Well, here we are in Exmouth on a slightly extended stay. We had a wonderful time working our way up the West Coast with our stop in Coral Bay being a particular highlight. The Ningaloo Reef runs along the coast here so there was great snorkelling. Nice reef and great reef-creatures.

Most recently we spent 4 days in the National Park that runs along the coast just south of Exmouth. Each day pedalling our gimpy bikes to a different beach for snorkelling and refreshing dips. Our first day we had set up shop on the beach by our campsite. Baebs was cooling off in the waters and I was walking down the beach to do my usual check of "I wonder what's around the next little peninsula", which inevitably returns the answer...more beach, but I keep on checking. Just as I was about 10 meters away from Baebs I saw a shadow in the beautiful clear blue waters about 1.5 meters long. Not to panic my wife I started walking back waving for her to come back in. She saw it when it was a couple meters away and did come back in and we both watch in awe as the beauty swam by us. Within 15 minutes we saw 2 other sharks, both much smaller than this one swim by us. We checked with our campground hosts who ensured us that they're "just reef sharks" and that they're more afraid of us. Upon cross reference in our wildlife book we read that they can be aggressive, especially if cornered (however you do that) and should be treated with caution (however you do that). In a way, we're glad to be leaving the sea for a while as it seems that swimming in these waters with the sharks, stonefish and those pesky triggerfish that we first encountered in the Cooks is just tempting fate. We did, however, swim and snorkel some more as there were chubbier and tastier looking people in the water, or else one of us kept watch as the other swam. At turquoise bay Baebs found a turtle that we bobbed with for about 15 minutes as it fed on Coral. Barbara packed it in for that day just after noon once the 3rd 1m+ shark swam by her - if it's lunchtime for us, perhaps it was for them too. On our last day in the park we had the entire beach to ourselves. Unbelievably beautiful - the stuff that one dreams of while one works (or as best as I can recollect). Baebs was a little under the weather so this was just a gentle rest day with a few refreshing dips. While we were sitting there, the Emu in the video came down to the beach and had a little dip himself. Fantastic!

When we look at the map and see how far we've come and how far we have to go we get a little scared. It's been a lot of driving thus far and we're only about a fifth of our way around. We've now got some serious desert driving coming up. There should be some great stops along the way, but for the next 3 days we won't even be driving through any town. There are 2 roadhouses (i.e. gas station with overpriced ice creams) between us and the Karijini National Park and it's neighbouring town of Tom Price. With fuel at $1.85/L here at the moment, we have slowed down even further. We now drive between 75-80kph. That makes days long and distances travelled quite short, but we've got the time and it's saved us 2L/100km. Add that to our guilt about our "carbon footprint" and how much time we have and it seems a good fit for us.

As I mentioned, we're on an extended stay here. Just as we were about to head out for our 3 days of driving, Baebs noticed that we were leaking coolant. It turns out that we have a hold in our radiator. This, of course, happened at 12:07 on Saturday on a long weekend. Everyone closes at noon on Saturdays - of course. We did manage to find a mechanic to have a look at it and I'll be at his gate at 7:30 tomorrow morning when he can hopefully solder the hole and set us on our way again. It's been kind of nice to have a few days of downtime (I know most of you can't take us seriously) and just get some reading and internetting done. You know, get out of the tourist rat-race for a weekend.

OK, I'm signing off as I'm getting a little verbose.

Love you and miss you all.

Shark woman and turtle boy.