Ningaloo - Home July 2012

Ten weeks seemed to go by so fast, before we knew it our time at Ningaloo was over for another year. 2012 will go down as being great because we had our daughter Erin and partner Scotty join us for the 1st ten days and followed by our son Daniel and his partner Elle and their baby daughter Eve stay with us for the last fortnight of our stay. It was great having them see what we have been talking about all these years but unfortunately the weather didn't play the game and 2012 will go down as being the windiest we have experienced it along with the least amount of fish caught.

The weather was a pain but it didn't stop us from Kayak fishing most days and beach fishing most nights, we managed to get in some snorkeling on the better days and both Dave & Daniel had a shark experience. Dave and i were snorkeling together and we had just arrived at a large coral bomby when Dave shouted to me SHARK, i was looking around for it but couldn't see it, i looked around to ask Dave where and what size but Dave wasn't there ... the Buddy system to Dave apparently means SEE YA BUDDY as he was swimming to shore at a rate that would get him into the Olympics, Err thanks Mate!!

As it turned out i didn't set eye's on it and survived. It wasn't the only time Dave saw SHARKS, the next i was out on the Kayak with my back to Dave who had just returned to shore to fix his rig, I could hear him hollering SHARK but i had already seen a pod of dolphins swim past me so i wasn't concerned, a few more shouts and i thought I'd better see what he is on about so i turned around just as he pointed to a dolphin coming to the surface ...... I guess better safe than sorry and we had a good laugh about it later.

Dan's experience was when he was snorkeling by himself, he came back to camp looking a bit shaken and explained that a shark swam straight at him, not a large one around 1.2mt but he swears it looked like a small Great White! My view is any Shark swimming at you is enough to scare the shizen out of you and made for another good camp fire story.

A small amount of rigs salvaged along with Trevor's broken rod taken by a large Shark one night

Dan, Elle and baby Eve asleep

Tube Mouth

Elle, Dan and Madison

Underwater

Maddi and Elle

Dan had his birthday at Ningaloo, it's been a few years since we have been able to celebrate with him as we are usually away at that time of year and baby Eve enjoyed her 1st Ningaloo holiday, being only 10 weeks she didn't do much other than eat, sleep and want to be picked up and Vickie [Nana] and i [Poppy] were happy to oblige. She is absolutely gorgeous with big blue eyes, a very placid nature that she has inherited from her parents.

Dan's 1st Ningaloo fish, a Charlie Court

Charlie Court or Chinaman Cod

Another combined cook off, we ate well

Holding onto Poppy

Our latest grand daughter Eve

Happy Birthday Dan

 We ate extremely well as usual, we had theme nights along with progressive dinners

Trevor's Asparagus and Cheese Entree

Ashley's stuffed Mushroom Entree

Jo's Chicken Cacciatore

Vickie's Apple Berry Pie

Mick's Salt and Pepper Squid

Vickie did her usual of late ...... requiring to be taken to Hospital, it was during one of our Fish and Chip nights at Billy's camp that Vick thought she was having a heart attack, 7 sharp pains in her chest when breathing in. Being already on medication for angina and blood pressure we decided to phone Exmouth Hospital but after being put through to an after hours interstate medical care and trying to explain to them what she had experienced and the fact we were wilderness camping when they kept asking for a post code we decided to drive into Exmouth at 9pm, a two hour drive with lots of roo's and sheep on the roads. Arriving at Hospital the Nurses quickly had her attached to a ECG machine and checking her vitals, everything appeared normal and all they could tell her that it was probably reflux, [no reflection on Billy's cooking, but we refer to it as BFS - Battered Fish Syndrome], Vickie was discharged out but the Hospital wanted her to stay in town the night, It was our intention to do so anyway to save the night drive back to camp but everything was closed, the Big 4 Van Park answered our phone call but told us Company policy was no admissions after 9pm, no change in attitude even after explaining our situation - Thanks BIG 4 for nothing ...... We were even pulled over by the local Police as they had seen our vehicle driving around late at night, we told them what we were doing, they were sympathetic but still gave me a random breath test which was negative. Try the Novatel they said, "No Thanks not at a couple of hundred dollars a night and already past 11pm" so we drove back to camp arriving after 1am.

The rest of our time was fairly uneventful, we felt bad for Dan and Elle having windy weather and poor fishing but sometimes that's just the way it goes, we will be back again next year and hope the rest of the extending families can join us again.

Another night, another Shark

The Hitchhiker

Heading home we camped south of Carnavorn whilst Dan & Elle stayed at a van park with their tent where they were charged $38 for an unpowered tent site, the next night Dan & Elle joined us and we stayed at Geoff and Vickie's in Geraldton where we not only got to use their caravan for the night they fed us the best fish and chips and crayfish for tea, Thanks Mates it was greatly appreciated.

Geoff's Fish and Chips

Dan and Elle left for Perth the next morning and we slowly made our way down the new coast road stopping a night at Moore River bridge. We went to sleep listening to the rain on the roof and planning on how long we would be at home before hitting the road again, we are hoping three weeks to complete some jobs that require doing and then head across to SA and then make our way up to North Queensland until November then back to Adelaide for Vickie's [hopefully] last eye operation.