30.10.2009

Well, it’s been a little while but for once I’ve got an excuse, we’ve been out of range of all services (showers included) for eight days camping on Ningaloo Reef. Now somehow I need to try and convey to you exactly how awesome Ningaloo is, to start with, we went for four days and stayed for eight, so it was twice as good as we thought it would be.
Ningaloo sits off Cape Range NP which is a weirdly beautiful place, it’s almost a desert with a Wild West kind of feel about it, hard to photograph because of its size but I’m working on some panoramas that will hopefully do the trick. We camped at Mesa and were joined by a cast of thousands without planning it at all; I’ll introduce them to you now so the names won’t be strangers as I relate our week to you.

First there was us with our now inseparable companions Darryl and Sarah, it’ll be a sad day when we part ways with these two, they will be friends for life and we’re already planning a Europe trip to catch up with them.

Secondly there was Mark and Simone with their three kids; Zoe, Kenny and Beth. These guys rock, they are so laid back, Mark let me pour beetroot juice all over him for a photo I’m entering in a photo competition, they are generally fun and real easy to be with. Kenny cracks me up constantly, he dances to a slightly different tune to the rest of us (and I mean that with the utmost respect) at nine years old and is a really nice and fun kid. Actually in saying that all their kids are beautiful and have really hit it off with ours which is great.

Last but not Least we were joined by Carl and Ranni with daughter Chloe, another nice family who we’ve bumped into a few times as we travelled across the country, actually we first met them in tunnel creek which will always be a funny story for us.

Right, now to business; Ningaloo consisted for us of snorkelling in the morning, fishing in the afternoon and sharing food, wine and conversation of an evening. Last Tuesday night was great, we’d had an awesome day then we sat about with a few wines until Mark brought out his guitar and started playing for us, then Sarah and Belinda played a few tunes and I even let rip with my hidden singing talent, I’d never admit it but I was pretty good, out of time but in tune.

I’m not going to give a day by day account of our diving experience but I’ll tell you this, in all my diving on the Great Barrier Reef I have never seen so much marine life as here. Don’t get me wrong the GBR is amazing and I love it but Ningaloo...its better, it’s like a concentrated GBR but you paddle out from the beach, the reef is seriously 2m from the waters edge, the only thing is it never gets as deep as the GBR, other than that it has all the same corals, all the same fish and these extras; we swam with turtles everyday, I swam with 5 sharks on 5 separate occasions, we swam with two octopus, saw Bull Rays and today we swam with Cuttle Fish for the first time in my life, watched them change colour and all. I hope this is getting across somewhere close to how good it was, the snorkelling was as good as anywhere I’ve been ever and so accessible, we didn’t have to pay $500 everytime we snorkelled (in fairness we never did that in Cairns either because of our wonderful friends at the good ship Calypso. If ever you’re in Cairns or Port Douglas take a trip on the Calypso, a reef trip 2nd to none) the point though, get to Ningaloo and dive everyday all day for free at an awesome place.

After diving each day we fished just out the front of our camp on a little rocky outcrop, so much fun. We caught about 30 fish while we there, only two were keepers but it was lots of fun. On top of that we had on three occasions, three reef sharks hunting right in front of us and I mean right in front, I was in knee deep water and one shark stopped no more than 2ft from me and looked at me before chasing fish again, it was great. We lost a massive amount of gear, like about 30kg of sinkers and had to re-spool my reel three times (admittedly once was my expert fishing skills when I cast the entire line out to sea, whaddaya do) (sorry Carol and Russ for the shocking gramma there but it seemed appropriate).

Have you ever seen that old 90’s horror film “House”? There’s a scene in there where all the walls, ceiling and floors are bending in and out like a bellows, well, that was the draw back of Ningaloo, our tent was like that scene. Wind velocity didn’t drop below 25knots the whole time and one night I seriously thought our tent was going to be shredded. It was incredible, I flicked on the torch and honestly the whole tent was leaning over the roof was flapping like a broken sale and the walls were nearly blowing through the door, you could hear the wing howling up across the plains and then it would hit, and the whole trailer would move, I even thought it was going to flip us at one point, needless to say we didn’t sleep much, the kids on the other hand could’ve woken up in the land of Oz, they slept through the whole thing. After that the wind just didn’t stop all day and all night, surprisingly it didn’t effect the snorkelling though, messed with my head but.

I think that pretty much sums it up, sorry for no little facts and ifo. but it was total relaxation time, I’ve missed heaps but if you want to know more you’ll just have to go there yourself, the place is amazing and a must see for anyone who likes snorkelling (and surfing, but I got none). Tonight we are in Coral Bay with Darryl and Sarah, Mark and Simone etc.. for two nights then we sadly go our separate ways for a while but we’ll keep having fun and let you know.