Around Oz the First Time - Chapter 65 - Exmouth Day 2

Back to playing the “Grey Nomad Game” with full turbos blowing.

We are here for a full day and we want to make the most of it. Silver Leader leaves before sunup and heads to the beach for a surf. Rosalie, Robyn and I are heading to the local markets for the morning, to look at what the market has to offer, perhaps even attack the bread shop, after Forbsy purchased a creamy, custard filled apple turnover.

After dragging ourselves out of bed, we had a long night once the wind came back up, with all sorts of banging noises until we worked out the skylight cover was the culprit, breakfast lightly just in case the bakery has a better offer. Silver Leader is back just prior to our leaving, having not had the best of days in the surf. It’s the school holidays and all sorts of proper surfing protocols were obviously not being observed by the “grommets” let alone the overseas “idiots’”.

He showers and washes his wetsuit, laments the poor surf and we leave him to his devices. Into town we go, fulling expecting the local fare to be less than impressive. First we need to find it, and we circle the town looking for the market. We come back to the local shopping centre noticing the car park is full and see a number of people walking across from the local park, and then we see the site.

There are not many stalls, but there are more than at another market we have visited where there was only one stall. I find a parking space immediately must to my amazement and we wander over. The first two stalls are the Sea Shepherd and local whale and environment activists, looks like we might be in for a brace of bleeding, heart lefties, the bane of my existence, I am sorry.

I do believe in looking after what we have, but invading farms and the like doesn’t not enamour me to their ideals. We need to change the power those who have, force over the rest of us. Growth for growth’s sake and the ideal capitalism is the ONLY way, is naively stupid, but until we get to the “Star Trek Model” (and even that is flawed) we cannot in all honesty think we are doing the right thing by our children. The edifice between the have’s and the have nots is not the issue. Its more the blind focus on wealth, but let’s not go there for now, this is a family show ?

I leave the girls at the markets and go in look of the bakery. Its in the middle of the shopping arcade and I walk in expecting exactly what I thought. There is a line of customers, the staff are working madly to keep up across 3 tills. I join a line behind two Asian ladies, thinking I am getting in early. Not even close. The customer is having trouble deciding what they want, asking questions of the staff member as to the contents of almost everything in the window, right in front of her. Back and forth, then back again with no real result, then it comes to the coffee. There are four cup sizes available and they go over each, for a reason only the customers knows, it is very clear as to what is available.

Another staff member grabs me aside and takes my order, two of their best mango smoothies for the girls and I will have an iced chocolate. Even after I have completed my order the poor staff member with the Asian customers is still trying to decipher what they want. I collect my order and they are still going. I see them later with just two coffees and nothing else.

Now I have the smoothies, I need to get the girls out of the markets so they can consume them. One message, two messages, three messages and no answer, so I call my wife. “We are almost on our way” she says, I admonish her for not reading her messages, and tell her the smoothies are de-smoothing. This seems to get them on the move. They arrive momentarily, engage in consumption and suggest these are not quite the Broome smoothies, but close. I suspect the Broome ones with honey as an extra additive has stolen a “march”.

Brain freeze aside, the girls down the smoothies quickly and we start to head back. Rosalie wonders if she needs suitable shoes for walking reefs today, as we are going to investigate the western beaches of the Ningaloo reef. They decide she needs some and they take some time in the appropriate store purchasing same as I stay in the Cruiser, readying for the return to the others.

Back at the park and we are in readying mode. Lunches, swimmers, snorkelling gear and the necessary ancillary items and we are ready. Out the van park and turn left and head towards Yardie Creek.

Yardie Creek is in the Cape Range National Park, some 60 kilometres away. On the drive down I resist the urge to take many of the roads, left or right, as we decide to go to the end and then we can “play” all of these routes on the way home. Our only time limit the NRL grand final.

For the eastern states this weekend signals the start of daylight saving, meaning we are now three hours behind them. With the game kicking off at around 8.00pm EDST we think we need to be home by 5.00pm local time. There has been talk on local media about a referendum to discuss daylight saving here in the west, headed by one of the local farmers/businessmen, who may very well have been against it in the past. There is as much opposition as there is positive response, with many wanting to stay aligned with China time.

There is movement on the side of the road. It’s a dingo, but no the magnificent animal of the pictures asking the public not to feed or approach them. This one is sick. It has very little of its red orange fur, only about 10 centimetres on the top, something like a mohawk strip. The bottom half looks dirty and muddy. You can see all its ribs and its is nothing like one might expect, but this one has the mange, a dermatological affliction that affects canine type animals.

The dingo is looking to cross the road, with us going past, the car behind has to be a chance of hitting it, taking it out of its misery, but these animals are smart, I suspect it is crossing the road to look to raid the camps on the beaches for any morsel it can, given its affliction will have taken most of the edge of its hunting ability.

Its almost a shame to see, but there are signs everywhere suggesting rangers are using 1080 poison in the area and these animals are definitely the target, along with foxes and feral cats, none of which we have seen on our trip, either here or anywhere on the trip to date. My expectation is the dingo will not make Christmas, the affliction whilst not terminal will take away much of its thermal covering.

I don’t stop, as I should, and take a picture, as this as with much of the trip so far, the destination rather than the journey has been “top of mind”. We continue on and head into the park where we pay our day fee. It’s a lot further to our final destination, which we are aiming for so we can start there and work our way back. As Silver Leader and Rosalie have not been to the lighthouse as yet, it will be the last on the list and I ask Rosalie to remind me when we return.

Finally we are at Yardie Creek. At certain times you can drive past here, onto a much more rural road and on towards Coral Bay, our destination for tomorrow, but the road won’t be the one we will be taking. There were pictures we have seen showing vehicles marooned in the water here, but today we could cross, if we wanted to, as there is no water, only sand. There is a creek, that is the only full time water course in the national park.

There are boat rides here, up along the creek through a lovely gorge. There are walks and other than the ride boat, no motorised boats are allowed. There are kayaks but only ever six at a time in the water, and if you are not one of the six, you have to wait until one of them comes out. There are presently six in the water including one being toed by another. A mother has taken her daughter for a ride, but rather than allowing others to use another kayak they have taken two of the allocations.

The water looks very much like Smiths Lake at home. There should be whiting and flathead here, but we won’t know, as fishing is forbidden here. Forbsy want to walk up the gorge a bit and read the signs. I follow for a while, then he stops, sits and starts stacking rocks. An approaching family group are puzzled, I tell them not to worry, this guy is the mad rock stacker. They laugh.

I walk the path Forbsy was going to and get some great shots of the gorge. There are lots of signs telling of the habitat and the fauna. I don’t want to walk further, and the wind is still blowing hard. On the way back I see that either the family or some other rock aficionados or even some of those bleeding heart lefties have destroyed the rock stack, probably in deference to the environment and not Forbsy’s skills.

Next stop is the Oyster Stacks, a reef, close into the beach, where oysters have made mounds in the water, with reef all around. We drive in and park, then walk to the water. There is no beach here and any snorkelling that might have been contemplated are out because of the wind and the timing of the tide. Its way too early on the income tide. All you would end up doing is cutting yourself on the reef, hurt yourself, and possibly attract sharks. There are people hidden in the curves of the rocks out of the wind waiting to swim, but the wind is even getting into those spaces. We don’t waste our time here and look to move on.

On the way to the Cruiser, we meet a local and his daughter who have come down for a snorkel and are, like us, disappointed with the state of the tide and wind. Silver Leader engages him in conversation, looking to work out where we might find a beach a little out of the wind at least. He suggests one near the visitors centre, we had been considering Turquoise Bay, but they had just come from there and were similarly unimpressed with the wind.

Off we go, heading back towards our place of origin. We see the sign for Turquoise Bay and decide to have a look anyway. Its lunch time, and I am hungry. Finding a place in the car park, we alight and retire to the back of the car to retrieve our lunches from the fridge. The wind seems to have slowed a little, as it has done the previous and the day before.

Once lunch is finished, we grab the snorkelling gear, just in case, and head for the beach. Immediately I am reminded of Amity Beach, and when I tell Rosalie she starts the Jaws theme. The beach is not very deep, and there are lots of people, but not too many that we cant find a comfortable spot not far from where we walk onto it.

There are fish here, and lots of them. Dart or trevally with spangled emperor wafting in and out. Some people are playing with them, offering them sand as if it was food. Silver Leader is all but having heart palpitations over the size of the spangled emperor, a fish he has on his bucket list. They are playing around the feet o the people in the water.

We decide we will swim here. The wind has changed direction enough that we can sit on the sand and enjoy the day. Robyn is the first to go in, followed by Forbsy, he has not brought his prescription goggles and he cannot see well enough to warrant snorkelling.

I have an idea, given the others were teasing the fish with sand, I wonder what they will do if I were to feed them some bread. I walk back to the Cruiser and grab a crust slice and return to the water. As I thought the fish go mad for the food. Initially the dart flock to me, and then as the commotion gets more intense the spangled emperor join in. A father with his daughter on his shoulder walk next to us and I throw some small pieces at his legs to the joy of his daughter.

That’s fun and we are able to get some good pictures and videos, then all of a sudden, another two youngsters come up with some chips and wafers, looking to continue after I use all the crust. Their actions are quite different to mine. They are actually feeding fish individually. I video them feeding the spangled emperor who have not only their mouths out of the water but even their eyes, and given the shapes of their heads is a long way.

In order to get their mojo’s back into whack seeing the fish all around them, Forbsy heads off to one end of the beach and Silver Leader and Rosalie to the other end, to walk it off. I notice a couple of boys trying to catch some fish with a bucket, then their mother calls them for a handful of crisps. I cannot help myself, I walk over to one of the boys and suggest if he were to use the chips, he might be able to entice one into the bucket.

The boy heads back to the water but without not having eaten his crisps. I walk to his mother to tell her what I suggested, she notes they do not allow their children to feed the animals. They in fact do not feed any wild animals, their children excluded. That is the sort of bleeding heart leftie I can deal with, they have their opinion, but do not impose it on others, there was no tongue lashing in her talk, just explanation of her actions.

Everyone is back together and its time to get back to make the grand final telecast. Yesterday we would have travelled down each road way between here and the van, but today….

Screaming along at 100kph I see something in the middle of the road. I hit the brakes, its Busted bird standing right in front of us. I take pictures as I creep up to him, the car behind has seen what I am doing and joins the creep. Finally, the bird moves off the road and I set back to the journey. One kilometre further on there are a pair just off the road, but I do not stop.

As promised I pull into the track up to the light house for Silver Leader and Rosalie. They are reminded of the time and they head off. I grab both sets of monoculars to see if I can spy any of the oil platforms supposedly visible from here. I see what looks like a large ship out to sea and show Forbsy who agrees with me, but Silver Leader who is on his way back suggests it’s a platform as he was looking at its lights last night and they did not move. I look again and agree.

Home and the grand final has already started. We get to see the first score and the res to the game which a great spectacle until a refereeing disaster ruins it.

Enough said. Time for bed, tomorrow is another day and today’s news is tomorrows fish and chips paper.