. A little later into the trek we sped down a track only to have it bend sharply left at the bottom and I found myself instantly on a beach that I didn’t know was there or was coming, with me just feet away from crashing into the water – but a sharp turn of the handlebars…. and she’s good! We both loved driving on the remote empty beaches that formed part of the tour. For us the fun was increased by letting the person ahead of you just go… and then waiting a minute or so until you yourself rev up, so that you can let rip and go full speed ahead – the witch now in full control of her broomstick, whooping and cackling her head off like a mad woman as the wind hit her face and the surf pounded the sand! Oh, the sheer sense of freedom! At one point we were all given the opportunity to drive straight up the middle of a very steep sand-dune – our instructions were basically to not veer from the middle and to just go full speed the whole time otherwise we would be in danger of sinking into the dune. One by one the guys ahead of us successfully did the ascent and then it was my turn – what can I say other than it was just so exhilarating and then, once up the top, I was greeted as everyone else had been, with a round of applause. Gordon took it all in his stride as he so often does and of course made it look really easy! Now, going up steep sand-dunes was one thing – but coming down them was another. Later on in the tour, we came back to that same sand-dune, only at the time I didn’t realize, as we drove up it from the other side (which wasn’t nearly so steep). It wasn’t until I was at the top and could see the view that I realized where we were! First thought was, quite naturally, “oh shit!” as me and my quadbike completely tilted forwards and downwards. The idea was to go down in a controlled way and fairly slow but I didn’t realize that I had my hand on the accelerator! So I had a fast ride down and I think subconsciously I just wanted it to be over and to be at the bottom already! As we watched the sunset over the ocean, there was just enough time to reflect on how cool the whole experience had been, only to have to get back on the bikes and drive the rest of the tracks home!
Well my friends, we hope you enjoyed our adventures and so now, if you would please excuse us – WE NEED A BLOODY REST! So until next time, goodbye!
Post 13 - Greetings From.....On The Road - Journal
Greetings from……on the road!
ON THE ROAD AGAIN
On the road again
Just can’t wait to get on the road again
The life I love is making music with my friends
And I can’t wait to get on the road again
On the road again
Going places that I’ve never been
Seeing things that I may never see again
I can’t wait to get on the road again
On the road again
Like a band of gypsies we go down the highway
We’re the best of friends
Insisting that the world keep turning our way
And our way
Is on the road again
(Singer Willie Nelson)
So…..what the hell happened AFTER Coober Pedy and the last blog?! Well, basically, as the song lyrics above suggest, we spent a chunk of time just being “on the road” traveling back across to W.A. We played this song as the first song of the day every time we got back into the car to start driving all over again – it is now our official “on the road” song! This blog, whilst short and whilst being written quite a long time after the event (time is a great healer!), will reveal a little of the other part of what it can be like to be traveling for 12months+ the way that we are. You see, traveling it’s not all just about glamorous or exciting destinations and it’s NOT the same as being on holiday! There are things that now and then you just have to see to, boring chores to do and, sometimes, “shit happens” – forcing you to change your travel plans and itinerary entirely!!
1. Coober Pedy in S.A to Ayers Rock S.A – a cross-country mail chase; getting shit done; changing travel plans!
For us, one of the realities of traveling the way we are, is the need to collect mail for things we still have to deal with that are connected to our “old life”! As our mail-forwarding company need one week’s notice to send on our things, it can at times be difficult to know where to tell them to send it – especially if we are moving around, are in a remote National Park and can’t say how long we will be before leaving, or just haven’t decided where we will stay. To resolve this problem of the nomad-lifestyle, we usually just get them to forward to a place in the future where we definitely know we will be turning up and then have the Post Office or campsite there hold on to it for us till we arrive. So, upon departing Coober Pedy, we began the journey of heading up toYulara Resort (50mins from Ayers Rock, pretty much centre of the whole country!), to collect our big bag of mail. This fitted in with our original itinerary choice to leave South Australia after this point and head back across to W.A via the iconic Great Southern Highway.
To get to Yulara we first of all did a full and long day’s driving up to Alice Springs, where we stayed for 3 days. We have visited here a few years ago so for us this not about sightseeing (though we did do a stunning 4hr hike through Ormiston Gorge in the West McDonnell Ranges – sorry guys, no photos, as I was also taking a big break from all things blog at this time!). Instead it was a “getting things done” stop – which meant for me, a visit to the chiro for pain that was not resolving and, for the car, a new spare tyre purchase, fixing an existing tyre and fitting a new windscreen. (During the last two hours of driving to Alice Springs, the stonechip we had suffered back on the Oodnadatta track was starting to do a very dramatic crack alarmingly fast across the length of the windscreen!).
Departing Alice Springs we drove 5hrs up to Yulara Resort, where we were booked in for 3 nights. Rather frustratingly, when we arrived it was to learn that our mail had not turned up, despite having had three weeks to get there….so arrangements had to be made to get it forwarded on to our next known stop that would be in 3 weeks time! With no mail to collect and having been to Ayers Rock before, there was nothing else to do except rest before the big drive back over to W.A. No need for sightseeing, though we did watch a lovely sunrise over the rock from our camp lookout and witnessed a spectacular evening electrical storm that was passing a bit of a way out over Ayers Rock yet still near enough to light it up dramatically – would have made for some amazing photos if we’d had a tripods! Over the three days here, my pain was not getting better and so we decided to heed the advice of the chiro and abort our initial route back to W.A of via the Great Southern Highway – a disappointment for Gordon as this was one of the iconic 4WD tracks he had wanted to do, but a necessary change of plans given the roughness of the terrain. We had always had a timeline of getting back to W.A by a certain time, because there was something we wanted to do there that only happens at a certain time of year. However, now I was also in worsening pain and in the middle of nowhere, with no real access to any decent services, it became even more paramount to get back to W.A asap…….
2. Ayers Rock in S.A to Geraldton in W.A – one CRAAAAAZY road trip!
…….And so began 6 crazy long, long days of acute physical pain for me and for Gordon, of driving 800-950km a day, with nothing for either of us to see but very, very boring and unending scenery outside. We would do a day’s drive, arrive at a crappy campsite (often nowhere anyone would ever want to visit – it just exists because people have to pass through in long journeys!), set up for the night, eat a quick tea, go to bed, get up early the next morning, set the tent down and do another days full driving. Willie Nelson heralded the start of every day in the car and to begin with, it made us smile, but as my pain got worse and worse and we got to day 4 of these 6 days of driving, I started to lose my humour….pain can do that to you! And for anyone who has ever travelled long distances in Australia then you will know how utterly boring and incredibly straight those roads are! I remember on the last travel day, we turned left off one straight road we had been on for ages, only to be greeted by the view of yet another and yet another sign that indicated the next trace of life was over 200km away! I made Gordon pull over and I got out of the car, screaming my head off at how “uncreative’ Australians are because they “can’t even make a road with a few curves in it!” (This, I think, was a combo of intense and acute physical pain plus the “white-line-fever” that long-distance travelers can succumb to! Poor Gordy!). I also remember on those last two days as we were traveling through inland W.A to get to the coast, going a bit hysterical when the “hamlets” (and that’s being generous on the size description) where you could get diesel, didn’t even have a shop for me to go in and look at what they sold! Only then did I realize that for all these days I had looked forward to these crappy petrol station stops as it was at least something TO DO and something different to look at!
3. Pit stop Geraldton, W.A – needles, bone cracks and prodding fingers!
The first sight of the beautiful deep-blue Indian Ocean I had come to love through my 5 years of living in Perth, did at least put a smile on my face as we arrived into Geraldton. But most of that smile was wiped off my face for the rest of my stay here since our visit was marked by some of the most acute pain I can ever remember being in and pain that even toppled what I had experienced in the car en-route to here! You see, in just 5 days in Geraldton, I ended up having two very painful remedial massages, two agonizing acupuncture treatments and two spinal adjustments for good measure. When I WASN’T in a backless gown in my undies bending down to touch my toes (in front of a very fit male chiro with tight pants who praised me for my flexibility (!!), or on a couch with needles or fingers going into spots I never knew could hurt so much, then I was laying down on my bed, flat on my back in the tent looking up at the ceiling and going very quickly insane with pain and boredom! I consoled myself with the fact that at least there’s not much to see or do in Geraldton!
4. Kalbarri, W.A – rest and relaxation!
With my pain levels much reduced, we pulled out of Geraldton 5 days later, still on target for getting up further north along the coast to do this amazing thing we had travelled all this way to do (more on that in the next blog!). Just half a day’s drive got us to beautiful and cruisy Kalbarri, a little fishing town on the W.A coast, where we stayed for a few days of sheer relaxation. Gordon went beach fishing while I, still having to take it easy, was graced with being able to swap being on my back looking up at the tent ceiling for being on my back and looking up at a beautiful deep blue sky whilst listening to the waves! On our last day I did manage to venture into the gorges and do a couple of very short lookout walks – some amazing views for very little walking! It was only in Kalbarri that I felt more like taking photos too, so enjoy the small photo album of what is a truly lovely and pretty place and by next blog I will be back on form!
ON THE ROAD AGAIN
On the road again
Just can’t wait to get on the road again
The life I love is making music with my friends
And I can’t wait to get on the road again
On the road again
Going places that I’ve never been
Seeing things that I may never see again
I can’t wait to get on the road again
On the road again
Like a band of gypsies we go down the highway
We’re the best of friends
Insisting that the world keep turning our way
And our way
Is on the road again
(Singer Willie Nelson)
So…..what the hell happened AFTER Coober Pedy and the last blog?! Well, basically, as the song lyrics above suggest, we spent a chunk of time just being “on the road” traveling back across to W.A. We played this song as the first song of the day every time we got back into the car to start driving all over again – it is now our official “on the road” song! This blog, whilst short and whilst being written quite a long time after the event (time is a great healer!), will reveal a little of the other part of what it can be like to be traveling for 12months+ the way that we are. You see, traveling it’s not all just about glamorous or exciting destinations and it’s NOT the same as being on holiday! There are things that now and then you just have to see to, boring chores to do and, sometimes, “shit happens” – forcing you to change your travel plans and itinerary entirely!!
1. Coober Pedy in S.A to Ayers Rock S.A – a cross-country mail chase; getting shit done; changing travel plans!
For us, one of the realities of traveling the way we are, is the need to collect mail for things we still have to deal with that are connected to our “old life”! As our mail-forwarding company need one week’s notice to send on our things, it can at times be difficult to know where to tell them to send it – especially if we are moving around, are in a remote National Park and can’t say how long we will be before leaving, or just haven’t decided where we will stay. To resolve this problem of the nomad-lifestyle, we usually just get them to forward to a place in the future where we definitely know we will be turning up and then have the Post Office or campsite there hold on to it for us till we arrive. So, upon departing Coober Pedy, we began the journey of heading up toYulara Resort (50mins from Ayers Rock, pretty much centre of the whole country!), to collect our big bag of mail. This fitted in with our original itinerary choice to leave South Australia after this point and head back across to W.A via the iconic Great Southern Highway.
To get to Yulara we first of all did a full and long day’s driving up to Alice Springs, where we stayed for 3 days. We have visited here a few years ago so for us this not about sightseeing (though we did do a stunning 4hr hike through Ormiston Gorge in the West McDonnell Ranges – sorry guys, no photos, as I was also taking a big break from all things blog at this time!). Instead it was a “getting things done” stop – which meant for me, a visit to the chiro for pain that was not resolving and, for the car, a new spare tyre purchase, fixing an existing tyre and fitting a new windscreen. (During the last two hours of driving to Alice Springs, the stonechip we had suffered back on the Oodnadatta track was starting to do a very dramatic crack alarmingly fast across the length of the windscreen!).
Departing Alice Springs we drove 5hrs up to Yulara Resort, where we were booked in for 3 nights. Rather frustratingly, when we arrived it was to learn that our mail had not turned up, despite having had three weeks to get there….so arrangements had to be made to get it forwarded on to our next known stop that would be in 3 weeks time! With no mail to collect and having been to Ayers Rock before, there was nothing else to do except rest before the big drive back over to W.A. No need for sightseeing, though we did watch a lovely sunrise over the rock from our camp lookout and witnessed a spectacular evening electrical storm that was passing a bit of a way out over Ayers Rock yet still near enough to light it up dramatically – would have made for some amazing photos if we’d had a tripods! Over the three days here, my pain was not getting better and so we decided to heed the advice of the chiro and abort our initial route back to W.A of via the Great Southern Highway – a disappointment for Gordon as this was one of the iconic 4WD tracks he had wanted to do, but a necessary change of plans given the roughness of the terrain. We had always had a timeline of getting back to W.A by a certain time, because there was something we wanted to do there that only happens at a certain time of year. However, now I was also in worsening pain and in the middle of nowhere, with no real access to any decent services, it became even more paramount to get back to W.A asap…….
2. Ayers Rock in S.A to Geraldton in W.A – one CRAAAAAZY road trip!
…….And so began 6 crazy long, long days of acute physical pain for me and for Gordon, of driving 800-950km a day, with nothing for either of us to see but very, very boring and unending scenery outside. We would do a day’s drive, arrive at a crappy campsite (often nowhere anyone would ever want to visit – it just exists because people have to pass through in long journeys!), set up for the night, eat a quick tea, go to bed, get up early the next morning, set the tent down and do another days full driving. Willie Nelson heralded the start of every day in the car and to begin with, it made us smile, but as my pain got worse and worse and we got to day 4 of these 6 days of driving, I started to lose my humour….pain can do that to you! And for anyone who has ever travelled long distances in Australia then you will know how utterly boring and incredibly straight those roads are! I remember on the last travel day, we turned left off one straight road we had been on for ages, only to be greeted by the view of yet another and yet another sign that indicated the next trace of life was over 200km away! I made Gordon pull over and I got out of the car, screaming my head off at how “uncreative’ Australians are because they “can’t even make a road with a few curves in it!” (This, I think, was a combo of intense and acute physical pain plus the “white-line-fever” that long-distance travelers can succumb to! Poor Gordy!). I also remember on those last two days as we were traveling through inland W.A to get to the coast, going a bit hysterical when the “hamlets” (and that’s being generous on the size description) where you could get diesel, didn’t even have a shop for me to go in and look at what they sold! Only then did I realize that for all these days I had looked forward to these crappy petrol station stops as it was at least something TO DO and something different to look at!
3. Pit stop Geraldton, W.A – needles, bone cracks and prodding fingers!
The first sight of the beautiful deep-blue Indian Ocean I had come to love through my 5 years of living in Perth, did at least put a smile on my face as we arrived into Geraldton. But most of that smile was wiped off my face for the rest of my stay here since our visit was marked by some of the most acute pain I can ever remember being in and pain that even toppled what I had experienced in the car en-route to here! You see, in just 5 days in Geraldton, I ended up having two very painful remedial massages, two agonizing acupuncture treatments and two spinal adjustments for good measure. When I WASN’T in a backless gown in my undies bending down to touch my toes (in front of a very fit male chiro with tight pants who praised me for my flexibility (!!), or on a couch with needles or fingers going into spots I never knew could hurt so much, then I was laying down on my bed, flat on my back in the tent looking up at the ceiling and going very quickly insane with pain and boredom! I consoled myself with the fact that at least there’s not much to see or do in Geraldton!
4. Kalbarri, W.A – rest and relaxation!
With my pain levels much reduced, we pulled out of Geraldton 5 days later, still on target for getting up further north along the coast to do this amazing thing we had travelled all this way to do (more on that in the next blog!). Just half a day’s drive got us to beautiful and cruisy Kalbarri, a little fishing town on the W.A coast, where we stayed for a few days of sheer relaxation. Gordon went beach fishing while I, still having to take it easy, was graced with being able to swap being on my back looking up at the tent ceiling for being on my back and looking up at a beautiful deep blue sky whilst listening to the waves! On our last day I did manage to venture into the gorges and do a couple of very short lookout walks – some amazing views for very little walking! It was only in Kalbarri that I felt more like taking photos too, so enjoy the small photo album of what is a truly lovely and pretty place and by next blog I will be back on form!
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