Welcome back to our working adventures on the Ningaloo reef.
We are now well and truly into the swing of working life once more, though of course we would much rather just be travelling. The working days are hard and very long, but we have come to appreciate a lot of other things such as being able to ride dirt bikes, tractors and bobcats, knowing how to construct a fence from scratch, as well as constantly learning about everyday station life. We recently had some friends of the boss come to work and stay on the station and they have created an artesian hot tub. This was made out of half an old rain tank and hooked up to the underground bore water that comes out at about 70 degrees. We then cool it down until it is the perfect soaking temperature. So now we can spend evenings with a drink in hand, soaking in the hot water and looking up at the Milky Way and counting the shooting stars we see.
Jamie is still very much into fishing; so as well as going fishing a couple nights a week, he now also watches the fishing channel. He has been providing us with fresh delicious fish to eat at least 3-4 times a week. On our days off, we usually go camping on the station at one of the many amazing beaches. We even have a couple of spots which are for private use only so we get those all to ourselves. The weather here has cooled down slightly to around 30 degrees everyday and the nights cool down quite a bit now as well. I can see why May, June and July are then most popular times to visit. We also spend a lot of our free time snorkelling, either on the station or at Coral Bay. There is an amazing free drift snorkel at Coral Bay, which we have gone to a few times. Each time we see so many amazing types of coral and new and different species of fish. We are also lucky enough to get to snorkel less than a metre away from the green sea turtles, which are both curious and friendly.
May seems to be the month of friends visiting us. Firstly, our friends Ashley and Dan, who we met on the road, were passing through so we had them come to stay with us for a few nights. We were able to show them the amazing fishing to be had on the station. They caught a whole bunch of trevally as well as some spangled emperors. They also decided to try for some shark, and after a few big runs that resulted in a loss of fishing rig, they hooked on to a bronze whaler which they reeled into shore. We were able to get a close up look at him before removing the hook and releasing him back to the ocean. We dined on freshly caught fish grilled on the fire that night. We took our friends to another spot called Pelican Point, which is a marine sanctuary zone. Here, you are able to snorkel with giant shovelnose rays as well as baby reef sharks as it is a shark nursery. We would have seen at least 20 shovelnose rays, about 10 baby black tip reef sharks, 6 honeycomb stingrays and even some turtles, all in about 1 ½ metres of water. The next day we spent at Coral Bay doing the drift snorkel and then chilling on the beach with some cold beers. It’s really at times like that, when life can’t get much better.
Out of the blue we also had Jamie’s old bosses from Port Noarlunga Aquatics come to stay on the station. We convinced them to stay 3 nights, when they were only going to do 1 night. They loved it so much, and we showed them the good fishing spots and enjoyed a delicious homemade burger with the lot on the beach whilst enjoying the sunset,
And just the other day we had Rebekka and Fabian (our Italian backpacker friends that we also met on the road) come to visit. We organised to do the whale shark tour together. The night before we enjoyed a campfire and then some drinks in the Artesian hot tub. The day of the whale shark tour we had to get up at 5:30am to get there in time. We had all been looking forward to this day for ages. The day turned out to be perfect weather and we had an amazing time chilling on deck in the sun. We got dropped in for 3 separate snorkels while the spotter plane searched for whale shark. Unfortunately the day came to an end and no whale sharks were spotted. It is not very often that they don’t see the whale sharks on these tours, but it happens sometimes. Luckily for us we get a free voucher to go again and we have plenty of time here to use it. It was still an absolutely fantastic day and we saw and snorkelled with black tip and white tip reef sharks, grey reef sharks, 2-3 metre bronze whalers, cobia, giant trevally, turtles and much more. A highlight was seeing a giant metre long Queensland Groper right up close. We also had a pod of about 50 oceanic bottlenose dolphins swim alongside our boat and jump out of the water and show off their tricks and later some humpback dolphins which I hadn’t seen before. We even saw a humpback whale splashing with its tail from quite a distance away. So all in all it was still an amazing day, and now we get to go again.
Just today whilst we were camping on the station again, we spotted from the cliffs, some giant manta rays playing in the water. We hopped in the kayaks and got to experience two of the giant 4m manta rays swimming right beneath us. They were close enough that we could see the tiny fish swimming in front of them and watch how graceful they are beneath the water. I don’t know how we will ever top the amount of marine life we have been seeing in this amazing part of the world. Now there is only two weeks for us to look forward to Jamie’s Dad and brother coming up to visit us as well. We have a full, action packed schedule for when they arrive, as there is so much to see and do. Well, until next time peeps!!
