Exmouth

Apr. 19-26

Suzie:
Exmouth was our home base for the next week, and we did several day trips from there to various beaches and snorkelling spots along the Ningaloo Reef.  We rented a spacious 3 bedroom villa for the week, which gave us lots of space to ourselves.  It also had a full kitchen and laundry, which was nice because we had used up most of our clean clothes.  


We quickly settled into a daily routine of getting up early, tossing all our gear into the boot of the car, and heading over to the Ningaloo Reef. We would pick out a new beach each day, snorkel and swim for 2 or 3 hours, and possibly drive to a second beach. There we'd snorkel a little more to see what other creatures Noah could add to his list of 'Animals seen in Australia'.  Then we'd eat our picnic lunch, and laze around in the sun until it became to hot to bare. Finally, Wayne would drive his sleeping family, exhausted from the swimming and heat, back to the condo where we all crashed for an hour. Each evening was the same: the kids would watch cartoons or play video games, while the adults would have a cold drink, and read before preparing dinner.  The day would end with card games and a movie. The kids are becoming talented card players, grasping the concept of new games and then beating their parents. Good fun!

Our Exmouth home.
Unfortunately, we waited until the last day to take a picture when it was overcast and rainy.
It was HOT and sunny every day before this photo.

Some down time watching TV in the villa.
Notice that Noah is almost as tall as his Mom now.

Noah saving Ellise form the resident whale shark.

This is to make all you Canadians feel good about your gas prices.

Exmouth was established back in the '60's when the Australian Government made a deal with the American's to share some land and allow an American Naval Base to be built.  Although not occupied by the Americans anymore, it is still operational as a submarine communication centre. Sorry to bore anyone here, but I love this science stuff. There are only 5 bases in the world that provide this super low frequency fm radio wave that can travel to the deepest parts of the oceans. It is similar to the frequency that whales use to communicate, and it allows the Navy to keep in touch with their subs anywhere in the world. Eventually some of the soldiers bunks were moved off the base and the town of Exmouth was born in 1968. It's essentially the youngest town in all of Australia. It boasts a school, a hospital, a church, several businesses and restaurants, dozens of places to stay ranging from 4 stars to zero, and even has 2 grocery stores (both right next to each other). This town is the real deal!  Even though there is only 2,200 local residents, during the school holidays it explodes into a thriving metropolis of 6,000. 

Anyhow, enough of the history lesson. We were lucky enough to see a lot while out on the water: hundreds of colourful fish, including all the stars of Finding Nemo; angelfish, butterfly fish, emperor fish, parrot fish, blowfish, and on and on... Plus sea turtles, dolphins, octopus, sea stars, giant clams, and sting rays, one bigger than Wayne! The highlight of our trip though was swimming with Whale Sharks! We shelled out some major dough to spend a day on a boat (luckily a really nice boat with all the luxuries) and they dropped us in the water just in front of where the Whale Sharks are swimming by so that we could swim along with them. They usually use planes to spot the whale sharks from above, and radio down to the captains of the boats, but we kept running into them wherever we went.  The coral had spawned the day before which makes food plentiful, and attracts them to this area every year. We swam with 6 different sharks that day and loved it. FYI whale sharks are the biggest fish in the ocean ranging from 3m to 12m long, are very slow moving and docile creatures. But they ARE in the shark family. That freaked out Ellise, well all of us really! But we all jumped in and it wasn't scary at all. Thankfully a few days earlier, we ran into the Thompson Family in Denham, another exchange family from Niagara Falls. They were driving by us and shouted out the window "Hey, Fetters!" That's always a funny experience when we're so far from home, and you bump into someone you know. What are the chances! Anyway, we all ended up playing cards that night at our little motel room and having a blast! They had just swam with the Whale Sharks the day before, and their two daughters told us all about it.  This helped put Ellise's fears to rest. Whew! After the jelly fish stinging her in Jurien Bay, we were getting really nervous that she wasn't going to get back in the water. We paid well over a thousand bucks for this experience, and we would have felt bad having to throw her over board.

Just like my Aussie co-workers described, it is spectacular! It is not as well know as The Great Barrier Reef, because it is too hard to get to, in a remote area of the north west coast. Flights are a fortune, and driving here is long and time consuming, not to mention the price of gas. Plus, accommodations are limited and book up fast. While here, we were told that these little towns can't grow much more because there is no natural water source. It has to be desalinated from the ocean. Water is very precious here and important for survival in the heat.  Our exchange partners warned us about all of this over a year ago and told us we'd need to book it from Canada in 2013. So we did, and they were right. Thanks Ryan and Tammy! We loved it!  And even though we did and saw a lot, it was still a very relaxing vacation.

The following blogs will mainly be photos of the beaches we visited, and the marine life we saw.

By the way, a special thanks goes out to Kevin Nichol who got the GoPro for the Scout popcorn fundraiser that Noah won.  It was awesome to have on this trip!  We can't wait to show you the underwater video footage that we shot with it.