Sunday 2 September – Happy Father’s Day to all you fathers!  Grant even had a bit of a sleep in this morning – we might just be starting to adjust to this Western Australia time.  It was a terribly windy night last night, and I had very cleverly left some washing pegged to my clothes horse outside the van.  I imagined I might have to go on a bit of a hunt around the park to locate all the bits when I got up, but it was all still pegged on the horse, but the whole thing was lying flat on the ground.  Luckily we are on a grassed site, so I didn’t have to re wash it.  It would certainly have been a different story If we’d been on the red dust we mostly camped on!

 We had an easy start to the day.  After brekky I decided to download the scenes from the camcorder onto the computer as I have already filled the 8G card which came with the new camera.  I was a bit surprised at that, but realised I am filming on highest quality, so of course that takes up lots of space.

So it was about 10am before we set off on today’s discovery tour of the Exmouth area and the world heritage listed Ningaloo Reef.  We headed north on the only road out of town going in that direction and the first stop we made was where the road ended at Bundegi Beach – a pretty spot on the top end of the Exmouth Gulf.  After a bit of a look there we then drove across to the western side of the peninsula then turned north where we again stopped at the end of that road.  We took a walk down to the surfers beach where a fellow was doing a bit of fishing (without luck), and it was a lovely spot.  With the wind still blowing a gale the sea was very choppy, but very beautiful.  The other attraction here was the Mildura wreck.  The Mildura was an early 20^th century cattle ship which was wrecked just off this point in 1907.  Parts of the wreckage are still visible from the beach, and though we could see it, the choppiness of the sea hampered the view a bit.

While we were there a couple of blokes arrived to have a look and one was a local who obviously knew the area and what to look for.  He soon pointed out to us that there was a humpback whale spouting off over to the left of us, and we saw it breach a couple of times very clearly.  He also pointed out a turtle swimming close to the shore, so that was good.

Next stop was a few kilometres down the west coast road at the lighthouse, and also a reconstructed radar detector from WW2.  The view from here was quite something – a real panorama as we scanned the sea.

All in all, we drove about 72 km down that west coast, popping into various beaches along the way.  When we arrived at Turquoise Bay (where our neighbour had suggested Grant snorkel, and had loaned him the gear), we were greeted by a volunteer manning the parking area who told us that because of the conditions (it was very windy still, and the water was very choppy), the currents were classed as too dangerous to swim in today, so it was strongly recommended that you don’t go into the water.  It was so bad that the scuba gear hire places were not hiring out the equipment.  So Grant was unable to do his snorkel.  But you can certainly see where the bay gets it’s name from – the water is a stunning turquoise colour.  And as he said, the water was so churned up you wouldn’t be able to see the coral and the tropical fish very clearly even if you did go in.

Turquoise Bay

The furthest south we went was to the Mandu Mandu Gorge where we decided to do part of the walk.  It was quite pretty once you got a bit into it, but the walk was hard on my knees.  It was pretty flat, but we were walking on solid pebbles and rocks for the majority of what we did.  You had to watch every time you put your foot to the ground that you weren’t placing it on a rock at a funny angle.  The whole bed of the gorge – which was pretty wide – was solid with these stones which appeared to be quite deep as well.  We were away from the car for about an hour during that time, but of course part of that time was chatting to other tourists time.

Check out the stones and rocks (white section).

Today along the drive I noticed a number of examples of Sturts Desert Pea growing in the gravel by the side of the road were in flower, so on our way back along the road, Grant stopped and I was able to take some photos of it.  Very pretty.  This is a very pretty part of the world and it’s just a shame that the wind today was a bit off-putting.  And as I write this (a bit after 8 o’clock WA time), the wind has calmed right down, but apparently the forecast is that it will strengthen again by lunchtime tomorrow, so that will perhaps impact on what we can do in Coral Bay.

Fish and chips was tonight’s tea (Grant’s Father’s Day treat!!)