TripRoundUnder

Given our dwindling supplies, we though it might be a good idea to check into the renowned holiday town of Exmouth to resupply.

Exmouth is an interesting town, we thought that it would be much larger and more built up than it is, but it’s kind of good that it hasn’t and still retains its charm. Going along with this, we have worked out the Lauren and Steve measure for town size. If it has a single Woolies or Coles, it’s a larger town, if it has both then it’s a major town and if it has neither like Exmouth and for some reason two IGAs then it’s a smaller town. Simple.

After extensive research and money spent, we have also decided that fuel vouchers from shopping centres are useless. The corresponding petrol stations are always close to the exact voucher amount more expensive than their competitors. You should really charge for this kind of advice.

Back to Exmouth, even though it’s small, there were a lot of people in town and you really can tell that it was peak tourism season. We managed to visit the famous Mildura wreck and Steve was very happy to snap a pretty cool drone shot.

We were very excited as we were booked in to stay at the well reviewed Osprey Bay campground in the Cape Range National Park. This was made even more exciting, as we were to meet up with one of Lauren’s friends she had met while nursing in Geraldton and her partner who had flown from NZ!

Settling in to the campground, it definitely lived up to its reputation and we managed to see a very pretty sunset over the Ningaloo reef.

With great excitement, we had also booked an experience to swim with the whale sharks with our Kiwi mates! The day started early and arriving at the boat harbour, you really realised how massive of an operation this industry was. We learned that there were 3 planes overhead looking for the sharks and behind us, there were several boats all with the same mission. Even though it wasn’t part of the experience, we also got a front row seat to the migrating whales we had seen from afar up the coast of WA and they certainly put on a show for us!

After waiting 45 minutes, we were getting worried that the whale sharks weren’t going to show. But, finally the call came in from the spotter plane and it was all systems go, ‘get ready to hop in the water!’ Jumping in, it took a second to get comfortable in the 30+ metre water, but we were very excited!

I’ll pause there, as I know you’re all asking yourselves, doesn’t Lauren have a notorious aversion to sea going activities to put it politely? How will she cope on the boat?? To answer these questions, I would say yes, she’s prone to sea sickness and on this occasion she put on a great and brave show. She was fine until we stopped in the water to get ready to jump in and Lauren bring the noble person she is, decided to burly up the water to attract the whale sharks. So nice of her! Bravely, she pushed through the pain and got in the water with us. Nice work lozzy!

Back in the water and ahead of us a shape was emerging and as it got closer, the majesty and huge size of the whale shark appeared! It was honestly like seeing a dinosaur and almost didn’t feel real! Swimming alongside, but not too close, it was such an amazing experience and we felt so lucky to be there!

We were lucky enough to swim with 5 whale sharks in total and I don’t think any of us will ever forget that experience, very special.

Back at camp, Steve managed to capture some more amazing drone shots of the reef in all its glory and we even managed to do another snorkel in the protected waters of the bay and saw some pretty amazing sea-life!

Saying goodbye to our Kiwi friends, we had a few more days left in Exmouth before heading further up the coast. We spent these exploring some more of the epic coastline both on the Ningaloo and Exmouth Gulf sides and even though we were in this area for a couple of weeks, you could spend months exploring this awesome stretch of coastline! We also began to learn the art of stealth camping, with the limited choices around the town forcing us to take some drastic measures.

We also experienced our first subtropical rainstorm, some of the first rain we had seen in ages and realised this was going to be part and parcel of heading further North.

Stay tuned for more!