Dolphins

I think my sister is the luckiest girl on this side of the planet. She got to swim with the whale sharks as well as swimming with the dolphins in the same week!
It takes a little while for the crew to locate the dolphins and some tourists are getting restless, the crew know what they're doing and find a small pod of 5 dolphins willing to play.

These are the bottle nose dolphins (although my sister calls them bottle neck dollies). They're big beasts (300kgs) and very playful. It seems they're interested in Emmanuelle as they keep on sending echo's in her general direction, more precisely her belly. Are they interested in our son? It certainly seems that way.

The bottle nose dolphins here in Rockhampton have developed a rather unique tactic to get their feed of fish. They follow giant bull rays (look at the proportion against the dolphins and you'll get an idea of how big they are) and catch all fish fleeing out of the ray's way. They even turn the rays upside down to steal their catch!

We are very fortunate to this happen in real life. It is very unique behaviour. We see the dolphins follow the rays very closely to catch any fish trying to get away. How lucky are we?!

Fishing

Coming back from the whale sharks and saw pleasure boats returning with their catch. Giant Spanish Mackerel, snapper, bonito's, even tuna. Mhuhuhawhahaaa... I've rented a boat that can go 10 kms offshore, so there's got to be a Marlin with my name on it out there.

Well... it turns out that after a day of fishing small fish, I smell of fish and bad luck because I got not a single hit on any of my 50 dollar lures.

We had a good day, although Emma wasn't feeling too well, we all caught some fish, chased some dolphins and enjoyed the boat.

Whale Sharks

Today we're swimming with the sharks. Not the small 'great white shark', the puny hammerheads or the 3 meter lemon shark I saw while snorkelling yesterday, but with the Whale Shark, the biggest fish in the ocean. The biggest reach 18 meters in length; by comparison, an adult humpback whale reaches 16 meters. In Exmouth the population is mainly comprised of young males.

It works like this: a spotter plane finds the behemoths, the boat manoeuvres in front of it. Lots of panic, yells, pushing and shoving and we're all in the water. Our team: team Alan gets the best views of the two Leviathans cruising at a speed one can just follow if swimming flat out. We repeat this until no one can walk anymore.

My wife, being 6 months pregnant, outswam everybody. She must be the fastest whale shark chaser on this side of the planet! A rude awakening for those who couldn't keep up with her.

My sister finds herself right in the path of the colossus who is clearly used to things getting out of his way. Yrjan swims for her life and misses the giant by mere inches. How’s that of an adrenaline shot.

Coral Bay

About a 140 kms south of Exmouth lays the touristic township of Coral Bay. The camping grounds, 2 hotels and few shops are built next to; you've guessed it: a coral bay.

Coral bay is like a magnet that pulls you in and doesn't want to let go. It makes you sleepy, very lazy and takes away any reason to have to do anything. The average speed of people walking on the beach is about 300m an hour. The most excitement
you'll see here is when people crawl to the water to refresh themselves and then crawl back again to the towels to lay down. If easygoing was a place, it'd be coral bay. Snorkelling here is of course fantastic.

The way North

In Perth we pick up our giant camper, it's a 6 berth with everything (toaster, microwave, television, DVD... you name it!). We've got a long way to go so we depart asap... destination: North.

We stop along the way at the Pinnacles, a park dedicated to weird shaped rocks. It turns out the first day of rain of a 6 month draught is today... the pinnacles are nice, the road is very, very quiet. I’d seen empty landscapes in Namibia, but this beats all. Not a single tree is higher than 3 meters.

Every now and again we see a road train it's a truck followed by 4 or 5 combinations doing 110 kph quickly dubbed ‘killer trucks’ by my sister. And for a good reason: Kangaroos, being cuddly animals, like to hug big, shiny, fast moving things. Usually this doesn't end well for the affectionate animal. The hug lasts for about a second followed by a medium range flight onto the side of the road... Freddy Mercury said it best: 'another bites the dust'.
On our way north we dodge sheep, birds, mice, kangaroos, goats and cows.