The grandeur of Ningaloo

I roll out of my twelve dollar sleeping bag, casting an eye on the chalky remains of last night’s fire that had warmed the tea we drank out of old jam jars, and baked the damper we made with ocean-washed hands, before drizzling in honey and eating straight from the stick. The boys are still asleep on their white-sand mattresses and rolled-up sarong pillows as I wander, mask and snorkel in hand, toward the tepid Western waves of the Indian Ocean. My feet explore the pleasurably milky ocean floor and at once i’m steeped in perfection, the delights of Ningaloo Reef just thirty metres from shore. On the surface I float for as long as I desire, beneath me a plethora of bright, unknown wonder. I explore vast expanses of lively-hued but enigmatic soft and hard corals, schools of red and blue fish shoot and flash by, a silver sting ray seems to sneer at me from below and as I place my hand on the thick shell of a magnificently languid old turtle, I cannot help but revere him.

Walking back along the shore with an unprecedented euphoria, I regrettably spot the unnatural remains of the travelers before me. By the time I have reached our tired and dusty four-door Suzuki I have collected a size-six reef shoe, a green toothbrush, four plastic water bottles, a metre of fishing line and the mouthpieces of two snorkels. Loading it into the garbage bag in our trunk adding to the rubbish I have collected each day, there is a hint of satisfaction in the knowledge it won’t find its way into the reef, smothering and suffocating the glorious underwater ecosystem.

Returning to the beach my skin accepts the warm Western sun, the sultry languor stealing over me. When the boys wake up we will start the fourteen-hour drive back to the city. The buildings will become denser, the traffic heavier and the passing driver’s raised-finger ‘G’days’ will become less and less frequent. Before we know it we will be off the open road, back at university, daydreaming of Ningaloo.