Since kangaroos and emus on the road are something of a hazard in the late afternoon and evening, we parked our not so trusty campervan (now known as Nameless due to severe performance issues that just won't allow me to bond with her) in Carnarvon for the night and woke up to, you guessed it, another flat tire. Surprising me, DH immediately swung into action but it turns out she was just making herself a cup of tea and positioning the camper chair so she could watch the entire tire changing exercise in comfort. Having done it once already, and without the high speed traffic, this change was quite a bit more efficient although I could have lived without the catcalls of "take your shirt off grease monkey" from the DH peanut gallery. We had a chance to look around Carnarvon while tire number two was being repaired (another spike....and why does DH have a hammer in her purse??), but the town is a little shy on things to do and see so we were happy to be back on four patched-and-plugged tires and on our way to Exmouth and Coral Bay.

Exmouth was as far north as we had planned on traveling and this decision was confirmed by the many escapees we met heading south who suggested that the heat, humidity, rain, and flys were unbearable at this time. With the whale shark and whales no longer in the area, and all diving on hold until the "swellies" subsided, Coral Bay and Exmouth were all about the coral reefs you would see while snorkeling right from the beach. The two communities are connected by the Ningaloo Reef which stretches 260 kilometres from Bundegi Reef to Amherst Point- it reaches nearly 20 kilometres out to sea, encompassing a massive 5,000 square kilometres of ocean with 500 species of tropical fish and 220 species of coral in all (note to Chris M- you're in luck as I have photos of most of them).

It only occurs to us now that our logistical planning might have been off. Knowing we were doing an out and back trip, we nonetheless saw all of the WA highlights on the way up and left nothing for the trip back. The result is a couple of long driving days ahead with a van that's somewhat prone to flat tires, but DH has promised to sing a medley of tunes from her high school days (dare I suggest that the trip just got longer?).