Exmouth - Coral Bay
Coral Bay
Coral Bay - Carnarvon
Carnarvon - Shark Bay
Shark Bay - Billabong Roadhouse
Billabong Roadhouse - Kalbarri
Kalbarri - Cervantes

Total Kilometres Driven after Week Three - 6249km

Day 15 - We woke up ultra early (5.30am) as Helen was super excited about seeing the Whale Sharks. Kinda like a little kids Christmas Day. But we soon found out that our towels had been stolen...whoever stole them, we hope that they get their comeuppance! Now we have to go on the hunt to buy identical towels to make sure that we don't lose our deposit!

Whale sharks arrive at Ningaloo annually like clockwork after the coral spawning after the March/April full moon. Whale Sharks are gentle giants and can weigh up to 21 tonnes and reach 18m in length. They are a protected species seeing as the species are endangered due to over fishing. Whale Sharks are absolutely gorgeous and graceful, one of Helen's all time fave fish after seeing one in Borneo.

We spent all day on the boat, and managed to see/snorkel with 2 Whale Sharks (one was 4 metres long and the other was 6 metres). It was a magical experience and the Whale Sharks stayed with us for over an hour. It kind of felt like that they were following us around and playing with us in their own quiet way. There's no words out there to describe our experience with the two Whale Sharks as it ranks very highly on our list of best experiences.

Once we got over the euphoria of swimming with the majestic beasts, we hopped back into the Campervan and headed south to Coral Bay in the dark, poor Nick was driving and it's safe to say never again as we were so paranoid that something ie. a kangaroo would jump out. It took forever to get to Coral Bay but we were both ultra relieved to arrive in one piece.

Day 16 - The day was spent in Coral Bay, firstly at Skeleton Bay to search for reef sharks, it turned out to be a 5km hike over sand dunes as the access road was 4WD only and we were not going to allow that to get between us and sharks. When we arrived, there were no sharks to be seen so it was another trek back to the Campervan. The afternoon was spent snorkelling at Bills Bay, playing frisbee in the shallows and watching the norwest snappers getting fed. Helen even had a hand at feeding them.

Day 17 - From Coral Bay we headed to Carnarvon via the Quobba Blowholes, where waves spray out of limestone chimneys more than 20m high. Both of us loved it as it reminded us just how rough, raw and dangerous the ocean can be. When we arrived in Carnarvon we did our major food stock up and headed to Pioneer Park to see two enormous blue whale bones and walked along the fascine while the sunset sank behind the horizon.

Day 18 - The morning was spent at the one mile jetty (apparently one of the longest in the southern hemisphere), we took a trip on the Coffee Pot train and bird watched. As Carnarvon is famous for its fresh produce we could not leave without visiting a fruit plantation so we headed to Morel's plantation where we both indulged in chocolate coated frozen bananas.

The rest of the day was spent heading to Shark Bay World Heritage Area via Hamelin Pool (home to the most diverse examples of living stromatolites - 3.5 billion years old bacteria), Shell Beach (a 120km coastline covered in billions of cockle shells) and Eagle Bluff (which offers a birds eye view over the bay and Eagle island via a 200m boardwalk - in the summer you can see sharks and manta ray breaching in the bay but... obviously its winter so there was absolutely zilch to observe).

Day 19 - We headed off for Monkey Mia to see the wild dolphins come in for their morning feed which in itself makes us question just how wild are these dolphins? We waited and waited and they finally made an appearance just after 8am and there was a total of 14 dolphins.

We then booked ourselves on a 2.5 hour cruise courtesy of Helen's parents (Thanks!). Our first stop was to a working pearl farm where Nick tried Pearl meat - eww. The rest of the time was spent searching for wildlife and we saw 3 dugongs (they are endangered and ten percent of the worlds population live in Shark Bay) and Dolphins aplenty. We had our lunch on the beach at Little Lagoon, before heading to Billabong Roadhouse for the night.

(This is where Helen experienced her first road kill, a beautiful 2m long black and silver striped snake. It was so long that it covered near enough the entire width of the road. The rest of the evening was spent feeling very guilty.......she will get her comeuppance....)

Day 20 - After a little lie in we left for Kalbarri, on arrival we had our lunch on the beach and then headed to Rainbow Jungle, the Australian Parrot breeding centre where we saw loads of birds and parrots. We also went to the family entertainment centre to play mini golf only to find it was closed so we headed to our campsite and chilled out finishing off the entire 1st season of 24. (Helen can't believe she didn't discover Jack Bauer earlier....)

Day 21 - First on the agenda was to watch the pelican's be fed, only the pelicans didn't come. It's always a gamble with wildlife. We then had a longish drive to Jurien Bay via Port Gregory to see the pink lake (the lake is really pink, due to the high levels of beta carotene) and of course because it's Nicks namesake (and Helen's favourite colour!)

On arriving at Jurien Bay we couldn't book onto a snorkelling with sealions tour as the shop was closed (and of course, we couldn't phone them to book). A shame as 20 percent of the Western Australian population of sealions live and breed in Jurien Bay. So, we decided to head further south to Cervantes. Hopefully there will be another opportunity to snorkel/dive with sealions.