It’s been a quiet few days with a couple of notable highlights. First, Charles Knife road and the Badjirrajirra walk, in Cape Range National Park. Cape Range National Park is the park on the exmouth peninsula, which includes the Ningaloo reef. Or maybe it’s the land, and there’s a separate marine park for the reef. Regardless, the reef and whale sharks are the main attraction around these parts, but the cape range itself is pretty magnificent. As far as I understand it’s actually millions of year old coral reef which has been compacted and petrified and whatever else happens over millions of years, and then thrust up into mountains. You get a feel for this on the walks because a lot of the rock is razor sharp, just like the coral-formed rock right be the sea. The walk is a nice easy (besides the extreme heat) 10km stroll around a loop, with views into the gorgeous Shothole Canyon as the highlight.

After the walk I meandered 1.5 hours south down to Coral Bay, quickly stuffed my face, and set out for the shark sanctuary. This is a spot where reef sharks congregate, particularly pregnant females and juveniles. The best time to go is around high tide and I was a little bit late, so I wasn’t quite sure what I’d see. Right at the beginning of the bay there were a handful of sharks milling around, which was neat enough. You’re not allowed to swim here, since it’s an important area for the sharks and if people were flopping around all over the place they would get scared off. So I watched a few refracted blobs circling around and went, “huh”. Almost everyone who comes to look at the sharks just hangs out at the closest part, but the bay itself is beautiful and I decided to just go for a nice long stroll. This turned out to be a great decision. It was a beautiful day for a walk, I got to see cute little shorebirds and hovering ospreys, and there were more groups of sharks farther along, with one particularly industrious one beaching itself hunting something onto the shore.

The last thing I was interested in in Coral Bay, which a friend had recommended, was the Ningaloo Marine Interactions tour. They check all the boxes with a small conservation-focused operation and an owner/skipper who’s finishing a PhD in marine biology, studying the local manta population. On top of that, they have a plane spotter, and besides the standard visit to a couple of fixed snorkel spots, they spend a couple of hours each tour just cruising around the bay, looking for anything cool to check out and potentially jump in with. Mantas are the focus, and with a resident population and a manta expert at the wheel you’re almost guaranteed to swim with them. Our other highlights were a couple of blotched fantail rays which were at least 5 feet across, and a friggin’ tiger shark! I’ve included a couple of screengrabs below but the videos are definitely better.

So that’s the past few days. I have to say, I enjoyed the Ningaloo Marine Interactions tour tremendously, and I left thinking “Damn, that’s the kind of tour I would’ve loved to work on for a season.” The team seemed really nice and like they were genuinely having a good time, and going out looking for whatever cool animals you can find for 8 months is pretty literally exactly what I would love to do with my life. Something to keep in mind for the future I suppose. Now I’m in a town called Carnarvon getting some library time before I attend to all the necessaries like food, water, trash, etc… The next stop will be Kalbarri National Park, which looks pretty sweet, and then the southwest beckons. You can find the videos for this post here—I recommend checking them out!