1/7/2015 – 7/7/2015 7 nights – Ningaloo Caravan & Holiday Resort ($49 p/n)

Set off from Onslow about 8 .30am and arrived at Exmouth around midday.

We drove straight to the Visitors Centre as we wanted to book in to swim with the Whale Sharks. We chose Exmouth Diving Centre as the have an "Experience Policy" meaning if you have limited time with the shark they will try and put you on stand by for another trip… with that booked we headed on to the Caravan Park.

We had booked a few days before and were lucky enough to secure the last site available which happened to be unpowered. We asked if by chance they had any powered sites and fortunately they had had a cancellation… so we scored the site in the “dog area” of the park where we met the lovely Jan and Gerry and their gorgeous 8yo Border Collie X Misty.

On Friday we went out to swim with Whale Sharks. Unfortunately these beautiful creatures were a little shy and we only had a very brief swim with one, probably 10 metres from us with poor visibility. The sea was very quiet… we saw a Humpback Whale with its calf and a couple of Bottlenose Dolphins… the day was a bit disappointing for the money we had spent however, the lack of activity did fall into the Experience Policy so they would try and get us on stand by for another trip.

The Dive Centre were great and advised us that the earliest we could get on another boat would be Tuesday, so we extended our stay in the hope we would get a call Monday arvo notifying us that we were on .

We spent the next couple of days exploring the Cape Range National Park and Ningaloo Reef, which is home to over 500 species of fish and 300 species of coral and spans 260kms…WOW!. So so many stunning beaches to choose from!

We did a drift snorkel in the stunning Turquoise Bay, took in the views from Vlaming Head Lighthouse, found secluded beaches at the end of unmarked tracks and spent hours taking in the serenity.

On Monday we got the call we had been waiting for confirming that we were on the Tuesday morning boat… YEAH!

From the get go we knew it was going to be a great day.... The water was literally alive with activity, we didn't know where to look! We saw at least 40 Humpback Whales, hundreds of Spinner Dolphins a Hammerhead Shark.

There are usually around eight to ten Whale Shark tour boats out each day and up to four spotter planes looking for sharks . When a shark is found all the boats will head to that area and the first one there gets to do their first drop. Only ten people plus your instructor are allowed in the water at one time, you must stay at least 3 metres from the shark, no swimming in front or on top of the shark and definitely no touching. Once the first boat has dropped their second group of 10 the next boat in line will then do their drop…. So if you are the last boat to arrive it can take quite some time before you get in the water.

It was finally our turn to swim with the Whale Shark, and it did not disappoint… What a truly amazing experience to swim with these gentle giants. So majestic and graceful, and they just cruise through the water paying us no attention at all. We were fortunate to get two drops and in between we snorkeled with Eagle Rays, Turtles and even had Humpback Whales pass us 20 metres away. Talk about sensory overload!

We headed back to shore late afternoon with a very happy boatload of people. A few of us decided to go to pub for a couple of drinks and before we knew it we were entered into their Quiz night. The host of the night was an absolute cracker…  reminded us of the bearded guy from The Hangover. Anyway we ended up taking out 1^st prize, which was a $100 drinks voucher. Just what we needed after 3 hours of drinking!

We packed up the following morning and left Exmouth as very happy campers!