Week 33: Nanutarra WA - Exmouth WA

 Stats Overview

Kms Travelled: 580

Kms Hiked: none - but lots of swimming!

No. of Camps: 2

The Adventures

We have endured another tough week of exploring paradise over here in Western Australia. Honestly, this place just keeps getting better and better! Although, we think our run of mostly perfect weather may be coming to an end, as the forecast for Carnarvon and further south is definitely not what we would refer to as "summer".

The main purpose of our trip to Exmouth was to explore the Ningaloo Reef. We spent a few days camped just outside of Cape Range NP where we spent the majority of our days beach hopping and snorkelling. The reef is very close to shore around Cape Range and the amount of sea life we saw was mind blowing! Although, we have to be honest and say that the coral of the reef does not compare to what you see when snorkelling the Great Barrier Reef, but the sea life more than makes up for it! We saw a reef shark, a lion fish, starfish, stingrays, clams and hundreds of different kinds of fish of every shape, size and colour imaginable. However, the highlight for us was getting to swim with turtles, which we were lucky enough to have happen a number of times! We spent hours snorkelling, although we had to have regular breaks because the water is very cold - after about 30 minutes of swimming I was shivering! When we hired our snorkelling gear we thought the lady was joking when she offered us wetsuits to hire...in hindsight we wished we had of taken one of those each as well! 

While our reef snorkelling was fun, the big adventure for Will this week was going on a tour to swim with a whale shark. He has spent the past couple of weeks being very stressed about his booking, as it is currently the end of the whale shark season and he was worried that they would all be gone. Fortunately, there were two whale sharks that hadn't got the memo it was time to leave, and his tour group was lucky enough to spend an hour swimming with one of them. According to Will, getting to swim with a whale shark was not just a trip highlight, but a life highlight! The whale shark they found was about 6m in length, which is apparently fairly small for a whale shark, as they typically grow to around 10m but can grow as large as 18m. Another fun fact Will learned was that whale sharks have the smallest brain size to body mass ratio - which apparently makes them easier to swim with as they are pretty simple fish read, as long as you don't frighten them! Apparently very little is actually known about the whale shark because they are very hard to study, as they can spend very long periods of time in very deep parts of the ocean. The deepest recorded dive of a whale shark was 2000m below the surface. However, they believe that he dived much further than that as 2000m was the measurement recorded when the tracker stopped transmitting data. So if you would like to learn more fun facts about whale sharks, Will is your man! I have taken in about as much whale shark information as I can handle...so please feel free to give him a call!

After our awesome week around Exmouth, our plan now is to continue making our way down south towards Carnarvon, where we will hopefully be able to do some more snorkelling - if the weather permits!

Kodak Moments

The water around Exmouth is some of the clearest and bluest water we have ever seen! - Turquoise Bay

Trying to defrost in the sun before diving back in for more underwater adventures - South Lefroy

Post snorkelling selfie - Osprey Bay

The fish were literally jumping out of the water! Still couldn't reel one in though... - North Lefroy

We were visited by a few stingrays in the shallow water near our campsite one evening! - North Lefroy

Our first time seeing an Australian Bustard!  - Cape Range NP

The much famed whale shark - Exmouth

Will with his new best friend! - Exmouth

Found the Big Prawn - Exmouth