Today started with a spectacular morning which included a sleep in. Caleb and Ray disappeared to the beach for a couple of hours exploring the reef and seeing sting rays, huge crabs and 3 black tipped sharks. It’s a nature lover’s paradise here and in such a raw environment. No ticket booth holders, no organised sight seeing tours, no hoardes of tourists to scare the wildlife away. I suppose that because of its remoteness and lack of amenities, the visitors wanting a more commercialised reef experience have travelled in droves to the opposite side of Australia visiting the Great Barrier Reef. Don’t get me wrong, I’ve visited both and both are stunning, but if you are after a truly raw and non-commercialised experience, this is where you will trek.
After lunch we went fishing. A bit further around the beach is a spot called Oyster Stack. Not sure why, we didn’t see one oyster! It is the hot spot for fishing and snorkelling. The boys packed their snorkelling and fishing gear, I packed my book and bathers. I knew I would be successful reading and sunbathing, not so sure about them!
The scenery was stunning, easy to see why there were a few tourists other than us. (The Exmouth region doesn’t have a wet season and enjoys 361 days of sunshine a year so tourists are attracted all year round).
Initially, I couldn’t tell if Ray had decided to fish or snorkel first but then realised that he was in the water rescuing his line that had snagged on the reef. While he was wet he also rescued Aaron’s for him. It seemed a pointless exercise.
Finally Aaron actually caught a Snapper, the proof is in the photo, but alas it was too small so he had to throw it back.
After another couple of hours, snorkelling was proving more successful than fishing so we packed up and made our way to Turquoise Bay, named for the colour of the water, obviously. There we snorkelled and sun bathed and to our surprise and delight looked up to see Chris, Vicki, Hannah and Harry walking up the beach towards us. It was good catching up on the last couple of days that they had and we worked out that we will probably run into them again in Canarvon, further south.
We returned to the van in time for happy hour and a restful evening with the kangaroos for company. They love to drink our grey water (waste water) from the back of the van and one even tried to make off with the frozen meat that I had out that was defrosting for dinner.
Caleb taught me how to do arm farts as our night’s entertainment which I’m actually pretty good at. It makes for sore armpits though !