Day 51 Osprey Bay
Very tough when you wake up, wander the 50 or so metres to the beach, jump in the water and swim with 7 turtles in the space of 20 minutes. By far, the best thing I’ve done on this trip. It was absolutely incredible. They are so majestic and they are not fussed by us floating along beside them at all.
Today was just spent enjoying this magical place. Snorkelling, sandcastles and sunsets!!!
Day 52 Osprey Bay to Bullara
Big day today, our Eco Tour!!!! Up early to meet at the boat ramp by 8:25. Get everyone ready and in the car ready to leave with the van hooked up, and we have a flat battery..... omg seriously the one day we have got be somewhere by a set time and we can’t leave the site!! Luckily the young girls next door, hear the car not start and ask if we needed a jump. So thankfully they give us a jump and we get moving. We make it to the boat ramp on time, woohoo!
The boat crew is lovely the kids are stoked to find out that one of the girls runs Bull Shark swim tours in Mexico in the off season and the other LOVES sharks. Liam is in heaven!!!!
We have a couple of tries at swimming with the humpbacks, but they have other ideas. To protect the animals, there are a lot of rules in place to be able to swim with them. They can not have a calf with them that is less than half the length of the mum, they can’t have breached recently or shown any aggressive behaviour. This is only one in three places in the world where you can do it, and this is only the 3rd year they have done it as part of a trial programme. So once we found a pod suitable to jump in with it was all on. We tried three different times, but because we can’t actually swim to the humpbacks you just have to let the whales come to you, it doesn’t happen all the time. Each time we got in the water, the whales changes direction, so unfortunately we missed out on swimming right next to them, we did get to swim with one that was about 20m away and it was splashing it’s pectoral fin while we were in the water which was pretty cool.
Back on the boat we are spotting humpbacks left right and centre. We are told that they have only spotted one whale shark in the last 2 weeks, so we know our chances of seeing one are very slim. We find a great little mum, dad and calf pod of humpbacks that swim along side the boat with us for a little while. It is so beautiful to watch them all together.
It gets pretty choppy and unpleasant out on the water, so the captain decides to take us into the shelter of the lagoon for a nice snorkel.
Liam is pumped about getting a snorkel because Holly (one of the crew) promises to find him a shark! The boat drops us off and we get to drift snorkel to where it will meet us. We snorkel around some beautiful bommy coral reefs and see some really incredible fish. Liam even got to see a white tip reef shark, so he is stoked! We saw some HUGE stingrays. Beautiful, beautiful snorkel. LOVED IT!!! The kids did a great job because we were snorkeling for quite a long time.
Back to shore, then we head to Exmouth to stock up on groceries and supplies for the next 6 nights of free camping.
Head to Bullara, but we’re quite late, so the camp hosts are waiting for us when we get there. Also there on our arrival is the WA Variety Bash! Wow so much fun. They are all having a great time. We find out site with the help of the host and get all set up and some very very tired kids into bed. Party central here tonight, it sounds like they are all having a great time!!!!
Day 53 Bullara
We wake to the sounds of The Beach Boys blaring!!! We have to wake the kids up so that they can check out all the cars from the Variety Bash before they head off for the day.
We walk over to where they are all getting ready for the day and the kids are in heaven. All of the cars are themed! There is a princess car, a Pokémon car, Thomas the tank engine, Avengers, Wog Boys, and many many more! The Pokémon car let Liam play with his sound control and it let off some very loud and obnoxious sounds when the buttons are pushed! Liam thought it was awesome, so of course he couldn’t just push it once!!!! The Princess car handed out a Tiara to brig and some bubbles to the boys! And the kids got little torches from one other car, which I can’t remember the name of. Such a wonderful experience!!
Kids wander and explore the station. What an amazing, quirky little station. The owners have done an amazing job making it a fabulous experience for everyone. They have open air showers and toilets that are heated by a donkey (outdoor fire). The old shearing sheds are there for you to walk through. There are sheep wandering around and a resident Kangaroo, Maggie floating around.
The kids and I head to the homestead for some famous scones with jam and cream!!! Yummy! Once finished the kids play a little bit on the playground and play a little bit of footy on the grass lawn area.
At 5pm we head to the campfire for some famous Bullara damper and stories from John.
The Damper is delicious and kids play Bocee Ball in the background while John tells stories about Bullara Station as the sun sets in the back ground.
Just perfect!
Day 54 Bullara to Waroora 14 Mile Beach (pronounced Wara - as in Waratah)
Quick little breakfast so we can get away and try and get to 12 Mile Beach in time to grab a good spot.
We arrive in good time and manage to snag an amazing spot right on the beach. WHAT A PLACE!!!!! Wow it really is incredible. White sandy beach and beautiful blue water! WOW!!!! Absolutely magical.
We manage to get ourselves all set up, after digging away at the sand to make the van level. Kids have found some more kids to play with so they are having a great time. After lunch we have a little relax then head to Turtle Rock for a little look around.
Luckily we picked the perfect time to head there, low tide, so we could see lots of rock pools. We found sea urchins, sea cucumbers, sea slugs, a million crabs, star fish and a tonne of massive clams. Just beautiful.
Back to the van just in time for sunset and it’s magic. Kids jump in for a swim without us realising that they are doing it, I turn around and brig is almost in over her head!!! OMG of course i freak out and the kids don’t understand why they can’t just jump in. I must admit the water does look incredibly tempting, but sheesh that’s how you give your mum a heart attack!
Kids are running around like crazy. Once it gets dark they all start collecting ghost crabs! All the grownups head to the campfire on the site next to ours, for happy hour. The kids are absolutely loving it!!! There are about 10 kids all running up and down the beach collecting ghost crabs. It is just the cutest thing!!!
Late night to bed for our munchkins, they are having way too much fun.
Day 55 Waroora 14 Mile Beach
Headed into Coral Bay for a snorkel, via the back road, which is basically a dirt track that runs 14km up from 14 Mile Camp to Coral Bay, just behind the sand dunes. Coral Bay is beautiful. The Coral is amazing, there is so much of it. Liam and Brig were getting quite tired so a lovely lady on a paddle board let them hitch a ride back into shore. I followed behind and we sat and read/played on the beach while Scotty and Hamish tried to find their way to Ayres Rock. They had to swim out to the black kayak marker, then line the two windmills up on the horizon and they should be over it. They managed to find it and they said it was amazing!
When we got back to the caravan, we spotted a giant stingray in the water right our the front of our van, so Scotty quickly grabbed his snorkeling gear and jumped into the water to have a look. It decided not to hang around once he got in the water.
We had a campfire at our place tonight and the neighbours all came over, it was really lovely. We are camped next to another family with a road owl from Newcastle. The kids are having a ball playing with them. More collecting Ghost Crabs tonight for the kids.
Day 56 Waroora 14 Mile Beach
The kids spent all day playing with the neighbours and the crabs. They did some swimming as well. They pretty much kept themselves occupied all day. It was fabulous and I got a chance to have some relaxing time and read my book.
During the morning, one of the grey nomads from down the beach came to chat with us, we thought they were going to complain about the noise of the kids, but it turns out they just wanted to let us know that they would be setting off fireworks at 7:30 if we wanted to come down and watch. Of course we did!!!!
Once it was dark all the kids from along the beach headed off to collect ghost crabs again. And at 7:30 we headed down to watch the fireworks, it was great. Seriously, we love this place so much. Walking down to watch the fireworks we were blown away by the amount of crabs, it is just insane! You have to make sure you don’t step on them, they are just everywhere!
We loved this place so much we decided to extend our stay and stay an extra night. We wish it could have been more, but for every extra day we stay, we loose a day somewhere else. Some tough decisions.
Day 57 Waroora 14 Mile Beach
Woke this morning to find every single foot print and car tread mark from the previous day covered over with crab marks!!!!! They are literally EVERYWHERE!!!!!!
We made our way to Five Fingers Reef for some snorkelling with our beautiful neighbours. Some great driving through sand dunes. Scotty had a lot of fun!
Absolutely beautiful snorkelling spot. Kids all decided not to get in the water and instead all played on the sand and made sand castles.
Afterwards we made our way into CoralCoral Bay to see if we could spot some Sharks in the area that is known as a shark nursery. We spotted a few but it was hard to see them because of the light and the wind. We spotted a few sting rays in the water.
Saw a few kangaroos as we headed back into the campsite. They were really cute with a little joey with them. Another fire at our place and we roasted some marshmallows after dinner.