Exmouth is where the first part of our WA trip ends. It was a highlight for us as we were joined by our daughter Lisa, her husband Blake and our grandchildren Jaxon and Iliana! 
Driving along the Northwest Cape to Exmouth the features standing out are huge low frequency communication towers of the Naval Base in Learmonth. Built and used by the US Navy for communication with submarines, they are still part of national and international security, largely financed and maintained by the USA. In Learmonth is also the airport where our family would arrive a day later.
While Austin and I had a wonderful time with our grandchildren, learned new songs from Ili and marvelled at Jaxon's reading capability, Lisa and Blake took part in a scuba dive from the naval pier within the Learmonth base. Prior to the dive, they had to go through strictest security checks but came back full of interesting facts about the base and impressions of the vast array of marine life they had seen. 
Exploring the peninsula and the coast of the Ningaloo Reef we found that there is much more than first meets the eye.
The beautiful beaches of the west coast with their perfect white sand continued and areas like Turquoise Bay were only a few metres swim away from the reef. Even Jaxon had a go at snorkelling, but it was easier for the children to experience the multitude of coral, clams, nudibranchs and tropical fish from a glass bottom boat. 
We all learned more about the local marine life in the Exmouth Discovery Centre, but the greatest fun for Jaxon and Ili was to draw and decorate their own fish, which was then magically released into a digital fish tank. Our biggest kid, Austin, had to take it of course a step further, by writing “Jaxon is a poo” on his fish. But Jaxon was quick to retaliate with “Opi is smelly”! Here is hoping this doesn’t appear in Jaxon's travel journal he was writing for school!
While we were having fun in the Discovery Centre, Blake was “hard at work” on a fishing trip. And I have to say, he provided for two family dinners, coming back with a huge bag full of fish! I liked especially the fish tacos with his expertly filleted fish - the best I ever had and only matched by Lisa’s chicken skillet!
Between fun at the beaches, the Exmouth Water Spray Park and the Caravan parks pool we discovered some of the inland wilderness. 10 million years ago the forces of nature caused a plateau of limestone to emerge out of the sea water, and as it was pushed up it cracked creating several gorges.
Only one of them, the Yardie Creek Gorge, closed off by a sand bank, contains water. Ever so often a king tide breaches the sandbank and has fresh salt water flowing in which is important for the survival of the resident rays, mullets, crabs and oysters. 
The cavernous rock faces covered with iron oxide and calcium are the living quarters for the little rock wallabies. They also have ideal ledges for osprey nests.
Although there were still some pesky flies around on some days, Jaxon and Iliana got quickly used to it and to the fact that now and then a few emus would strut past their cabin or cross the main road. 
The highlight for Austin, Lisa and Blake was the day they spent snorkelling with the whale sharks! 
They were lucky to have a calm, beautiful day with great visibility and were spoilt with long snorkel and swim times around these mammoth creatures. In between swims, they had to endure eating fresh prawns, salads etc.
The kids and myself were quite happy just hanging around the playgrounds, making friends with 5 year old Tilly from a neighbouring cabin and lunching on ham and cheese wraps and three minute noodles.
Yesterday we sadly had to say good bye to Lisa and family. We are missing them already! Instead of lovely renditions of “Baa Baa Black sheep” and “…part of the gum tree family” we have the boom boom from this weekends Whale Shark Festival to content with.
For more photos of the Whale Shark dive at Ningaloo, click below:
Whale Shark Dive Ningaloo WA
The next three days will be busy with cleaning, washing and getting the caravan ready for storage before our departure to Europe.
If you want to follow us there, check in again in a week or so on our “Travelling the canals and rivers of Europe" blog.
