Day 62- 8th September
JRD- .
Spent my first night in Exmouth in self imposed exile in the tent. My newly acquired skill of snoring is a lose lose situation for both parties involved, Nicole because I keep her awake and me because Nicole thumps me and keeps me awake.
The tents not too bad apart from two issues. The first is that it's about 30cm too short for me, so when I stretch out my feet push against the fly mesh vent one end and my head pushes into the fly mesh door the other. The result is that I walk around the first half an hour of the day like a half opened pocket knife until I loosen up a bit.
The second issue is that it has zero sound absorbing qualities. So, for example, when the plumbers staying in the cabin next door come back from the pub at 2.45am I hear every foot step and every drunken comment, but because you can't see them your not sure when one of them might trip over the tent ropes and end up falling on top of you.
I'm not sure if you can call it a stroke of luck but a persistent reoccurring ear infection in my right ear over the last decade or so has left me with next to no hearing ability on that side so as long as I can lie with my left ear in the pillow, I can usually sleep uninterrupted by noise.
Our morning started steadily, no one was in too much of a rush to do anything, so it was around 11am by the time we got out to explore Exmouth. After a drive around the wharf / marina area we headed to Sea Salt cafe for a coffee as it had been recommended by our Tom Price based travel advisors. The coffee was great but unfortunately the cafe is in a building that also contains clothing shops of various descriptions. It caught me unawares, maybe the plumber waking me at 2.45am might have made me a bit dopey but before I knew it the girls were in the grips of the invisible "consumer" tractor beam. There was nothing I could do but wait.
Incredibly in all the shops there was nothing the right size, colour or cut! Fantastic stroke of luck! I didn't get away wallet intact as we purchased a couple of snorkelling kits for use on the Ningaloo reef over the other side of the cape.
Exmouth is on the eastern side of North West Cape. Quite a distance across the bay to the east is the mainland. On the western side of the cape is the Ningaloo reef beyond that is the Indian Ocean, so usually the eastern coast of the cape is more sheltered from the prevailing winds. This was the case today so our exploration of the area was contained to the north and eastern sides of the cape.
Access to the North West Cape by white men was restricted to sea and air up until 1967 when the American military required an Ultra Low Frequency transmission facility to communicate with their naval fleet in the Indian Ocean. A transmission black spot sorely identified in WWII. As well as a road into the area the yanks, in partnership with the Australian Defence Force, built 13 transmission towers on the northern tip of the cape, the centre tower known as Tower Zero is the highest and it's an impressive 389m high. Exmouth the town was constructed to house the staff of the facility that is now know as the Harold Holt Naval Communication Facility named after Harold Holt, Australia's prime minister of the day before he took a long walk off a short jetty.
It's a short 25km drive to the towers which dominate the northern skyline. After checking out the beaches around the northern tip we parked up on a beach on the sheltered eastern side for a late lunch of rice cakes, cheese slices and Vegemite. We had every intention of doing more looking about however the temperature was well into the thirties so the rest of the afternoon and early evening was spent swimming, snorkelling and unsuccessfully fishing.
Resisting the temptation to throw a temper tantrum and hurl my fishing rod into the ocean in frustration we returned to the caravan park to set up and get ready for our much anticipated "special treat" dinner at The Whaler restaurant another recommendation from the TP travel advisory service......yep their sort of our own personal Wikicamps!
A great meal topped off a great day, so it was with little argument the van lights were switched off at 9.30 or so and I folded myself up into the tent left ear down.