I’ve finally made it to Exmouth and the Ningaloo reef, which I’ve been hearing so much about the whole time I’ve been in Australia. The Exmouth area reminds me a fair bit of a much smaller Baja California—it’s a thin peninsula, pretty much barren desert with a mountain range through the middle, and lots of very cool deep water marine life. Just like in Baja there’s a seasonal whale shark aggregation here and migrating humpback whales, as well as the possibility of seeing manta rays, orcas, sharks, turtles etc… Unlike Baja, however, Exmouth has the Ningaloo reef.

Exmouth itself is a bit of a weird place. It’s a tiny town of only 2-3,000 people that swells to somewhere like 10-12,000 during the height of tourist season. Everything is very expensive and there are generally only 1 or 2 options for whatever you need. During peak season absolutely everything is totally booked, so lucky for me I arrived right after school holidays, which is pretty much the close of the high season. If I had gotten here earlier I’m not really sure what I would’ve done—all the campgrounds book out well in advance, and the town is notoriously strict in stopping people from free camping. Happily that’s only a hypothetical, because while the town certainly hasn’t been empty during my stay, I haven’t had too much trouble getting campsites in the national park.

I made an especially soft landing in the area thanks to an extremely hospitable guy named Roger that I got in touch with through Couchsurfing. He turns out to be a park ranger in nearby Coral Bay and had lots of useful information about the area. He’s traveled all over the world, often meeting people through Couchsurfing, and nowadays hosts travelers when he’s at home. He was extremely generous, hanging out, feeding me dinner, letting me fill up my water tanks, and helping me plan out my stay.

Exmouth town sits on the east side of the peninsula, and is really just a place to get supplies and go on tours. The reef, which is the main attraction here besides whale sharks, runs along the western side of the peninsula, which is all a national park. Some fun facts—it’s the biggest fringing reef in Australia, at 260 kilometers (160 miles) long, and at certain points it’s less than 500 meters (about a third of a mile) from shore. I guess the proximity to shore is what makes it a fringing reef rather than a barrier reef like the, um, Great Barrier Reef, which is way way way bigger but also much farther from the shore. What all this means is that you have your pick of absolutely incredible snorkeling just swimming out from the shore.

After a couple of nights staying with Roger I loaded up on supplies and headed over to the park for 4 nights camping and snorkeling my little heart out. As it happens, besides the departure of the whale sharks, tourist season wraps up this time of year because it gets very windy, extremely hot, and infested with flies. And I have to say, I think I have a reasonably high tolerance for these kinds of things, but this was a bit of an exercise in finding exactly where the limit is. The first few days I spent in the park, where there is essentially no shade or shelter, all saw temperatures getting up over 40C (104F), with several days around 43-44 (109-111F). Overnight and into the morning the wind would blow in from the east, over the desert, bringing hot air and really giving the sensation of a fully body hair dryer. Temperatures would be over 30C (86F) by 6am and heating up fast, so sleeping in was pretty much impossible. And the second you emerged you would be absolutely swarmed by flies looking for all the nooks and crannies (mostly eyes and nostrils) of your face. Videos don’t capture it that well, but they give you an idea.

The saving grace of all this was that the main activity I was interested in, snorkeling, solved all these problems. So the thing to do was just spend 6 hours every day snorkeling, covered up as much as possible to blunt the sizzling sun. And the snorkeling here really is amazing. I saw buckets of turtles, lots of skittish reef sharks, tons and tons of fish, sea cucumbers, some octopus, huge groupers, fields of beautiful coral, one very well hidden stonefish, and probably much more I’m forgetting. You can take a look at a handful of videos here.

On my first night getting into the park I pulled up to my campsite, looked across the road at my neighbors hanging around outside their trailer, and went “holy crap, I know that guy”. It turned out that the lovely family I’d spent a day walking around Leliyn Falls with a month and a half ago were in the site right next to mine. What a world! It was great to see them again, they’re very nice and fun to spend time with, and it was good for my little heart to spend some time in a family dynamic again.

Another big attraction in Exmouth is the navy pier dive. This is a pier on an active navy base that they allow the public to SCUBA dive at. The pier supports are covered in all kinds of beautiful coral, and there are massive schools of fish, sharks, octopus, and truly titanic groupers that hang out there. It was fun to strap on the ole SCUBA gear again and the marine life was really amazing, all in this small area. I enjoyed the dive tremendously. The next day I did a dive out in a bay where the main attraction is a manta cleaning station, but unfortunately we didn’t see any mantas, and it wasn’t nearly as interesting as the navy pier dive. I did get to see a couple of sea snakes though, which was very cool.

There are also a couple of gorges in the national park that you can walk through, eventually climbing up onto the rim and getting a view out to sea. I was keen to check these out for a change of pace, and of course I went for it on the hottest day I was here. The gorges were nice, the sun was sizzling, and the flies were ravenous. I still had a pretty good time and got that good bone deep tired feeling by the end.

Lastly, Ningaloo is an important breeding ground for green, hawksbill, and loggerhead turtles. There’s a beach in particular where you can see huge numbers of massive loggerhead turtles, either doing the deed (frankly a pretty brutal sight, the males are relentless) or resting on the beach. The giant sand dune right there gives a great view down onto the water, where there are dozens of huge splotches showing turtles hanging out in the bay. In a little while the females will be nesting, and in another month or three the hatchlings make the dash for the ocean, but right now mating is the show.

That brings us to the present day, and the end of my time in Exmouth. Today I’ll be kicking around town writing this blog post and stocking up. Tomorrow morning I’ll get up early and head to Charles Knife canyon and the Badjirrajirra trail, and then continue south to Coral Bay, hopefully in time to catch some sharks at the shark nursery there. After that I’ll just be making my way down the coast, picking stops here and there, and eventually getting to Perth and the southwest, which I’ve consistently heard is beautiful. I can’t wait! You can see videos for this post here, that’s where most of the good stuff is.