WA - Shark Bay and Ningaloo Reef

Our new week started with a visit to Shell Beach, which is already located in the Shark Bay Marine Park. The beach consists mainly of small shells instead of sand. It's wonderful when you come back from the beach without being completely covered in sand and only have a few shells sticking to you. Our next stop was the Eagle Bluff Lookout. Here, you can directly see the turquoise-colored water. With some luck, you can spot sharks, dolphins, rays, or turtles. We saw two large black spots in the water, but they were very far away. They were moving slowly, probably rays?! In Denham, the central town of the Shark Bay region, we gathered information about tours and highlights. It quickly became clear that we wanted to take a scenic flight here. We wanted to experience the large bays, lagoons, cliffs, and salt lakes from a bird's-eye view. The flight also offers a good view of the numerous marine creatures. So, we booked the 60-minute scenic flight for the next day and we could hardly wait. We spent the afternoon in Monkey Mia. Just relaxing on the beach and going for a snorkel. Monkey Mia is known for its bottlenose dolphins. The visibility while snorkeling was unfortunately not very good, but I saw a dolphin jump out of the water and Simon was lucky enough to spot a turtle. In the evening, we had a camping spot by the sea, with only one other car besides us. No toilets, no water, just nothing. Steppes, the sea, and endless vastness all around. That's what we love so much. Being in nature under a dreamy starry sky. Just before falling asleep, I heard some rustling. A kangaroo? No, it sounded like plastic. Strange, there was nothing here except for the garbage bag in the front footwell?! Oh no, something must have crawled into the car. Siiiiiiimon! Something is rustling! Get rid of it! After a few minutes of panic, Simon scared away a mouse. Phewww, I was already expecting the worst...

After watching the sunrise, we headed to the small airport where our scenic flight started. The 4-person propeller plane was shaking quite a bit. But the breathtaking view from about 150 m above the ground made us forget everything. What an incredibly beautiful landscape. The flight took us over Denham, the big bay to the salt mining waters, to the western point of Australia, over Dirk Hartog Island, cliffs, red earth, the Big Lagoon, and back to the safe ground. Due to the shaking and some sharp flight maneuvers, both of us felt pretty sick. But we will never forget everything we saw here. We took a lot of photos with the camera, but we couldn't capture everything because we were so amazed. We also saw some dugongs and turtles swimming in the water. For us, this was one of the biggest highlights of our trip so far.

A bit pale in the face, we headed to our next adventure. In François Peron National Park, we had our first 4-wheel-drive off-road experience. We were a bit nervous because it wasn't our own car. But once the air was let out of the tires, the fun began. The 'road' through the sand made me sweat a lot in the first few kilometers - don't get stuck! After a while, we got the hang of it and it was really fun. When we arrived at the Big Lagoon, we cooled off in the water. It was crazy that we had just seen the Big Lagoon from above and now we were right in the middle of it. On the drive back, Simon got to drive through the sand and couldn't wipe the smile off his face.

Our next day in Carnarvon took us to the Blowholes. Depending on the waves, high water fountains shoot up through the holes in the rocks - a real natural spectacle. At Quobba Point, we went snorkeling in the cool water. Between the corals, directly in the clear, shallow water, we saw many colorful fish. The gravel road led us further to Red Bluff Beach. Here, we frolicked in waves as high as 2 m. On the way back to Carnarvon, we saw some kangaroos and goats in the steppes.

The next morning, we drove through the so-called 'Fruit Loop'. Large fruit and vegetable plantations decorate the landscape on both sides of the road. Bananas, mangoes, oranges, zucchinis, tomatoes, avocados, grapes... At one of the plantations, we had the most delicious smoothie ever.

Our next destination was Coral Bay at the Ningaloo Reef. A small tourist town where everyone has one goal: snorkeling! We really wanted to see manta rays and booked a tour for the next day. We stayed overnight on a small farm outside the town. It was really beautiful, but unfortunately, we arrived after sunset and couldn't explore everything. We loved the rustic camp kitchen, where the water is heated with fire and the big beetles and moths are included, of course. At 9 am the next morning, we boarded the boat and had our first snorkeling session at the Ningaloo Reef. The corals were not as colorful as expected, but we saw many colorful fish and a huge turtle. After a small snack on board, we headed to a bay where the manta rays are supposed to be seen. We were so excited to see if we would spot one. Suddenly, everything happened very quickly. Fins on, goggles with snorkels on, to the stern, and on command, go go go! Then everyone jumped into the water, formed a semicircle, and where was the manta ray? Gone! A false start! However, the next three attempts went smoothly. You float on the water's surface and suddenly see a manta ray gliding through the water with a wingspan of 3-4 m. How astonishing was that?! We tried to follow it in our semicircle formation, but it wasn't easy to keep up for long. It's incredible how fast they are! We got to swim with three different mantas for a while, it took a while for us to grasp this experience. But that wasn't all, today was our lucky day. On the way back to the harbor, there was commotion on the boat. Everyone gathered in the front and we only heard something like 'maybe a whale'?! Everyone was looking at the water's surface eagerly... A black fin emerged and everyone went crazy. An orca!!! Even the crew members were excited and told us that this only happens two or three times a year. One fin turned into four. A whole family of orcas swam very close to our boat. It was a frenzy on the boat. We kept seeing killer whales come to the surface to breathe, we could hardly believe our luck. Back in town, everyone already knew about our orca experience. To calm down a bit, we snorkeled along the beach and headed to Exmouth. In the evening, we booked the whale shark tour for the next day.

We went out to sea again and hoped for success on this tour as well. Here, we first snorkeled at the reef before heading to the main attraction. We hadn't been in the water for long, surrounded by high waves and lots of jellyfish when someone shouted: Shaaaark! Oh no! And indeed, there was a reef shark about 1.30 m long swimming on the seabed. That made us feel a bit uneasy! But compared to the next snorkeling session, it was still less adrenaline. This one had to go according to plan again. Fins on, goggles on, snorkel in and go go go! Forming a line in the water and waiting for a moment. From out of nowhere, the largest fish passed by us - a whale shark about 7 m long. Even next to such a giant, we felt really small. We couldn't believe our eyes and couldn't make sense of what was happening. Here, too, we tried to follow it in a semicircle. After a few meters, we were completely out of breath and drenched in saltwater from the waves. Overall, we swam with three whale sharks that afternoon. It was an incredible feeling! Especially when one of them came right towards us. We had the impression that it was about to swallow us with its wide mouth and in a slight panic, we quickly swam back as fast as possible. On the way back to the harbor, we tried to comprehend all that we had experienced and we were incredibly happy. We had a photographer on board, whose photos were included in the tour, so we could concentrate on the experience and only took a few, not so high-quality, photos with our underwater camera. We ended the day at Cape Range Lighthouse, watching the sunset and the following starry sky. The week was simply amazing and one highlight followed the next. We are very grateful to be able to experience all of this and enjoy every moment.

Our next destination is almost 1,000 km away from the west coast: Karajini National Park.