We all woke very sore today, from yesterday's shark swim. I had really sore arms from pulling/pushing Scarlett through the water, and trying to keep up with the whale shark. Shane had sore legs from kicking so much, and poor mum had sore stomach muscles. We were a very sad and sorry bunch. We struggled getting out of bed today; not only from all being so sore, but because we are moving on today from this very beautiful, and now very special place.
We packed up,and mum said goodbye to the Piggott clan (She will have flown out of Exmouth by the time they arrive there), and we were off again on the road. It was a leisurely 150km's to Exmouth with our travel mugs and snacks, and Scarlett watching 'Spiderman' in the car. There wasn't much to see on the way, except an increasing amount of termite mounds, wild horses running free, and the occasional sheep that had broken through the boundary fences.
We made good time into Exmouth , so we called into the tourist information centre before setting up in the caravan park. There isn't a lot to do in Exmouth (other than the huge experience of swimming with whale sharks) as most of the good stuff is around the peninsula and into the Cape National Park some 80km's away. We do plan on visiting there in the next day or so.
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| Look out from Vlaming Head Lighthouse |
After setting up camp we decided to go for a drive around the cape, to try and give Nana a small taste of the area before she leaves tomorrow. First stop was the 'Vlaming Head Lighthouse', and from here we could see right over the whole peninsula, including the The Harold E. Holt Naval Communications Station. These aerials send out and receive radio signals to US Navy, and Royal Australian Navy ships and submarines in the western Pacific Ocean and the eastern Indian Ocean. It's the most powerful transmission station in the Southern Hemisphere. There was also a restored WWII RAAF air warning radar station relic here. It was used in it's day for the defence of the USN Navel base at Exmouth, until it was destroyed by a cyclone in February 1945.
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| The Harold E. Holt Naval Communications Station's Aerial's |
We also called into the 'Jurabi Turtle Centre' where there are interpretive boards depicting the turtles cycle of life. This is the main area where the turtles return every year to lay their eggs, and there are holes everywhere in the sand dunes where past clutches have hatched and made their mad dash out to the ocean. We found some goanna tracks at one of the holes where he had tried to dig up a meal a little too late. Although a little rough for swimming, Scarlett found some great shells along the foreshore for her collection. |
| Last season turtle nest |
On the way back we stopped into town and check out the shops, I'll need to do another big food shop here to get me though to Broome. It's the strangest thing, there is only IGA here and there are two independent IGA stores one across from the other in the heart of town, this should create good competition hopefully and the prices wont be too bad.
We grabbed a small box of ice-creams, a BBQ chook, and rolls and checked out some of the other speciality shops. There isn't much choice here, and I wonder where the RAAF personnel (as we may be posted here one day) do all their major shopping?
With Nana's last afternoon slowly slipping away, we headed back to the van for a nice dinner and a wine or two. This evening we are trying to decide how much we can squeeze into her bag for the trip back, and start looking at burning a disc of photo's from her time with us she, so she can take it home and show everybody. It was a lovely evening of reminiscing over the past 4 weeks, and how they have flown by, and it's with sad hearts we all retreat to bed knowing tomorrow she will leave us.
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