Hello lovely people no. 28 (no. 5 in Australia)

Ningaloo Reef. I knew nothing of it until reading about WA in preparation for this trip. Mostly hard coral. Mostly close to shore. Mostly shallow. Alive and healthy. Teeming with marine life. Home of eco-tourism. Is this too good to be true?

Our journey is a long day’s drive: first retracing our steps back past Hamelin Pool, to the junction with the North West Coastal Highway. a fuel and food-stop at The Overlander Roadhouse, excellent pies and sausage rolls, such traditional roadhouse fare. Then a lot of kilometres on a long, straight road with low scrub and bush but wildflowers, mostly white, are now occasionally visible. We drive past and startle the most enormous black bird of prey, trying to lift a ‘roo carcass. It must have had a wing span approaching two metres! Later identified as a Wedge-Tailed Eagle we look out for them for the rest of the trip

A brief stop at Carnarvon (food and beverage shopping) and we pass the space museum, a relay station for Gemini and Apollo, the last station to receive a signal as the spacecraft leaves earth’s orbit and the first to receive a signal on re-entry. It seems vey appropriate for the 50th anniversary of the moon landing

Our first stop on the reef is Coral Bay. A settlement (according to Google and the 2016 census) with a population of 190 swelling to 6,500 during peak tourist season. As we arrive at dusk we see nothing resembling permanent housing but rather four huge camping/caravan parks and a low rise shopping centre

We settle into the Ningaloo Reef Bay View Caravan and Camping Park and immediately notice (a) a complete absence of bay view and (b) that the place is full of families with school-age children, what is all that about – the two week winter school holidays end today – surely. They should all be home by now (we are subsequently told that private schools have three weeks holiday but it still seems like a lot of kids!!)

There is a pub, restaurant and bottle shop next to the shopping centre so the evening passes pleasantly: Roberto immediately identifies an Argentinian barman and the conversation and mojitos flow . . . .

We venture to the beach the next morning and wow – what a glorious, extended arc of turquoise and navy water, white sand and red rock it is. The sun feels burning hot for the first time and we walk, seeking some shade to sit and watch the view. We swim – cold but so clear and the reef is right here! Time to dig out Andy’s Go-Pro and get some snorkels

It becomes apparent why the place is a huge draw for families, the tide is large but even when low there is a big expanse of shallow, sandy bottomed sea with no waves, extremely safe paddling and swimming, the coral reef is extremely visible in clear shallow waters: huge cabbage corals we have never seen before with some stag and brain corals which are more familiar

We spend three days mucking about on the beach, walking, swimming, snorkelling. Alison M and Roberto hire a kayak and dolphins swim alongside them. The weather is mixed: the wind can be cool, there is some cloud and even a little rain but it is still generally warm, and the colours everywhere are splendid. We are not disheartened by reports of the heatwave in south east England!

On our fourth day we take a tour: swimming with manta rays. Out on a boat all day, four snorkel stops in all. We are immediately impressed by the crew: all female except Ollie the trainee and Sam the photographer. Enthusiastic, knowledgeable, funny and very professional. We snorkel inside the reef and spot colourful fish, astonishing corals, a few grey reef sharks. Our ability to swim and snorkel is quietly assessed by our snorkel guides Bernie and Liv as to swim with a manta ray requires a degree of competence. It takes place in deeper water outside the reef with a “live” drop off and pick up – so stepping off the back of the idling (rather than anchored) boat when instructed, watching for the crew member acting as snorkel guide to point out the ray and then swimming alongside/above it, when the ray has moved out of swimming range waiting in a group for the boat to return and swimming back to board while it is idling. The first manta swim is not hugely successful: it is low visibility, the ray is swimming fast and we are stopped quickly and collected back on the boat because someone is struggling. The second manta swim however is excellent: the ray swims serenely just off the sea bed and we swim along-side, visibility is good. Sam takes lots of photographs (the crew all collect data fed back to Australian Parks & Wildlife on the rays and health of the corral, the rays are identifiable by spots on their bellies and resident ones are known and named). Back inside the reef we cruise the turquoise waters and see dugongs – hooray – and a couple of large turtles. The last snorkel of the day is at “coral canyons” – different corals, deeper, fewer colourful fish but still stunning. It is fascinating to watch Bernie free dive – so graceful

All these photographs are from Sam, the tour professional:

And a couple of ours to finish:

We ask Bernie, Liv and skipper Ellen about life in Coral Bay. They work for the season and move on during the summer months. All staff live in a caravan park which they call Kenya: it looks like a shanty town and “ken ya hack it?” This must account for the permanent population of 190 we guess

Four days without moving the car, fantastic sea swimming, good food, cocktails and wine, an evening catching up with one of Alison M and Roberto’s friends from Bowral, Hock Jarvis (no relation!), an experienced grey-nomad, hearing his stories. Overall a blissful interlude

Next stop Exmouth, at the northern end of Ningaloo peninsula. The journey is another long, straight road with low scrub (mulga and spinifex) and few other vehicles. There are some  wildflowers and huge numbers of termite hills. This is the first time they have been visible in such numbers

Travellers we meet tell us of a quaint town with emu dads and their chicks wandering through the centre of it, historic buildings. We find the reality somewhat different. Very few historic buildings, lots of new, very modern housing around a marina. A small centre with a few shops, supermarkets, cafes and no emus!

We explore on foot as we have arranged via the hire company to leave our truck for a couple of repairs: front windscreen washers have never worked and, after the 4WD at Francois Peron, an alert came up requiring a dealer assessment 

The town is on the eastern side of the peninsula, and grew up around an Australian naval base and American naval and airforce base, the area was tactically important and remains an important communications base. It is distant from the beach but still a popular tourist spot because of great hiking, whale watching and – the reason we are here – the chance of swimming with a whale shark

Whale sharks migrate northwards off the western coast of Australia May – July. Earlier in the season it is possible to swim with these enormous fish off Coral Bay but by mid July tours only run out of Exmouth at the northern end of Ningaloo Reef. We are right at the end of July and hoping we will not be too late

Our tour starts with a bus ride of about 30 minutes to the boat yard on the western side of the peninsula. Ri, who is one of the swim guides, tells us about the history of Exmouth, the control and licensing of the whale shark tours, the data collection that the boat tour crews feed into. Again, we are impressed by her knowledge, enthusiasm and professionalism. The driver, Daisy, who is also the tour photographer, is a Brit who managed to get residency via sponsorship after a working holiday (much like Alison M back in 1986) and loves it. The crew is completed by skipper Mitch who turns out to be eagle eyed, deck hand Tom (a dolphin fanatic) and swim leader Kate who is responsible for explaining how the swim works as well as checking we are all sufficiently competent snorkellers and swimmers

The swim adheres to strict regulations: no more than 10 in the water at a time, we swim in a formation dictated by the placement of the whale shark in the water and a required number of metres to its sides and rear (never in front). We will be guided into formation and the right location set up by Ri – the scout in the water –  and Katie – last off the boat. Again, it is a “live” drop off and collection and we need to be quick on and off the boat as we are a group of 20, divided into two for the whale shark swims, and their are three other boat tours. It sounds a lot to remember and vaguely terrifying, quite apart from being in the water with such a large creature – anything between 3 and 6 metres

Everything is prefaced with “if we find a whale shark, fingers crossed”. The fish are generally located by spotter plane, and we see two in the sky from about 11 a.m. We are happy enough cruising around in a lovely boat, watching distant wales breach. After some time we are told a whale shark has been spotted, swimming happily high in the water column (so near the surface) but about 90 minutes away. We set off and then, remarkably, skipper Mitch spots one in the water right next to us. Great hurry to get us in the water for our first swim. For me it all passed in a bit of a blur – I saw the whale shark but briefly and through mucky water (apparently visibility was so poor because the sea was full of all the plankton and microcosms that whale shark feed on!). The second was much better, clearer water and a long swim beside this amazing creature which seemed suspended rather than moving (although I had to fin pretty hard to keep up). It was wonderful

These are Daisy’s photographs:

After the two swims the whale shark dived deep and although the boat headed for the one the spotter plane had located the message came back that it too had dived deep. We were the only boat whose guests swam with a whale shark that day, how very lucky!

However our luck did not end there. We witnessed, close up, the most spectacular display of mother and calf humpback whale breaches, with the calf doing a whole series on its own after a few with its ma. It was amazing. Then frolicking and mating dolphins. Another snorkel ended a fabulous day on a boat and in the water

At the recommendation of the boat crew we had supper at The Whalebone: a great big yard with a few industrial buildings and containers on the edge of Exmouth; one houses a brewery, one a wood fired pizza oven, a container is cut to make a stage (a country and western duo, of course). It was busy with a lively crowd and was a fun way to conclude our escapades on the Ningaloo reef

Next: we head inland but that is for another time. Until then, g’day to you all

ALISON 

PS: map below shows our route from Hamelin Pool to Exmouth