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

Blog Two - Carnarvon - Banana Central

We left Denham yesterday and headed towards Carnarvon. On the way we stopped off at a few interesting places. The first stop was Shell Beach, the way the bay is there are constantly little cockel shells washing up on the beach. They use these shells for making bricks and putting in chicken feed to harden their shells. The next stop was the Stromalites. Stromalites are the result of cynobacteria developing and forming rocks and/or cow pat shape sponges. This is a very rare phenomenon in the world, purely because the water is so salty. Salty water means no predators. Scientists use the stromalites to prove that the earth has held life for 4.5 billion years (the cynobacteria are responsible for generating enough oxygen in the atmosphere for sustainable life enable other oxygen producing plants to develop and make the atmosphere what it is today. In Bill Bryson’s book, A Short History of Nearly Everything, he discusses this exact location in great detail. David read this book last year so it was neat to get to see the stromalites in Shark Bay.


We went on a tour around where a telegraph station used to be. This station used to be in charge of broadcasting telecommunication signals from Perth to the mid and North-West. We stopped at a couple roadhouses along the way, for little breaks before arriving in Carnavon in late afternoon. We booked ourselves in the last free spot in a caravan park and settled in with wonderful neighbours. One of our neighbours, Gib came over to us and asked us if we would like a coffee so we said yes and that ended up with us chatting to him the whole night showing us some home brew beer and port that his friends have made. He is a love spoon maker, which is a welsh thing and his wife is from Assinaboia, Saskatchewan. I love when I meet Saskatchewan people over here. It is very rare.

This morning we went to the town to check out the touristy things to do. We walked out on the Mile Long Jetty and ran into our other neighbours from the caravan site. They were a couple from Tasmania and also very friendly. We chatted with them about travels and exchanged good places to head to and then they offered us a place to stay at their house with the opportunity for me to teach at the school that she works at (she is in charge of finding relief people at the school in their town).

Carnarvon is known for their mangoes and bananas. They have a lot of fresh fruit and veggies but mostly those. It is banana season right now so we see bananas all over the trees. Today we went to a couple plantations and spoiled ourselves with some fresh fruit and veggies to each over the next few days. Tomorrow we will head off to a little spot north of carnarvon where there is free camping and apparently a beautiful spot for snorkelling and spotting humpback whales.

Time to enjoy the rest of our beautiful day in the company of our “Grey Nomad” pals.

Holly and David.

Blog One - Monkey Mia

‘What an amazing first couple of days that we have had since we have moved on from the cattle station. For starters, it is not as cold in the evening.


Our first trip was to Shark Bay, where we arrived at a town called Denham. We found a Top Tourist Park and because Bernarbara was needing a break we decided to stop there for the night. The owner was sat outside the office on his bike selling fresh cooked crabs for 3 dollars. We snagged a couple from him for dinner in the evening. I think they made up our van site out of a random area of space that our van could fit and it happens to be right next to the Fish table. A couple men were there cleaning and gutting the fish that they had caught from the day. While we sat there awkwardly in our van in the middle of everything they called over to us offering us a fish from the batch that they had caught….Yes PLEASE! One of our neighbours saw this and giggled to herself. She came over to us and started to talk to us. She was an older lady, I soon realized that everyone was older. I believe we are the youngest people in the campground by quite a few years, actually. These older people are known as ‘Grey Nomads’ which is our version of the ‘Snow Birds’, or Britain’s version of “The Grey-haired Brigade”. They travel to the warmth in the winter. The high light of where we were sleeping was that Bernarbara was parked right next to the beach. This was the best place to crack open our crabs and watch the sunset. I do not think I have had a yummier crab in my life, so sweet and juicy. Later on we went to the kitchen and cooked up our fish with some yummy Regan’s Ridge oil. I have to say, we were quite spoiled for dinner that night.

This morning we headed off to the famous, Monkey Mia, home of the dolphins. Monkey Mia is a very popular place to visit because every morning they have wild dolphins come in for a little snack while tourists stand around and watch and take photos. We got to see the last feeding and the dolphin who came in was named Puck. She is 30 years old and has been coming to Monkey Mia since she was young. She has many of her own that are frequent to MM. Now, the exciting part! Usually they pick 5 people out of the crowd to feed a dolphin, knowing my luck I didn’t get my hopes up for feeding her. Well, not only did I get to feed her I was the first one asked to feed her. Unfortunately, David decided to play around with the beach bag before looking up to take a photo, so when he finally looked up I was already coming back….No Photo. L Still really cool though. We spent the rest of the day walking around the reserve. We did a little bush trail where we had a few run-ins with Emus. Usually on the farm we were used to them running off as soon as you got near them. Not these ones. We had to keep our distance. We would be walking and then all of a sudden right next to us we would see one eating, camouflaged in with the bush. We also saw a mum with 4 little ones. So cute, don’t worry, we definitely kept our distance with that one.

I am now sat on a picnic table overlooking the beach at monkey mia waiting for the sun to set, hoping that I will get one last glimpse of dolphins coming up to the shore, playing around. I know I will sleep good tonight, my skin is also tired from the amount of sun it has had today, luckily we are not burnt lobsters.

Time for sunset photos,

Holly and David

P.S. I have photos to put up but the internet is not allowing me to.  Maybe another time.  Check back again.

Short Update

Well, after a good two weeks at Murchison House Station we are finally off again, getting to even warmer weather.  It has been high twenties/thirties during the day here.  Still a big drop in weather in the evenings though.  The trip around 1/3 of the station was AMAZING!!! He has about 70 km's of private beaches.  They are nice beaches as well.  The one we went to is a perfect beach for just spending the day at with a family or friends.  We took lots of pictures, unfortuately I left the camera in the van so no photos for this blog.

We spent the last couple of days at the farm making it look beautiful for tourists.  Yesterday, I also started building a massive shed with the girls.  After a full day of working hard on it though, we had Calum come over to us and tell us that we were doing it wrong.  Luckily, the "engineer" of the group took all the grief because she should know better. haha.   The last two weeks have been good hard work.  I have enjoyed it.  New muscles hurt everyday.  It makes up for all the biscuits I have eaten.  haha.

Today we are off to Shark Bay, where we will spend a few days in the towns of that area.  There is a place called Monkey Mia where you can feed the dolphins.  Or watch as a million other tourists watch as well.  We have no more wwoofing places set in stone yet.  At the moment, we will just go with the flow. There is our small update for you.  Not sure when we will have internet again.

Until next time,

Holly and David

Murchison House Station

Kalbarri National Park

Murchison House Station

We have settled for a couple weeks at Murchison House Station  just next to the town of Kalbarri.  It is 350,000 Acres…. It is 3500 sq. kilometres.  It is amazing!!! We have only seen a tiny bit of the station.  The owners, Belinda and Calum have been here for 13 years and Belinda says there are still places that she has not seen.  They are opening the station up to the public for 4-wheel drive tracks, so we have spent a couple days writing up the signs on old windmill (I cannot think of the word but the water pumping windmills).  On Saturday, Calum is going to take us along the coastal track of the station and put the signs up.  We are looking forward to it.  Each day we do different things, we work from 4-7 hours a day and we join Belinda and Calum for supper in the evenings.  There is a French guy, Austrian girl and a German girl also on the farm with us.  There are also campers that come and go that we get to meet and usually have chats with at the bonfire in the evening. A couple we met last night had a massive bus.  They had two young kids and they have been living out of their bus for a few years just travelling around Australia working as they need too.  Cool.

Every morning we are in charge of feeding all the animals.  We have a calf and two goats (who think they are all the same), lots of chickens, ducks and ducklings, two ponies and a pet kangaroo, Skippy.  Skippy is like a child, when we come to feed him in the morning he jumps up on us wanting food.  The station also has about 30 sheep, that we see every once in awhile, a couple hundred brahma cows, and a few thousand goats.  The first couple days at the farm we cleared a bunch of fence lines.  It was very tiring and hot.  It was all uphill but the top of the hill made the work all worth while with all of the beautiful views that we could see.  This area of the farm used to be a coral reef thousands of years ago.

Our second night at the farm they decided to give us a real Aussie experience, kangaroo hunting.  We went up to what felt like Scar’s stomping ground in The Lion King.  Calum’s 6 year old son, Aidan, was with us as well as his ex-butcher friend, Damien.  Aidan was super keen on the whole thing.  The first to run out the the kangaroo and right in there helping his dad.  It was a really fun experience but after awhile I started to feel bad for the poor kangaroos.  I couldn’t kill animals for a living that is for sure.  It was definitely a cool experience though.  We came back to the Homestead and hung up the kangaroo bottom halves to leave over night.  The next arvo we got to have a go on skinning the kangaroos and cutting them up.  The kangaroos we did were for the dogs, probably lucky as we all had our turn on butchering the meat.  The day after we watched the pros show us how it is done. 

 On the weekend we had a day off to go visit the rest of the National Park.  We went to The Loop and Z-Bend, it was beautiful! The Murchison River ran through these beautiful gorges.  There were some scary parts for me in the walk though.  We had to do some rock scrambling up high and go up and down ladders.  It took me awhile to work up the courage to do that.  Me talking about this does not do justice though.


Tuesday Morning we sadly had to say goodbye to Kendra, unfortunately her trip up North with us came up short as she was unable to find transportation from when she needed to leave us so the safest thing was to get the bus from Kalbarri back down to Perth where she will take the train to finish her travels. 

Calum and Belinda have a tour that they do three times a week at the farm that shows people the interesting history of the Station, we have been spending the last couple days driving up to where we were shooting kangaroos (which is about 30 minute return trip) collecting rocks bigger than my head and BIGGER.  After a few trips of hauling the rocks back to the homestead they now have beautiful walkways next to some of the sights on the farm.  I also feel like I am ripped in the arms, back and shoulder muscles. Haha.  Yesterday after we used our big muscles for carrying heavy rocks we decided to take a trip down the river in the kayaks.  It was beautiful and calm.  We didn’t make it to the ocean though, maybe next time.

We would love to stay here longer and help out but unfortunately we must get back on the road and seeing Australia again, so on Tuesday morning we are heading off from the station and heading up to Shark Bay to see what all of that area has to offer. 

Until next time,

Holly and David