Hello once again and welcome back to our travelling blog. I bet by now you're starting to wonder who Jamie and Camille are and if they will be coming back at all. So it is coming up to one year that we have been on our ‘Around Aus Trip' and our progress has been much slower than anticipated. In fact, we left Adelaide thinking we would be back home within 1 year, but have only made it 1/3 of the way around and we are still currently working on Warroorra Station on the Ningaloo Coast, WA. Yes, we are still planning to come home, but somehow the list of places to see keeps on growing. We are however coming home for a week in early October, so get ready for us!!
It's been over 2 months since we have done a blog, so there is a fair amount to talk about. You might need at least 2 beers to get through this one. Its bound to have you balancing on the edge of your seat, so maybe grab those beers now. I'll start off from where we left you last time. We had just said goodbye to some mates and were waiting for Dennis and Adam to come visit in early June.
It has started to cool down a little lately, dropping to about 6 degrees overnight and daytime temps reaching 28-30 degrees with short days, much like Adelaide in winter. When Adam and Dennis arrived, we had an action packed schedule organised. The plan was to spend 4 days camping on Warroora Station, 4 days in Exmouth and then come back to the station for a couple more nights, so they could get ready to drive back down to Perth. We started off by camping at the best campsite on the station, which happens to be private (station use only). We had a beautiful beach all to ourselves for 4 days, which we spent fishing, shell collecting, kayaking, cooking campfire meals (including freshly caught goat), and a few too many cheeky beers. We awoke early on the 3rd day to drive to Coral Bay for a repeat of our Whale Shark Tour, this time with Adam, Dad and Zach. The weather was perfect and smiles were on all of our faces. We started off the day with an early outer reef snorkel where we saw loads of different fish species, sharks, turtles and beautiful coral. After the first snorkel we went out in search of the illusive Whale Shark. It took about an hour, but we managed to spot 3 separate whale sharks. It is a very difficult thing to imagine seeing a gigantic whale shark appear out of the deep blue water, but let me tell you that nothing will prepare you for how awesome it is!! I was reliving it in my dreams for the following couple of nights. They were so majestic and hosted an entire ecosystem of fish species. You really need to make time to experience it for yourself. The day finished off with another outer reef snorkel, which was full of amazing marine life once again. It really is an impressive reef system and you can see why it is on the World Heritage List.
Next, we stocked up on food and headed off for Exmouth. Pumba begrudgingly gave up a small amount of room on the back seat to allow Camille and Dad a place to sit. It came with a lot of disgruntled noises and way too many stinky Bulldog farts that almost forced us all out of the ute. But eventually we made it into the Ningaloo Lighthouse Caravan Park. We made the most of the first couple of day's nice weather exploring places in Cape Range National Park such as Turquoise Bay, Yardie Creek, Shothole Canyon and Charles Knife Gorge. The National Park offered amazing coastline, gorges and we saw plenty of wildlife including, Echidnas, Ospreys, Emus, Kangaroos, Moray Eels, Turtles and Sturt Desert Pea flowers. Unfortunately we had a bit of a freak storm come though for the last couple of days, but the smiles and great times continued to flow. Heading back to the station to say goodbye was definitely a sad moment. But it was so great to catch up with them and we really had an epic time.
Since we started working on the Ningaloo Coast, we have been waiting to see the start of the Humpback whale season and in Late June they started to show up. Almost 1 month later and we are still seeing whales every time we look out to the ocean. I never took much notice of the saying ‘having a whale of a time' but when you are sitting back watching them breach out of the water, tail slap and just gently cruise past you really can see that they are having a great time. Our local surf break on the outer reef happens to be very close to where the whales cruise past, so we have been lucky enough to surf with whales breaching out of the water no more than 20 metres away.
As you have probably guessed, we really love our wildlife and the station does have a lot to offer in this respect. Lately we have been seeing the rare Australian Bustards in large groups almost every day, we managed to find a very large and slightly aggressive 3 metre black headed python (which we tried to pick up), a stunning Perentie and thousands of Budgies and Cockatiels flying in loud chattering flocks as they head south to Kalbarri for breeding season. We also are happy to announce the newest member of our Station family. His name is Billy and he is a cheeky Ibis who loves hanging around us while we work. Pumba is a bit unsure about Billy, but over time will need to accept that he is now part of the family.
The fishing has been a bit slow lately and there has been a bit too much swell to do as much fishing as I would like. But I did manage to catch a 1.2 metre Giant Herring off the beach. It swam under a ledge and I had to go swimming to get it in to shore. Definitely had the heart pumping for a minute there, as I thought I had hooked onto a reef shark and at one point it was pulling me out to sea while the line was tangled around my arm. We have also been dining on Spanish mackerel thanks to generous campers with boats. As most of you would know it has recently been school holidays, so we have been very busy on the station with tourism. We have been lucky enough to meet some bloody awesome peeps and it has been sad to see them leave, while we now enter quiet season and are forced to sit in our spa alone, with nothing but our tears to keep us warm (oh and the artesian water). Camille has been busy trying to keep up with the demand for her surf jewellery over the school holidays and has just ordered some new charms from Canada. She has been doing so well that it has paid for some of our Whale Shark Tours and a fresh new hair cut for Camille. I, however still have the same old festering mess of hair which is now almost down to my shoulders.
Just recently we have been lucky enough to meet a great couple, Jo and Mike, who ended up here for longer than they intended due to Mike being a diesel mechanic. So needless to say, he is now a very busy man working on a never-ending list of broken machinery. On our last day off they took us out for a spearfish on their boat and they also have this amazing bit of gear called a Sea Bob, which is best described as an underwater jet ski, which scoots along at up to 22km/h under water.
Until next time we wish you guys all the best. Much love Jamie, Camille, Pumbaaaah and Billy
