Squid Rings

I am currently sitting under a fan trying to cool off.  The days here seem to be getting hotter and hotter and apparently it only gets worse.  Not sure if I want to experience the heat they get, although we will experience Darwin heat, which is worse than here.  Blah.  Since I have updated you last we have had a few interesting experiences. 

The "freak" weather keeps following us around Australia.  First we have the freezing temperatures in Perth and then we have cold and rain in Exmouth. We have been told by all of the locals here, especially the older ones, that it has not been this cold and rainy in Exmouth in all the years they have been here.  So after a few days of rain and being tired of it the only indoor place to go was Grace's Tavern (secret planning on my part as I was meeting some ladies for dinner there later on.).  Sam's brother and sister-in-law, the Irish couple, Pete and I all headed there. (David and Sam showed up later after work)  After a few games of pool a man, whom we have seen around the town a fair bit carrying his backpack and is not the cleanest looking person ever (if you catch my drift), asked us if we wanted to play a game of pool with him.  After playing a few games with him we really started to enjoy his company.  He broke the ice by telling us a poem that he wrote about the game of 8 ball.  We later found out that he is a Travelling Poet and has been travelling around Australia for 27 years, hitchhiking. He was carrying his life on his back.  Stories after stories, jokes after jokes... He had us wrapped around his finger.  In the end we all ended up buying his little book of poems from him.  After the night there we took him to a beach by where we were staying where he ended up staying the night and hitchhiking back into town.  His plan was to stay in the town until Sunday, go to church, and then head off. 

We decided that we didn't want to stay in the caravan parks and that we were going to try and do some free camping (as the ranger is away for a few days).  Sam, David and I headed to a beach just out of town one evening and made it our home for the night.  We also did a little 4x4ing in the sand dunes before watching some Mighty Boosh in our little outdoor cinema.  We had a pretty cool set up.  After a wonderful sleep on the beach we woke up to a local man on his horse yelling at us that the ranger was going to catch us and we would have to pay a 500 dollar fine.  Little did he know we have talked to many locals in the town about where to go, what the ranger considers "free camping", etc.....  After our rude awakening we decided it was time to get some breakfast and have showers.  The boys were pretty keen on getting showers at the caravan park that we have had so much hassle with.  I felt a little uncomfortable, especially in the place we parked but I followed.  As soon as I got out of the shower a man came up to me asking if I was staying at the caravan park.  I told him that I wasn't at the moment, that I had been and that I was planning on checking in that afternoon.  He didn't take any of that well.  So, apparently he had a spy that saw David and I go in (but not Sam) and we got fined 10 dollars each.  I guess our WHITE van was a bit more noticeable than the boys thought.  I paid the fine while he waited for David to get out of the shower.  A tad embarassing and a bit on the wild side for me.  I'm such a rebel...lol. 

After the stressful morning (for me anyways) I decided that I would rather just play in safe.  A couple nights before one of the guys we met offered to let us stay on his driveway for 10 dollars a night.  So we thought we better take him up on the offer.  But that night I went to a "Cook Off"  where a bunch of ladies and I cooked up a bunch of meals to freeze and hand out to people in the community when they are needed.  At the end of the night Cathryn, a lady I have gotten to know over the past few days, asked us where we were staying and offered to let us stay at her house for the evening.  So, we took up her offer and the next morning she told us that she would like us to be a part of her family for the rest of the week.  She has been amazing and so helpful.  Her children are wonderful. We have been trying to help out as much as we can. 

When David is working and Sam is not, I am usually hanging out with Sam and when they are both off we are all together, and of course when Sam is working I am with David.  So, to the people we have met that do not know us too well, it has caused a bit of confusion, so we have had a few laughs over the past few days.  David was working the other night and we went for a bbq on the beach with some friends.  When we pulled up some of the people were referring to me as Sam's girlfriend and what not.  Then at church the next day a girl who I spent the afternoon with last week thought Sam was my boyfriend.  We realized we have probably confused them all because I am either with both of them or one of the other. 

Yesterday, I went to church and sure enough our friend from the Tavern was already there so I sat with him.  When it was communion, as we were told to drink he cheers'ed my glass.  I uncomfortably giggled and kept on with what I was doing and then he started to hiccup and pretend to be drunk.  Obviously, communion is supposed to be serious and he was not being.  It is definitely not something you really ever experience.  He sounds like he is disrespectful but he actually has a strong faith in Jesus.  I liked that he came just as he was a dirty travelling poet, smelly, not perfect by any means, you could imagine the judging that could have gone on.  But he did not care.  He came to worship God with everyone else and that was all that mattered.

David and I went out to the beach with Wayne (Cathryn's husband) and the kids.  He took out his boat so we got to go for a ride.  The original plan was to go out and see whales but they were not wanting to play so we went squidding instead.  All this consists of is casting out and reeling in, hoping to catch something on the way in.  Wayne caught one within minutes.  They actually look really cool.  We decided to do a bit of trolling (slowly driving with the fishing line out) and I managed to catch one! As I was bringing it in he was telling me to bring it in but keep it down, I didn't know if he meant my rod or the squid so I kept looking at both.  All of a sudden he yelled as the Squid INKED! I now knew what he meant.  Luckily, he didn't get inked.  We headed back in and cleaned our catch with a couple other couples and then headed over to Deb and Pete's house to have a big squid feast.  I have never tasted squid so good.  I do not think I will be able to eat squid when I get back home.  I ate soooo much!

Today I had an interview with IGA (as I have not been hearing from the school as much as I want)  and it was about two minutes long and I was hired.  So this town is a town of 1,000 people or so.. and it has two IGAs kittie corner from each other.  David works at one and I will be working at the other.  I also am getting paid way less (as I found out when I got home from the interview).  Oh well.  So I start tomorrow at 630 as a checkout chick.  I am excited to spend some days working rather than reading and walking around all the time. 

No photos today.  We do have some though.  I will hopefully get around to putting some up on facebook in the next few days again. 

Holly

Phinally Photos.

David and his catch!

I have finally spent some time uploading photos onto facebook.  I have got Kalbarri - Shark Bay photos up.  So if you can remember back to those blogs you can put these photos in those memories.

West Coast Pt 1

Little update

David and I went fishing with Sam, his brother and wife and Laura, Damo and Peter (the Irish..) Damo, Peter, Sam and David were all lucky and caught some reef sharks..just little ones..but it fed us all very well that night.  David was also lucky enough to catch a seagull...Let's just say after that they left the bait alone in the water...stupid birds.  It has been cold and rainy here for the past few days.  Apparently it has not been this cold in 26 years (18 degrees Celsius) But today is finally sunny and clearing up! Back to happiness! haha.

Thats all for now.

Holly

Quick one...

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Echdina, we had stop for him to cross the road.

Friendly Emu checking out lunch

So we have decided to spend a little time in Exmouth as David has found a very well paid job, IGA (40,000 yearly salary...crazy!).  When I get relief teaching it is good money as well.  This will all help to have a wonderful finish to the end of our trip.  At the moment we are back living in the caravan park.  It is a pretty nice set up.  We hope to find something a bit cheaper, we also do not get the nicest customer service from this place.  Rather not deal with them on a daily basis. 

We have invested in a cheap allarounder fishing rod and have gone out a few times.  Still not as lucky as our first fish.  Sounds like we were pretty lucky catching that one.  David and I have gone to the National Park a few times but it is getting a bit hotter here.  David and Sam have gone surfing a few times (David body boarding) I am still working up the courage after seeing that guy.  Blah.  I hope to have tried it before we leave. 

Anyways, update to let you know we are still alive.  I must get off as my time has run out.

Holly

Whale Shark Photos

Whale Shark Crew

Whale Shark

The Whale Shark!

David snorkelling 

 

Well, it's a day off for me and I am just waiting for David to finish work.  It is nice to have a rest after teaching.  The kids are great but it is tiring getting back into the swing of things.  Darryl's friend Cos, (he is greek..haha) is up here for a "guys fishing trip" for 10 days and he has offered to let us come and stay with them rather than a caravan park.  I have been trying not to crash the party too much for them being a girl and all but they assure me that it is okay. 

Here are some of the whale shark photos.  I am sick of this internet place for the day though.  Their power has shut off 3 times since I have been here, so no photos on facebook yet, unfortunately.

Holly

Exmouth Pt. 2 - Whale Shark!!!

The sun came up as we drove over the crest, slowly climbing up on the corner of world lazily flooding the dim sky with a red and orange glow. The world woke up on our 10 minute drive coming into colour. Today was a day we would never repeat. Whale Shark Day.

It’s simple to say that we were a little excited about today. This was one of the things I have wanted to do since I came to Australia and we both decided we needed to do it regardless of anything. We actually got really lucky with the whole situation because the Whale Sharks aren’t normally around now, their season is March to July, but we still got to see them in early August. Lots of companies have stopped doing their tours but we liked the sound of ours and they gave us a good guarantee so we did it. And my my, are we glad we did!!

We took our little boat to the big boat, the Blue Marlin which would be our home for the day. We were introduced to the crew and given a briefing and then rocked off to the other side of the Reef. Just so you know the Ningaloo is the closest and most accessible Reef in the world, it is within viewing distance from land unlike the Great Barrier Reef which is a 2 hour journey away. The Ningaloo creates a lagoon effect on the ocean between it and the land taming the Indian Ocean. Its waves crash over the reef which is sometimes less than a meter from the surface and level out in the lagoon.
So we made our way  through the reef and spotted a HumpBack Whale Breaching not far from us, the crew said that it was very rare that they are on the land side of the reef and it must be lost, so we coaxed what turned out to be two whales out of the reef and away to safety. We headed out bounding over the swell and headed south  so we could have our first snorkel of the day. We left the boat near the reef and dove down to see what we could find. We saw lots of fish and a turtle drifting by. When we put our head under water we could hear whale songs, It was unreal.

After a false alarm of seeing a whale shark the crew decided it was time for another snorkel.  I wasn’t feeling well but Holly went.  They swam through huge reef and coral and had a run in with a Reef Shark taking it easy.  The coral was all a lot different to the stuff that we had seen in all of our previous snorkels.  The spotter plane flew over head as we had morning tea to find some Whale Sharks, after some sailing false alarms and lots of bouncing around on the boat the skipper put full speed on and raced off to the south. This was the big one.

When we arrived we as group one went first and left the boat, we followed the spotter who kept an eye on the beast so we knew where to go, went ahead and we followed. Its fair to say that the skipper didn’t know exactly where the Whale Shark was, he dropped us behind it and around 50 meters away, so we had a mad dash to get to it. But my word…..Out of the deep blue of the ocean appeared this gracious white freckled beauty. This thing was 5.5 meters long and swam lazily along with its entourage of smaller fish. We swam along side it, jumped on the boat and jumped off again right in front of it. We both got some incredible view of the creature. We swam with it for abound 50 minutes the only boat to do so that day. And way above the industry standard of 15 minutes.

After this we had lunch and made out way back to port on the way seeing numerous humpbacks breaching and crashing around as well as a baby one practising with its mother, what a perfect end to an amazing day!!

We made it back to our campsite the place still rocking. We had an early night and slept very well.

We have photos but they are on a cd, so when we get them onto the hard drive we will put them up.

We are off to relax on the beach for a bit today...Tomorrow....National Park!

David and Holly

Exmouth - Water Babies

Dinner!

David with his boo boo

Fishing with the turtle

We have fallen into like with Exmouth.  The weather is constantly sunny and beautiful.  The weather has been late 20s everyday.  The drive to Exmouth was very long and warm.  We stopped at Coral Bay along the way.  It had a beautiful clear blue beach with lots of young families.  At this time of year it is expensive and almost impossible to stay there so we just enjoyed the sights for a bit and then headed on to Exmouth.  When we arrived in Exmouth we learned that most of the caravan parks were full.  This was not good as it was coming close to dark.  Luckily, the lady at the caravan park that we pulled into was determined to call around until she could find a place for us to spend the night.  The caravan park is about 15 minutes out of the town and right next to the lighthouse, close to all the beaches as well.  The next morning Sam and David went out for a surf, David body boarding.  I was actually working up the courage to try and try out either surfing or body boarding.  After being tossed around by the waves David had enough and decided to come in, only to find out that he had a massive gash on his foot from something off the reef.  Right after seeing that a guy came walking towards us with a face and head full of blood.  His surfboard’s fin had hit him in the back of the head and he had a massive gash.  After the two incidents I was lightheaded and sick to my stomach.  My courage spell had completely left me. 

After the beach we headed into the city where the boys applied for jobs at IGA and I put my name on the relief teacher list at the local school.  We plan to stick around here for a few weeks to earn some more money and enjoy the area of course.  Next stop was our plan for our dinner…..catching a fish.  We spent all afternoon fishing (and watching a massive turtle just metres away from us playing in the waves) and after having enough we headed to another place and within 5 minutes of being there Sam caught a fish, spangled emperor.  It was huge, definitely not what I was expecting us to catching.  It was a beautiful looking fish as well.  Another couple was also fishing there so they came over and helped us bleed it and told us how to fillet it.    As we started chatting and they asked where I was from I found out that they had actually just come back from Saskatchewan.  They were in Canada for 27 days spending most of it in Ituna and Regina for the Royal Progress Show.  Usually people have never even heard of it so to run into some random people to have them just come back from Saskatchewan was pretty neat.  We went back to the caravan park and had a very yummy dinner. Yay spangled emperor.

Yesterday we went snorkelling at what we have heard is the best snorkelling place in the area.  The place is called Turquoise Bay.  There are two parts to it.  You can either do a drift snorkel or you can swim around in the bay.  Since we really enjoyed the Drift Snorkel at Gnaraloo we decided to do that one first.  The current was pretty strong so David and I ended up doing it twice.  We saw lots of really cool fish.  I cannot get over the shapes and colours of the different fish.  I saw a little brown sting ray with blue spots.  I thought   it was a cool looking skinny fish and when I got closer I saw the rest of the body.  Further on we also saw a squid.  Ugly thing.  It saw us coming and hid in a little hole where we could still see him.  We headed over to the bay where I was the only one wanting to snorkel so I hopped in hoping that this wouldn’t be the time where I run into a shark.  The coral was much more colourful this time.  Similar fish.  This time I saw a gross cuttlefish.  If you do not know what they look like google it.  They are also very ugly.  Just as I was about to call it a day for snorkelling I swam between some coral and came head on with a turtle.  For a moment I felt like I was in Finding Nemo.  I quickly got out of his way and turned around to watch him swim past me.  How cool!  I definitely had an exciting day of snorkelling.

Tomorrow we have decided that we are going to have a swim with the Whale Sharks.  I am pretty nervous.  I am sure it will be a blast though.  Google whale sharks to learn a bit about them. 

Tata for now,

Holly and David

P.S. Funny thing just happened.  I am sitting in the caravan park writing my blog and 3 emus just walked past my window.  They are all over this town, in the parks, in the car parks, in the caravan parks, etc.  It is so weird to see them everywhere.

The Blowholes

Blowholes at Sunset

Hello Blogreaders,

So we left Carnarvon but didn’t get to too far. About 30 k’s out of town there was a turnoff to a place called Quobba, where there is a place of interest called the blowholes, down here we travelled for an hour and finally arrived a shanty looking caravan spot. We went here because we’d heard it was a good place to see and cheap camp. So we ended up staying for around 4 days. We met up with someone we knew from working on the farm. Sam is from England and is travelling on his own up to Darwin.

We spent our nights around the camp fire talking and drinking tea. Our meals varied from curry to noodles and to fresh fish given to us by our friendly neighbour Mick. At least we think that was his name, he always responded to it. Mick introduced himself as soon as we arrived and proved a gracious host while we were there, he had us in to his caravan to see some photos of the area, rough seas fishing blowholes and lots of fish. Mick liked to fish, But he was such a nice guy, and we all got on really well with him.

We spent most of our days snorkelling in various places around the area seeing some incredible fish and coral. Our little beach looked like something out of Gilligans Island, wooden shelters with fishing net as a cover, but the water was as clear as spring water. We saw some great sunsets here, you cant see a bad sunset in WA I don’t think, and sunset was the best time for seeing whales. We saw a few some off in the distance and one came fairly close and blew it’s spout into the burning sky.

On the Sunday we decided we needed some civilisation. The only toilets were long drops no showers and no houses for hundreds of kilometres so we went to church and enjoyed their hospitality which included tea and cakes

David, Sam & Pete the Pelican at Gnaraloo Bay

Possibly the highlight of our visit to Quobba was our last day when we all dived in Sam’s 4x4 and headed to a place called Red Bluff. This place is a great spot for surf and we watched Sam and many others tackle the waves and the heat for a few hours. We then headed off to a place called Gnaraloo Bay which was told to us to be the best Snorkelling spot in the world. Very intrigued. Across very rough roads we headed through a Station and arrived at just a stunning piece of coast. I don’t think we’ll ever see a more perfect beach as long as we live. We walked around the corner and to a point we were recommended to start from. We understood why when we got in, the current was so strong you couldn’t stand up and it took us on a nice lazy snorkelling tour of the Start of the Ningaloo Reef. If you wanted to see something in a little more detail on your moving tour was to stick out your arm or leg and it would turn you around so you could keep your eye on one thing. It was so much fun, we ended back at the beach we started from but far out from the shore. So we swam against the current and made out way back to the beach. On the way spotting a 5’ long Black Cod!!

We did love Quobba, simple living. Very cheap and heaps to do. Not even a stoned throw to the beach and some lovely people. Our last morning we said goodbye to our new surrogate father and headed off for a cheeky shower at the last camp site we stayed at. So Holly, Myself and Sam headed up the road to get some fuel, some chocolate Bananas and then headed on the drive to Exmouth.

That’s it for now, we need to have some more fun so we can write about it.
Love you all,

David & Holly