Exmouth to Sharks Bay via Coral Bay and the Blowholes

Above is a lovely green turtle that we saw on a diving/snorkel with manta rays trip at Coral Bay.
The diving was fantastic and very relaxing. We got the opportunity to snorkel 3 times with a 4 metre manta ray - wow! The rays come in about once a month to a 'cleaning station' to be cleaned by the fishes. We bought a cheap underwater camera so when we get the photos developed (yes, it's film) we will put some on the blog.

After leaving Coral Bay we drove to a free site right on the beach just north of Carnarvon. The snorkelling their was awesome. The coral was 6 inches below the water and right next to the beach and there was no-one else in the water.

They also had blowholes - holes that the waves crash into and the water is forced up through. Quite spectacular at sunset.

We left the Blowholes and drove to Shark Bay. These are stromatolites - the largest and oldest living organisms. They resemble the oldest and simplest forms of life on earth around 3.5 billion years ago.

We also stopped at Eagle Bluff lookout and saw about 2 dozen sharks in the shallows. I can understand why the area is called Shark Bay. There has not been a shark attack here for 0ver 200 years though.

Shark Bay is famous for the dolphin feeding at Monkey Mia. They've been feeding the dolphins here since the 60's. They come so close it's wonderful.



This is Nicky, the one that I was lucky enough to feed.


One the way back to the campsite this very cute echidna crossed the road in front of us. They are normally nocturnal so we were lucky to see him.


We also went on another wonderful boat trip to hopefully see Dugongs (sea cows) as 8% of the worlds population of them live here. Here is Nic looking very stressed as usual!

Here's me helping to put up a sail.

Hurray we got to see loads of dugongs, mostly Mum's with calfs. They are so cute.



Now we head to Kalbarri and we should be in Perth in about a week.