Lesley and I are now in our seventies. And we’ve been on-the-road for 70-something days. But the big seventy success was the birthday-born arrival of Knoxes, Kingsmills and McGormans to the Ningaloo Holiday Park in Exmouth (say mouth not muth).  The lies I’d had to tell were becoming more and more tenuous but surprise was both everything and complete!  The poor sods who had parked beside us were engaging us in happy conversation, only to have their presence and serenity summarily dismissed when the Sydney escapees poked their heads around the corner.  As Rex Mossop used to say, Lesley was flabbergasted!  The Festival of Lesley was not up to the standard of last year’s Festival of Sue in duration or congregation but it’s possible the consumption per-involved-person was higher.  Here’s an almost unique pic – none of these people has a drink in hand!

And so ensued several days of energetic activity, beginning with first-night lobsters on the barbie and, dare I suggest, champagne.  Pressing on to swimming with whale sharks – golly, they’re big!  Monopolising of the camp kitchen, be it for dinner or breakfast or both, enough food for 80 people rather than 8, and various other excursions, almost all devoted to only two objectives:  (i) the Festival of Lesley and (ii) the consumer-driven economic recovery for Exmouth.  Sooo good!

Whale sharks were the initial reason for coming to this part of the world and these huge, majestic filter-feeders glide effortlessly by, while frantic human snorkelers kick and splash and point, and the guides try not to lose anyone.  Our skipper told us that the sharks have very small brains and very poor eyesight, thus making them ideal for dealing with humans.  The logistics are pretty funny – the sharks tend to swim relatively slowly, in relatively straight lines and relatively near the surface.  Spotter planes find them and each shark becomes exclusive to one boat (supposedly).  The boat is manoeuvered into a position in front of the shark, the humans (10 only at a time) leap off the boat like lemmings and watch the big fish swim past.  Some enthusiastic humans swim after them.  Eventually the shark dives a little deeper and disappears – game over!  Usually that shark reappears soon and it all begins again.

Who’s taking the photos?, I hear you ask.  One of the guides has that task and takes several hundred which eventually get e-distributed.  Hilariously, whilst we had each paid the best part of $500 for the experience, the photos are “complimentary”!  The absolute best thing about the photos is that all the shark pictures from all the trips on all the boats get uploaded to some research site.  The spots on each shark are unique (think fingerprints) and pattern-recognition software then identifies each shark, allowing us to know where they go!  And we’re worried about facial-recognition at Bunnings!

After weeks of delays due to Trev’s covid, Trev’s back, Trev’s electricals, Trev’s back again (picking up a common thread, are you?), arriving in Exmouth on time had been a minor miracle.
“Yes, you’re right darling.  It’s not crucial that we get to Exmouth on the 10^th of June.  Might lose a few days of accommodation money but nothing serious. (Jeez – it’s more than crucial; surprise guests are arriving; we’ve practically purchased the whale shark boat; I’m hoarding lobsters in the freezer; your children/grandchildren have made a fab birthday video…).  No, doesn’t really matter, I guess.” 

And when the last champagne had been drunk, the last hugs and kisses delivered, the “intruders” departed and we just felt flat…and exhausted…but that only lasted about 12 hours. 

Plenty more to see in Exmouth.  The town is buzzing and very young, despite all the old caravan folk.  Built almost entirely by the Yanks post WW11, it’s physically young but also full of young people.  There’s canal development evidence of mining boom money as well.  The Saturday morning markets in Federation Park felt like Nimbin – let peace reign, but with better coffee.  Surf culture to some extent – my physio was sporting a black eye from an altercation with her surfboard and we saw quite a few scary reef breaks from the sky when we took a scenic flight.  Probably missed a trick because the ultra-light flight is reputedly better – but we didn’t fall out of the sky.  The Ningaloo “fringing” reef is spectacular and beautiful, almost beyond belief.  A few extra days spent here for recovery felt like a good option.

Other highlights were the trip to Yardie Creek for the obligatory boat tour up the gorge (Yardie translates as Creek, so we were actually boating on Creek Creek).  This is the only permanently wet gorge and the dozens of others are invisible until you venture into them.  Yardie was home to the endangered black footed rock wallabies which were both cute and plentiful – but only here, we were told.

Excited by our first gorge, we tried for a sunset trip to Charles Knife Canyon.  Undoubtedly spectacular but a howling wind made it freezing cold and the sunset was nothing special – getting blasé now!  A sunset catamaran sail was also cold and windy, with not a whale, dolphin or dugong in sight.  I think we might turn to Milky Way gazing now, if we can stay up past nightfall.

Our final full day in Exmouth was cloudless and took us to Turquoise Bay to try out our snorkelling gear, which we’d been carrying unused for 3 months.  The bay is aptly named and the colours were beautiful – we saw lots of fish, sat in the sun, ate our ham and avocado wraps and thought life was pretty damn good.

By now, we’d also plotted a few points on the next section.  We’d managed to secure a couple of nights in Karajini NP and we had to go to Newman to see the mine-that-Mike-built, eventually heading for Broome via Dampier, bypassing Marble Bar.  Plenty of opportunities to show off our off-road abilities and to finally make our solar power (thanks John) pay its way.  What could possibly go wrong?