Ningaloo

Around Two million years ago our ancestors were driven from their home in the sea, and onto crappy mud flats in an effort to escape persecution and consumption by large predatory fish.

 It has been 2 million years in the making, but vengeance has finally come, in the form of a mask, flippers and a speargun.

 And that pretty much sums up the trip so far...

 After Karratha, which was a bit of a depressing town, we headed to Dampier, which was really nice, albeit dead. But we got to see the statue of red dog.

 Dampier Mall - Bustling

 Dampier Port - Very Industrial, but nice in its own way

 Red Dog

 After Dampier we headed down the coast and into the Cape Range national park to freedive and snorkel the ningaloo reef.

 This was incredible. The first day there I didn't head all the way out to the outer reef, and just snorkelled the inner reef, which was pretty cool. Then the second day we headed over to one of the suggested shore snorkels and went to the oyster stacks, which was nothing too exciting. We also did the yardie creek gorge walk which was nice.

 After that I swam out to the outer reef, (It was too windy for the kayak), and It was pretty awesome. I saw the usual sea turtles and reef fish. But also saw a massive wahoo which I've never seen before (but didn't come close enough for a photo) and a lot of reef sharks and trevallies.

 The next day Rachael came for the swim out and we got some good photos on the outer reef, but we kept paddling out and couldn't manage to find where the reef drops off into the ocean (which is where you normally see the best sea life, and where we would find manta rays).

 After doing the obligatory snorkelling it was time to go spearfishing. They are pretty strict on spearfishing on the ningaloo reef as you can imagine, and so I had to take the bike about 20K's down rough road, then push it under a farm fence and then take it a few K's up a beach to get to some reef outside the no spearfishing zone.

 I think its a bit of a double standard that line fishermen can blindly fish along the reef killing their bycatch by hook injuries or from barotrauma, and meanwhile I've got to go to all this trouble... It was worth it though in the end. The reef I swam out to was amazing, after swimming for ages out over only about a foot depth of water over the coral it opened out into about 15-20 metres of steep drop off, and the sea was teaming with fish.

 I hung out there as long as I could. There were huge spanish mackerals swimming right up next to me and big gold trevallies, barracuda's, turtles, rays and all sorts of reef fish coming up. I managed to shoot 6 trevallies in total, but lost two of them to the reef. The whole time I was out there I was followed by big sand bar sharks (I think), and whenever I shot a fish they would dart over and eat it off the spear (In just one bite). Or while I was trying to fend off the shark trying to steal the fish I'd just shot another would come up behind me and try and get the fish off the float line. It was nerve wracking.

 I had to shoot two sharks (non-fatally) over the course of the day just to keep them away. A big queensland grouper also came up and swallowed my entire float, line and fish and nearly dragged me under. This happened twice, and my float and line is pretty ragged now... Still, it was a very cool day.

 It was a bit too much fun and I stayed out too long and didn't get back till dark, which had Rachael pretty worried...  But it was worth it.

 After Cape Range National Park I headed out off the northern end of the cape for some more spearfishing (over a Rocky reef this time with no coral)  You could hear the whales singing whilst swimming out which was pleasant and there were the usual Barracuda's and Tuskfish, along with a lot of reef sharks. It was a good day, but it was a bit murky.

 I'd just got stung by a blue bottle and was going to head back in when I saw what I thought was a white and black shark swimming across from me, but it was moving really weird. Then I realized it was the flipper of a Huge humpback whale which emerged out of the murk and swallowed a school of bait fish I'd been following. It was incredible, It was very fast, and you could feel the water moving as it swam through trying to swallow all the fish at once. It was definitely one of the most amazing experiences I've ever had.

 But no camera...

 Instead though here are about 1000 photo's of fish. This is just an amalgamation of Ningaloo reef in general, we stayed at cape range national park and at Waroora station (A sheep station on the coastline on the south end of ningaloo reef)

  Harassing the wildlife at Ningaloo Reef  - I think that's a young hawkesbill turtle

 Harassing more wildlife at Ningaloo Reef - Not sure what sort of Ray that one was. It was covered in little spines, which I've never seen before

 Hawks Nest - This was taken right next to our camp spot at Waroora Station at the southern end of ningaloo reef (outside of cape range national park). This Hawke was coming back with lizards every arvo. It was a great spot out there, maybe even better than cape range national park

 Flounder - These are weird fish, kind of half evolved from a regular fish so that their other eye has drifted to the other side of their head. Their mouth is still crooked though. Really weird looking.

 Whirlwind seen while driving south - There were a few of these at once which were very cool to watch. Was a bit worrying driving through them though

 Blue Fish - No idea what these are

 Clarkes Anenomefish - Seen everywhere

Damselfish  - not sure what type

Some other Damselfish

 Some Emu's in Cape Range National Park. - The park was very barren, but it was full of wildlife, there were a lot of Kangaroos and more Emu's than I've seen anywhere

 Grey Nomads With a Roo

 Furry Legged Hermit Crab

How to spot rock lobsters - Look out for anything which looks like a stick or a piece of string poking out from under a rock.

 Ornate Painted Crayfish, easily spotted using the above technique.

 Great White Shark - (Actually just a reef shark, but a blurry photo)

Unknown shark - Notice the juvenile golden trevally hiding around it's fins. (smart fish). He was a bit of a dude this shark, and was enjoying pats from Me and Rachael

Lined Soapfish - Seen everywhere

 

Male Black Boxfish

Weird fish

Ningaloo Reef

Posing with the weird shark

 Angry shrimp

 A days spearfishing

 Hawkesbill Turtle

Yardie Creek Gorge

 Adult False eye grubfish

 Resident Kangaroo - This Kangaroo seemed pretty friendly at first until we started eating some apples in front of it, then it got up on its tail and started growling at us and getting aggressive. It doesn't seem very big in this photo, but it was when it stood up, and had very sharp claws (It clawed my hand). I threw my weight belt at it (with four lead weights on it) and it didn't even flinch at it. They are tough animals. Rachael threw her thong at it after that, and it got distracted by the green thong and tried to eat it. That let us get inside. What a jerk...

 Some kind of cat shark. Maybe even a new species, the book I've got doesn't have any cat sharks listed for WA. I'm naming it Shanks' ornate CatShark.

 Eagle Ray from Behind

Front Shot of an Eagle Ray. This was a big ray, and very cool to swim with.

I guess that's all, we've headed down to Carnarvon now, and finally have internet reception so can update the blog.

  Tomorrow we're heading out to the blowholes which should be pretty cool.

As far as lemon news is concerned we got a flat tyre a while back (no idea how long ago, might have been since Darwin...), I just noticed the rear right wheel needed a bit of air in it, and when I went to pump it up it was full, but bulging...

 This was because the other right tyre was completely blown with no inner tube left in it... It's hard to tell when you've got four rear wheels, luckily we picked it up before a long drive. (Not cheap to replace though....)

 Also we've installed the new solar regulator (which is way cool), and everything else is great. The fridge is loving the cooler weather, and we are too really, although the water's a bit cold.. I still have no idea how to fix the gas tank gauge.... We've picked up the new bearing kit for the bike too, and I'll put that in tomorrow.