20240528 - 20240531 - Exmouth Whale Shark Swim

 20240538 - Exmouth.  It's finally here the day we get to swim with the whale sharks.  We are both up early ready to go.  

I know I may have been a bit cocky about me being a little bit faster than Dave, telling Dave when we've been out in the wilderness in Canada and the States that I didn't need to be faster than the bear I just needed to beat him - which on land I thought I had him covered.  

Just before we hopped into the Indian Ocean 5k off shore Dave reminded me he is faster in the water and just needs to swim faster than me. OH!

Our meeting point for the tour bus is just outside our caravan park - next to a sculpture of a whale shark - hopefully we get to see more than this one.  

It was nice to be early for the bus.  I was just getting so excited I couldn't stand still.  Of course in usual Elford style we had forgotten Dave's sunglasses - so Dave needed to go back and get them. We arrive at the jetty and it's not long before our tender arrives and takes us out to our boat.  Now I'm getting really excited.  We are all given our briefing and divided into two groups - we are in group 1, thank goodness I needed to get in the water and pee.

Wow, wow, wow - I can not explain how amazing it was, it was even more exhilarating than I had thought. To swim along with this majestic animals is something I will never forget.  We were told that we could as close to 3 meters to the side and 4 meters from the back.  Of course, I did receive a tap on the shoulder to say I was getting too close.  I just got so carried away...  Dave nearly got swallowed by one big sucker as it made a left turn into him.  (Lucky he can move fast in the water.)

Exmouth is such an amazing little town - restaurants cafes, breweries, pubs - only thing missing for me is my family and friends - oh Poker Machines would not go astray either.  This sure is a happy place for Dave (it does have a golf course).  We spent a wonderful week here, Dave spent time fixing a few things on the RV.  The heater is not working. (Lesson: Don't celebrate too early...)  Dave has ordered some parts to be sent to Geraldton so we should be able to get it going by then.  (It is strange to be in a climate you need a heater from 4am to 7am.  Then you need air-conditioning from 1pm to 7pm.)  

When I opened the motorhome door this morning, I was greeted by  these two little visitors g - I certainly did jump, as I was not expecting this.  Once I saw that they were Emu's, of course I wanted to pat them, but Dave told me I would be a bloody idiot to try and reminded me of their feet.

20240521 - 20240527 - Broome - Exmouth

 

20240521 - 20240523 – Broome. The Griswold’s (or as Moose is calling us the Clampett’s) have arrived in Broome and what a nice surprise Broome was – lots of restaurants and cafes.  We stayed at an RV Park in Cable Beach.  Once settled in we went to a few shops.  This weather is really drying out my skin – I need more body moisturiser, badly.  I had bought some ‘moisturiser’ from Coles and was applying it very heavily onto my body.  Mmm – maybe my skin isn’t as dry as I thought, it wasn’t’ soaking in at all.  Then it clicked, this time I read the label, with my glasses on – yep, I had bought a very moisturising body WASH for dry skin and now I was lathered in it. 

The next day we went to Gantheaume Point which was a great little place to visit, the colour of the rocks against the beautiful blue water was amazing.

Then we headed onto Cable Beach ready to watch the sunset.  Unlike us, we were very early and we had 3 hours to wait until the sunset.  To kill a bit of time we went for a stroll along the beach.  We would have loved to go for a swim but apparently the Irukandji jellyfish could still be around, so we just had a little paddle.  We ran into a lot of characters along the way, one of whom I had a bit of chat with – he was a local.  I was talking about the supply of alcohol and having to provide ID which is scanned into the system along with how much alcohol you have purchased – there is a daily limit which didn’t seem too much to me and I’m sure to a lot of my friends (only two bottles of wine).  You can’t go from one BottleO to another as they are all using the same system.  I do believe that if you are a tourist travelling through you can buy a little bit more but you need to fill in a form. If you are having a party you need to fill in a form 72 hours prior and get approval.  I love hearing all the little trivia – he also told me that if there is a murder or suicide within the town that all the BottleO shops are immediately shut.  He does travel a bit for work and he was telling me that when he visits other little towns / communities that some of them only sell very light beer.  He said he takes his own beer up – but that it is an offence to have more than 2 cartons of beer on you. 

We head back to our little car and set up with our beer and champagne and some nibbles ready to watch this sunset.  There were hundreds of cars on the beach waiting, along with motorbikes, caravans, little 2WD cars like Kia Rio etc.  The sunset was spectacular, probably one of the best I have ever seen – the sun was an amazing colour that I couldn’t explain, it had touches of Red, Orange and Pink – the photos don’t do it justice.

 

20240523 – 20240525 – Broome to Exmouth.  Whilst driving to Exmouth I did get to witness mustering for a really large number of cattle with a helicopter and two Dune Buggy’s, it was interesting to watch.  We stayed overnight in another lovely free rest area.  After driving most of the day, Dave is going to try and fix the diesel heater, again.  He phoned Tony who had nothing for him, so he then phoned the ever-reliable Andy Jackson, they both worked out that it was probably a fuel problem.  Dave has also worked out that his first problem was letting Tony do some work on it.  He soon realises that Tony has put electrical tape around the tank fittings – mmm what was he thinking, I’m surprised he hadn’t used his normal tool – gaffer tape.  Dave is honing up on his Mr fix it skills – thank goodness for the help of Tony, friends and YouTube.  He is doing a great job.

On the drive down to Exmouth, we stop and fill up with fuel.  We were on highway 1.  We have some lunch and when we get back in the motorhome, I let Dave navigate his way out of the Service Station, I’ve got my head down looking for a place to stay the night – my mistake.  Dave is driving for about 5 minutes and I look up – I really feel as if I’m going the wrong way.  I look at the navigation system and it is still trying to work out our route, Dave did tell me it did say to turn right, mmm.  Yep, you guessed it, we exited from a different driveway that we came in on, and we are now on a different road – it certainly wasn’t highway 1.  I’m guessing the navigation system had us exiting from the same driveway we came in on and yes, a right turn would have taken us back to the highway.  This did bring back some memories for when we were travelling in Canada on highway 1 - I was so tired, I let Dave know that I was going to take a quick nap and all he needed to do was stay on highway 1.  After about 15 mins I wake up to hear the USA/Canadian border guard asking a series of questions.  Somehow, he had managed to get us off the Canadian highway 1 and trying to cross into the US.

We pull into another great rest area for another overnight stay – Dave decides that he is going to level the motorhome.  Now this was not his best work.  First of all, he went up the ramp and then reversed back a bit and the ramp got stuck.  Next attempt we had success – well sort of, the ramp was in place, but when I went inside all my apples and oranges had rolled off the table – we were nowhere near level, but that’s the way it stayed for the night.

Dave must be getting excited to get to Exmouth, where we will be doing the Whale Shark swim, he’s travelling at the speed limit – woohoo.

20240525 – 20240526 – Exmouth.  We made it.  It was so great to see the water, which is just amazing.  Australia really does have some of the best beaches in the world. The town is really quaint as well.  Its really busy and apparently peak season isn't until July.  Motorhomes first drive on the beach.

Our first morning we decide to go into Cape Range National Park to do a bit of snorkelling and swimming.  The advice was to go to the Oyster Stacks, so we packed our snorkelling gear and some little refreshments and off we went.  When we were driving Dave says to me ‘lets just get to the Oyster Stacks and we can have a look around on the way back’.  Ten minutes later we diverted to a track to try and check out the beaches, don’t know what happened to the plan.  Dave looked at me and asked if we should try getting up the hill - of course I said yes, so it was a team effort.  We could not of picked a worse track.  All the other tracks seem to be hard – not this one, there was a hill with soft sand.  Yep, you guessed it we got bogged – arghhh.  So, Dave starts shovelling.  Of course, it is only one lane and you can’t go around us.  Luckily a very fit young man (nice on the eyes) is trying to get out and ends up helping us out by giving us push. He really didn’t have much of an option. I would of loved to give them had - but with my shoulder and all, I just stood back and watched.

Bit late now to check the track...

Once we got out we decide to go back to the original plan and head straight for the Oyster Stacks.  It was absolutely stunning, and I did need to cool off.  Dave did say that it was some of the best snorkelling he has ever done.  There were so many fish and they were big.  After this we headed onto Turquoise Bay, what a beautiful bay.

On our second morning we took it easy and did a few things around the motorhome before packing up to go for another swim, we our taking it easy today because tomorrow is our big day, we are swimming with the whale sharks - 🤞.  Whilst I was inside cleaning, I was wondering why Dave was sitting outside not saying much.  He later told me he was just admiring the park.  There are a lot of young people in their combies and 4wd's here. Now the toilets are at least 100 metres away, so some of the young ladies decide its just as easy to strip off and get changed outside their vehicles - he was a happy man.

I’ve learnt:

That after two days of talking even I was sick of hearing my own voice, and Dave and I had run out of things to talk about.  Now whilst I could turn my taking out loud voice off – I had no chance of turning off my little inside voice – gosh even I annoy myself, to all my friends I apologise. 

I really don’t like the red dirt / dust it gets in every nook, cranny and orifice.

The largest road train we have seen had 100 wheels and we believe it was approx. 54meters in length.

The last 10km’s of driving for the day always feels like 100km.

It’s only 5 steps and an army role over the bed to get from my passenger’s seat to the toilet.

Some days my navigation is only required to get in and out of our rest area.  It’s a really hard job to navigate 500km on the same road – highway 1. (yes, I did write this before the little mishap at the Service Station)

Someone likes the bed all to himself, that little bit of space between his right arm and leg is where I sleep.

We get entertained by the smallest thing.  Since the flies have started coming around – we actually discussed flies and I looked up Wikipedia to read out aloud what they had on flies – riveting stuff.  We did find out that if there weren’t any flies there wouldn’t be any chocolate (so Simone Eames, think about that when you kill the fly).  This is because the only known pollinator of the cocoa plant that gives us chocolate is a tiny fly.  We do miss Wi-Fi and phone– some days we haven’t been able to access it at all.

I’ve actually started listening when he talks about fuel economy.

The only exercise I’ve gotten in the last couple of weeks, is when I need to squat to do a bush wee (I miss your car Peter Gwynne the step is just the right height).

You can never have enough Bushman’s insect repellent.  If it’s not the mosquitos and sandflies it’s just bloody flies.  I think it has become my new perfume.

For me Bras are optional, Dave thinks undies are optional and Dry Shampoo is a great invention.

How lucky we are.....

We are soooo excited for tomorrow - bring on those Whale Sharks...

20240506 - Mackay - Katherine

 

The day finally arrived.  We are off on our little trip. 

20240506 - Mackay to Charters Towers – Day 1 saw Dave finally get to drive the motorhome; he was in his element.  He did take his time adjusting to any speed over 80 even in 110 zone.  But at the end of day 1 he finally made it over 80.  He then treated me to a very classy overnight stay at a dirt pit of a truck stop.  It wasn’t anything like where he would stay with Tony. They seemed to always end up with some nice green grass beside a creek. Obviously, he wanted to impress Pretty Boy Tony (or as he is also known `the taker’) more than me.

 

20240507 - Charters Towers to Julia Creek - I could not wait to get out of the truck stop.  I did ask Dave if I could drive and he said maybe later – don’t know why.  After our little lunch stop ‘Driving Miss Daisy aka Dave’ finally let me in the driver’s seat.  For the first hour he was giving me directions left, right and centre.  He finally fell asleep, and I was left on my own to drive in peace.  Well once his eyes were closed 100km here we come.  He did wake up and noticed I was travelling at 105 – he was not happy; he didn’t fall asleep again the whole time I was driving. 

At least we got to stay in a lovely little caravan park, the temperature was 32 degrees so we decided we wanted power so we could run the air conditioner. The sunrise was beautiful. Unfortunately, we have discovered that our Aldi mobile phones etc don’t work very well out here.

 

20240508 – Julia Creek to Mount Isa.  Mmm I thought the truck stop was rough.  We arrived at our RV Park, which we have decided to stay 2 nights to clean up and stock up.  On arrival we were advised to make sure we lock everything up.  Then, as we were setting up Dave got chatting to our neighbour who advised that earlier in the morning the police had been called due to theft and that a couple of nights ago just at the corner next to us – there was a huge brawl, which apparently also had some shot guns involved.  Don’t think I will be walking around here by myself. 

After getting our chores down we headed into downtown Mt Isa to pick up a few things and do some grocery shopping – now that was an experience, of course the Big Fella heard there was a Bunnings open – so first stop Bunnings it is. Super Cheap next and then Coles, where I did notice that any form of aerosols including deodorants are under lock and key…  We went into the Telstra shop to try and work out some of our comms problems.  A gentleman (for Mt Isa) was talking to one of the staff members, then struck up a conversation with me, he was very polite and respectful.  In the middle of the conversation, he did advise that I had beautiful hair, some of the prettiest he had ever seen – don’t think there are a lot of pale skinned blondes in the Isa.  And yes, he may have been very drunk. Through our conversation he did find out I was a smoker, so he left the store and came back with a packet of cigarettes and he asked me to open them, (he did mention that his eye sight is very poor – that may explain the hair comment).  I opened the packet and then he told me to pick a cigarette out and to keep it – it was such a lovely gesture, but really.  Yes, Dave was sitting beside me.

In each of the stores that we went the staff provided excellent service.

20250510 – Mt Isa – Barkly Roadhouse.  We thought we would get away early, boy, were we wrong. As we were packing up, we had a problem with the water pump – so off to Bunnings.  After Dave got back from Bunnings Dave fixed the problem, however we were now behind by just over an hour, no dramas.  So off we go to get Fuel, we go into a Servo that accepts the Woolworths fuel discount, of course I need my phone to scan the voucher.  My phone was nowhere to be seen.  So, we searched the RV and Dave pulled out nearly everything in the Terios, as this was the last know place I had my phone, I literally walked from the car to the motorhome. We are now thinking that I left it on the roof of the Terios, so we retrace the drive back to the RV park to see if we could find it.  (Yes for all those people telling me to use find my phone – I tried many times, but it just wouldn’t work).  We did believe it was in the motorhome, but we certainly couldn’t find it and yes it was on silent and we did try ringing it between 10 -100 times.  We started on our way and then Dave suggested we pull over one more time and have another look.  Bingo – Davey found it; it was in the middle of one of the chairs that were up on Tony’s bunk.  Yep, you guessed it, I wasn’t very popular.  We are now delayed by nearly 2 ½ hours, Oopsie.

We finally left QLD and entered into Northern Territory.  The speed limit has increased to 130 kms per hour, don’t know why I got excited Driving Miss Daisy still has the cruise control still set at 90, something about fuel economy – all I heard was blah blah blah.

We made it to Barkly Homestead, which is in the middle of absolutely nowhere.  They run off generators and we were told that use 700 litres of fuel a day just to run the place. We arrived right as happy hour and the two singers were starting – well I couldn’t get there quick enough, needless to say Davey wasn’t in any great hurry.  I am trying to hurry him up a little bit, when I couldn’t find my phone again – arghhh.  I had left it at reception – what is going on?  Yep, not popular again.  We finally made it to happy hour in time for one shout of drinks - $10 for a full glass of decent wine and a stubby of beer, this stop just keeps on giving.  The singers were quite good and were playing a lot of great music, so we decided to stay for dinner, I had some of the best ribs I’ve ever eaten.  Then the Broncos were playing so we stayed for a few more drinks, which were so cheap, would have been rude not to partake in a beverage or two.  It was truly a great a little stay.

20240511 – Barkly Homestead to Katherine – It was actually a lit bit sad to leave, but we decided we didn’t really need another night, as Dave said I would only go back to the bar and restaurant, I didn’t see a problem with that. 

Dave must have had a good night – he has hit 100kph, woohoo, and I wasn’t even nagging, maybe that’s why.  We did have a tail wind.  He decided to give me another lesson on fuel consumption – again all I heard was blah blah blah.

20240512 – Elliott – Katherine via Mataranka.  On our way up to Katherine we stopped at Mataranka to go for a swim in the thermal pools.  I was in heaven – it was just like one big massive bath; temperature was a lovely 34 degrees.  This was way to hot for the Big Fella, he wasn’t impressed at all – bugger.  Note:  We won’t be stopping at any of the other Thermal Pools.  So onto Katherine.

We arrived into Katherine and we both felt a little bit safer here than Mt Isa.  A few things to note; Speed Limit on highways 130kph, you can have an alcoholic drink whilst driving your car, but you do need to be under the alcohol driving limit.  To go into a Bottle-O you first need to show your id to a Police Officer at the front and answer his questions, some of which are, what are you buying, where do you plan to drink it, who are you buying it for etc.  Then when you purchase at the counter you need to show your id again, they then take a photograph and register it into the system.

Today we headed into Nitmiluk (Katherine) National Park to begin our little hike to

20240513 – Katherine.  Edith Falls – we saw that the track was a grade level 3 – apparently moderate.  We starting climbing and to be honest it felt like we were climbing the Kangaroo Point stairs at least 10 times.  Halfway up the climb the Big Fella thinks he might have left the keys in the car; this has happened before but not only left the keys in the car – he also left the car running.  He is getting to used to the keyless Tesla.  Luckily the keys were tucked away nice and safe in the backpack. After a few breather stops on the way up we finally made – and yes it was worthwhile, and we did need the well earned swim.  I’d hate to think what they would call difficult.  After Edith Falls, we go onto the Gorge, now this was a nice little walk – and well worth with it.  So overall we had a great day.

20240514 – Katherine – Katherine.  We got on the road fairly early (well early for the Elford’s) and started our first journey up to Litchfield National Park. Our plans soon change. As we were driving happily along – bang, we blew a tyre on the highway luckily for us we were only 20 km’s outside of Katherine and we had phone reception.  The Big Fella gets out and starts the process of changing the tyre.  After about 30 mins he has asked me to ring for help – one of the wheel nuts is not budging.  I call for help and as we are on the highway, they have advised us they won’t change the tyre on the side of the road due to OHS rules it is not safe to change a tyre on the highway with all the Road Trains travelling along the highway.  They send out a tow truck to tow us back into Katherine to a tyre shop.  After waiting about 30mins the tow truck has arrived and is starting to pull us up onto the tow truck, all of a sudden, he stops, looks like if he goes for much longer the bottom will drag.  So, after all this he decides he will change the tyre on the side of the road, but of course he hasn’t got his tools to get that bloody nut off – even he can’t budge it with the tools we have.  Now he is on the phone to get his ute with all his tools bought out to us.  His ute arrives and not long after we have the spare tyre on, with the help of his Rattle Gun.  Now back to Katherine to get a new tyre. First and closest tyre shop we go to does not have the tyre we need.  So we go over to Bridgestone, whilst they don’t have one in stock, they advise us that they can have one there by 8:00am tomorrow morning.  We have now booked it in for a 10:00am.   Off to find another Park to stay the night in Katherine.

20240515 – Katherine to Litchfield National Park. The tyre is fixed this morning so, we head off to Litchfield National Park.  We have booked ourselves into another lovely Caravan Park.  When I’m checking in the gentlemen points to the wall and says maybe I could get my photo up on the wall.  There was a lot of photos of boobs in one area of the wall and bottoms / penises on the other end – apparently if you are willing to put your photo up there you get a free drink.  Hey I want more than one drink…They would be giving Tony beer to put his clothes back on..

20240516 – We wake up early in the morning and start getting organised for another couple of little walks one to Florence Falls and one to Buley Hole.  Over the night Dave has decided that it would be a good idea to replace the old spare tyre with a new tyre.  So, prior to heading to the National Park we phone Bridgestone and ask them to order another tyre for us and that we would be down in Katherine around 10:00am to get it put on. Not all the swimming spots are open in the park – apparently, they still need to get some of the Salty’s out (Salt Water Crocs) – that have found their way into the river courtesy of the wet season.  With the temperatures ranging between 32 – 34 degrees, we have decided that we are not going to walk to any more falls, cascades or pools if we can’t go swimming.  Florence Falls was amazing and at one stage, we were the only one’s swimming at the pool at the bottom.  The walk to Florence Falls has 165 stairs at the end of a small walk to get to the bottom of the Falls, this wasn’t too bad and no where near as hard as the walk to Edith Falls, and we made it up and down without any breather breaks, these stairs were man made.  After the falls we head on over to the Buley Hole, we had intended to walk between the two, but the Big Fella has twisted his ankle, so we drive there and walk 500meters to the Buley Holes.  It was nice to see but, in the end, we didn’t go for a swim, there were a lot of people and a bus load of school kids.  Overall, a nice day.

After arriving back to the caravan park, we get ourselves organised to go to the Bar area – yes for Happy Hour.  I have actually got out of my active wear and put some shorts and a shirt on, still wearing my thongs, I have added a bit of BB cream and some lipstick.  The Big Fella looks at me and says that I look nice, why did I get dressed up. I must be looking a real treat when we have previously gone out.

20240517 – Litchfield National Park to Katherine (again).  We arrive back to the tyre shop and they’ve got the old spare tyre out from underneath the motorhome and have started reorganising the other tyres – the end of this we will have two new tyres on the front.  Maybe they should have checked that the tyre had arrived from Darwin 1^st.  Nope it hadn’t, so after another 30 minutes the motorhome had 4 tyres on so off, we went to spend yet another night in Katherine.  They were so lovely and apologetic at the shop, the Manager offered to pay for our night at the Caravan Park.  He was looking at getting cash out of his wallet for us – we told him that we were happy to pay for the accommodation. 

20240518 – Katherine to Argyle Lake.  In the morning, they fixed all the tyres – and what a great price he gave us, he felt really bad about the tyre not arriving with his other order.  We check our lights and find the brake lights are not working.  (again)  We spend another 30 minutes sorting out the problem.  Are we ever going to leave this place.  After getting the little car back on and Dave fixing the brake and indicator lights – we try again to get out of Katherine.  We had bought a lot of groceries to get us through to Broome.  We were totally unaware of the food restrictions going from NT into WA – so out goes our fresh fruit and vegetables – we were allowed to keep carrots and sweet potato.  Yes, we finally made it to Lake Argyle.  Also, as we cross into WA our maximum speed limit is now 100kph as we are towing our little car – still no need to worry about breaking the speed limit when Driving Miss Daisy is in the driver’s seat.  I haven’t been allowed to have another drive yet – think I might scare him a bit.

20240519 – Lake Argyle.  This park is huge and they have the most amazing infinity pool over looking the lake.  In the afternoon we go on a Sunset Cruise.  What a great afternoon we had, we heard a lot about the lake and Dave and I just couldn’t believe how big it was.  We were told that all of Switzerland and its lakes would fit inside this one.  Lake Argyle is the size of 18x Sydney Harbours, 1000km squared.  After spotting plenty of fresh water crocs and other wild life we motor on to a little swimming spot.  The majority on board all jump into the water, if you want a beer, you put your hand up and they throw you one whilst you are out swimming, this is where the pool noodles come in very handy.  If you are drinking wine, you just need to swim to the bottom of the steps and voila, they fill up your glass.  With your empty beer cans you simply throw them back to the boys on board – there was one person that missed the boat completely, that was the Big Fella. Apparently, each guest is given a quota of 2 drinks,(OH&S) but these guys didn’t seem to care and just kept on filling up our glasses and offering us more – this made two happy Elford’s – Dave was even polishing of the EMU lager quite quickly.  Lake Argyle has been our highlight so far.

20240520 -20240521 – Lake Argyle to Broome.  The rest areas have been above what we had expected.  We had a lovely little overnight stay in one on the Ngumban cliffs in WA.  

Overall - I have been reminded how much patience and tolerance the Big Fella has.  We have been travelling really well together and having a great time.  We will both be happy to get away from the red dust.