Sunday 9th November. After being in an oven for the past two months the sea breeze that we awoke to in Exmouth was of the same blissfulness as that first sip of a cold beer on a warm day. We drove straight to the beach only metres from our residential camp and gazed out across clear still turquoise waters and decided we were not going anywhere for the foreseeable future. We went snorkelling spending most of the day in the water then in the afternoon went to the clothing optional beach to tan our white bits, followed by more snorkelling. This was the norm for the next few days. White bits, water, white bits, water. Exmouth is on a peninsula and when you venture round the point and down the opposite side you enter Cape Range National Park and Ningaloo Reef stretches through the National park right round back to Exmouth. We planned to spend a week or so in the national park but as you had to pay for camping we spent a few more days free camping in Exmouth (or so we thought). We camped our second night across the road from a dive centre sneakily hidden amongst the mini buses. The next few days were taken up with naked beach, snorkelling and being general lazy gits. The marine life around Ningaloo reef was amazing we had heard from many that the coral was more colourful than the Great Barrier Reef but there weren't as many fish. Well we visited about ten different sites on the Barrier Reef and unless Ningaloo had an illegal fish rave that week id say Ningaloo wins hands down. We saw so many fish we had never seen before. There was one fish quite big about the size of a….. cant think of anything to compare it to size wise… a bit bigger than a loaf of bread…that took about five minutes I swear my brains melting in the heat. Anyway bread sized fish. It had scabby looking wings that looked all ripped and it was scratching them through the sand. When you dived down the wings spread out and were huge and perfect they had blue veins in them and big spikes on the end. As soon as you return to the surface it closed them again and started scratching at the sand. We saw octopus and squid that look really strange swimming tentacles first. We had the pleasure of watching a turtle floorshow as it was mating season.The horny devils were so oblivious to us that we could get really close. The sea was quite choppy on the turtle bonking day and I cut my toe as Vicki was trying to balance herself on me as she de-misted her mask. The toe started bleeding quite a lot so after falling over in the waves several times we got out of the sea as not to attract sharks as there are a fair few in this area. I hopped back to the van in my man pain with my little cut bleeding. When we returned to the van we noticed that Vicki had a deep gouge in her knee and her whole leg was red with blood. We tried for ages but couldn't stop the bleeding it soaked plaster after plaster until we had several bandages round it. She didn't feel a thing. I looked down at my throbbing toe. It had stopped bleeding on its own.We spent the following day with all doors open creating a wind tunnel with the sea air and lay on the bed reading and sleeping . We camped opposite the dive centre for the third night in a row and at 5am were awoke with a heavy manly knock on the van. There was a power crazy masculine ranger lady with wrists the size of calves (not leg calf…baby cows!) Upon being asked weather I knew it to be illegal to camp in the shire of Exmouth on the street. I replied I did but we got in around 2am and were just catching some shut eye before entering the National Park. 'Rule number one boy' she replied 'don't lie to a ranger you've been here three nights' then she slapped me in the face with a hundred dollar on the spot fine. So if you go to Exmouth don't camp on the street. After paying the fine we headed for the safety of the National Park well away from Ranger Lesbo and her Exmouth traveller treasury robbing fund. We snorkelled a place called lake side but the current was so strong it was like swimming on a tread mill. We went to Turquoise Bay and lazed and read as the bay provided lots of shelter and the wind had picked up. The waters here were a brilliant green and the sand as white as snow. There was plenty of corral and fish. We camped that nightat a spot called Pilgramunna which was basically a track that led to a gravel car park on the beach south of Turquoise Bay. we met a couple called Flo and Clair. Flo was English and Clair was Irish they had been travelling round Oz for about 18months. They had a huge purple bus called Lola. We drank wine shared stories and Flo and I shared a joint….beautiful. We were visited by several kangaroos who came right up to us to see if we had food, one almost hopped into the van parked next to us. The following morning the four of us went snorkelling at a place called Oyster Stacks. This was by far (and I know I've said this over and over) the most beautiful underwater world we have ever seen. The abundance of life was phenomenal. Fish swarmed in all directions like rush hour traffic flashing a vast array of colours. Some fish were enormous, there were turtles andthe coral looked like colourful trees from another planet. The waters are a lot colder in Western Australia than in Queensland so even with a wet suit we were frozen after two hours so we headed for the shelter of Turquoise Bay a couple of kilometres north for the rest of the day. The four of us camped together again at a place called Osprey with a three foot Goanna who kept popping out of a hole to check up on us. A thunder storm was brewing, the clouds were black and the wind was picking up. In the distance there was cracks of lightning and the rumbles of thunder progressively getting louder. As the first few sploshes of rain began to fall we cleared everything away into our van planning to spend the evening in Flo and Clair's van as it was bigger than some houses. In the hurried rush to clear everything away we locked the keys in the van. After checking all the doors five times the heavens opened. We ran for Lola and spent the next few hours playing games waiting for the storm to pass. When the rain died down we took a curtain wire and with me pulling the top of the door open Vicki looped the wire round the lock popper thingy. It was so lucky that it just fell into place, Vicki twisted and twisted the wire together trying to get a good grip on the popper.She pulled and the door unlocked, with a delighted scream Vicki opened the door. I still had my foot on the side of the van the other on a two foot high post pulling the top of the door with all my might. The door burst open and I was catapulted into the bushes. The next day we went to the furthest point south of the National Park that was accessible by van, Yardie Creek. We walked along the beach till we met the creek flowing into the sea, there wasn't much reef here so we returned to Oyster Stacks and spent a few more hours in the drink till we were teeth chattering and blue. We left the National Park and visited the lookout of the Mildura Wreck right on the tip of the peninsula then headed back to Exmouth. We sneaked into a campsite and had hot showers as a weeks worth of the IndianOcean was matting our hair like wire wool. We discoveredin the car park that we could pick up wireless internet so helped ourselves to a three hour slice. By this point it was dark and with fear of Exmouth's strict street camping rules we headed south towards Coral Bay a couple of hundred kilometres away. We didn't make Coral Bay that night as we had planned, we camped in a lay-by on the side of the road.Coral Bay is on the southern tip of Ningaloo Reef, we arrived in the morningand went snorkelling then walked along the beach for 10km to a point where they breed reef sharks but didn't see any. We camped in a campsite, and yes we paid, I still think we were having the eebe geebees about Ranger he-she. We snorkelled again in the morning as we were leavingthe reef and wanted one last dip. We topped Sheila up with juice and headed south to our next stop a place called Blowholes.