Tripping Over: Exmouth

Auntie Glenda, this update is for you, so that you have something to read at 3 am. xxxx

19^th February 2011:

We arrived in Exmouth yesterday running only on fumes, due to a headwind and some poor calculations (take note, no petrol stations from Nanutarra to Exmouth!), the weather was still a little overcast and it was raining on and off, nice little town, a lot of works going on around the place, reminded us a bit of Torquay but not as busy!

We pulled into the Nigaloo lodge resort, it was only $26 a night for a powered site , we got a slight discount because we are members of the Campervan & Motor home club of Australia, well worth joining, it’s about $60 for the year and has already paid for itself with the discounts we have received.

Testing the car to the limit!

Our nice grassy spot.

Right across from the pool.

More caravan repairs.

Today we got up early to go and check out the surrounds of Exmouth, another overcast day but very warm and windy.

We headed out toward the cape range national park and our first stop was the lighthouse, amazing views of the rough water below!

Going around the twist.

Artistic shot by brent.

Not so artistic shot by me.

At the visitors centre.

After the lighthouse we drove into the park and paid our $11 entry fee and went straight to the visitors centre to see what we should do.

We decided that the furthest we would go was Turquoise Bay , a great place to start and work our way back. Turquoise bay is about 5kms from town.

We jumped out of the car ready for a swim at Turquoise bay but it was a little rough and although bright blue, still a little murky, this is usually meant to be a great snorkelling spot but unfortunately the weather wasn’t really permitting.

The water is such an amazing colour!!

We went for a walk around and found this little fella:

Then we noticed a huge school of fish in the water, just a huge dark blue spot and alongside were these little fella’s:

Black tipped reef sharks, they are not meant to be a danger to humans but I wasn’t about to jump in to test that theory!

Even while filming I had a scare, Brenton was taking still shots and I was looking through the video camera at him when a shark got washed up onto shore right next to my feet! I got a fair fright, after that I stood back a little and just enjoyed the show, there were about 5 sharks in the end.

A panicked shot with the video camera!

Brenton annoying the crab.

After turquoise bay we stopped at a few other sights, oyster flats, and the turtle beach.

The mangrove bay.

There are so many places to stop, although due to the previous lot of rain a lot of the places were closed.

Spying a dune in the distance.

We even found a sand dune and thought it would be fun to see if we could surf down on a container and eski lid, we really didn’t have much luck though.

View from the top on one side.

View from the otherside.

A container lid was harmed during this trial.

On the way back we stopped at the lighthouse and has some lunch although the wind almost blew it all away.

We were too early to see the real whale sharks.

We also went and had a look at the shipwreck then it was back to town to have some fish and chips from blue lips in town, really yummy, best we have had in ages!

The weather held out for us and it didn’t rain again, I even managed to do a few loads of washing, although at $5 a load I don’t know why I bothered!!