What time is it there?!

We weren't originally going to come all the way up here, but after hearing and reading more about it (and after discovering how cold the water was down south!) we decided to fit it in. It isn't anywhere near as big as the Great Barrier Reef, but it's very close to the shore and thanks to its remoteness it has comparatively few visitors.

Even after you've finally reached the town of Exmouth you still have to drive another 65km around the headland to reach the main snorkelling areas. This does however mean that it is all very unspoiled, no gift shops, cafes etc. In fact the only things you will see are a few picnic tables and the odd toilet, and even those don't exist at all the sites.

I'm not sure that it was the best snorkelling we've done, but there are a lot of fish, rays and clams and stuff. There are so many places to snorkel that you really need to spend longer than a couple of days here to make the most of it, there are of course also plenty of dive shops who will take you out for a fee (quite a large fee around here it seemed!). Once again the method of putting the camera in a waterproof bag that was not designed for photography proved to be rather ineffective, but the pictures are here if you want to see just how bad they are (no, really you can actually see fish in them!).

Highlight of the day was spotting a turtle off one of the beaches. We were a few weeks late for the hatching season so we hadn't expected to see any at all and certainly not in the middle of the afternoon. Unfortunately by the time we got in the water it had disappeared, no doubt scared off by our less than graceful snorkelling style! Whale sharks are the other big attraction around here and are apparently pretty harmless, but we weren't fortunate enough to see any. Although to be honest, if we'd seen one while we were in the water I'm not sure whether we'd have remained calm enough to enjoy it.......
"Ooh look, it's a whale shark...... aarrggh... SHARK!!!"