Blog 7/ Week 7

Day 42: We have been looking forward to this week and day 1 didn’t disappoint. We loved the little town of Exmouth. Not only because tigylily was half price at the surfshop haha but seriously such a cute little town with a bloody good bakery and an awesome brewery. What more to you need! We cooked an amazing beef slow cooker all day. Then ‘accidentally’ ended up enjoying pints a little too much at Froth Brewery and ditching the slow cooker for a burger and Haloumi chips! Can you tell we havnt been around civilisation for awhile!
Day 43: We arrived at THE most amazing campground. Osprey bay National Park! Mind you on THE best site in the place for a ridiculous $28/night. Had people asking us how we scored ourselves the site for a week. Pays to get up at 3am 180 days in advance to book it, chris (not me) that is. Little hint for any of you thinking of heading this way.
Spent the afternoon on the SUP and the kids practicing their snorkelling skills ready for the whale shark swim. So many birds, and different birds to NSW. The kids were hand feeding ‘little corellas’ in the afternoons. So another thing I never thought I’d be saying I was doing was researching the different birds in our ‘field guide to the birds of Australia’ book. Nicole butler the new bird expert… hahaha.
Day 44: We explored the 3km round trip of Mandu mandu gorge (yes another gorge but this one has views of the ocean), still not sick of them. Spent the afternoon stand up paddle boarding and snorkelling with the turtles (right out the front of our caravan might I add). There was also a dugong spotted. Loving the underwater go pro footage. My friend, mr turtle, check him out in the slideshow!!
Day 45: Swimming with whale sharks! Wow what an experience. One of the most amazing things I have ever done and definitely the best thing we have ever done as a family. The kids were so brave. Once the sea plane spots the sharks you have to be ready to jump off the back of the boat and swim pretty quickly to keep up with them. Harry did every jump through the day and even powered through a stitch to be able to jump at every single whale shark spotting.
To top the day off we saw humpback whales breaching, a tiger shark, and manta rays. We also got to snorkel over the bommies out the back of the reef at turquoise bay (because the weather allowed as we had a cracker day) with a reef shark, turtles and some beautiful fish. We also thought ‘flying fish’ were the same as ‘drop bears’ however we saw first hand flying fish are real and totally awesome haha. In bed at 7:45 with some sea legs and nausea but all very worth it!
Day 46: trip in town to get some water and do some work. It’s like Christmas when you have a touch of 4g so I can do my work emails. Then we spent the afternoon at Wobiri beach so Harry could have a bodyboard. I caught my first 2 waves on a SUP. Ok maybe it might be classed as 1 1/2 waves because when the girl next to me started cheering me on I got a little excited and fell off! 🤣🙈. Then back to that terrible spot back at Osprey Bay campground for sunset and a drink to celebrate my first wave. Because you totally need an excuse for a drink each night 🍷.
Day 47: we headed for a morning walk to Yardie creek gorge. Spotted some rock wallabies.
Day 48: chilled around osprey bay campground. Our first down day not doing much at all.
Day 49: We had been recommended snorkelling at the ‘oyster stacks’ which was only 10 minutes from camp. You can only do this mid-high tide. Arhhhh so amazing what you can see only metres from the shore. Harry saw a sting ray and matilda and I saw hundreds of colourful fish you would never even know existed. Headed back to the awesome Wobiri beach for the afternoon. Chris caught some waves on the SUP, and let me tell you it wasn’t pretty, but he caught some and I can hear all of his surfer mates laughing from here. Harry is obsessed with the surf and his feet won’t hit the sand all day because he won’t risk us saying we are going to leave soon. So I had to promise him we weren’t going to leave so he would come and have something to eat!
We have had an incredible week, next blog will include Coral Bay & Waroora station! Praying it stays swimmers weather for us for a little while longer as we head south. Love this slide show this week, check it out.