Ningaloo Reef - Week 3

The brilliance of Ningaloo Station camping continued. We actually started to catch some fish and got a good feed, with Jayne supplying one and me two edible sized fish.

At one stage we both had fish on our lines, quite hectic in our little boat. We just kept pulling them in, most were too small to eat, but it was exciting!

Thankfully we left Bailey behind as that wouldn't have been a good mix.

This is our "sand trailer" and how we tow the boat in and out of the water

Working out how much fuel was put into the boat fuel tank using a measuring stick, and thus how much 2-stroke oil to add

Some people will camp anywhere. This isn't even a recognised spot and these guys came in and setup in the middle of the beach, blocking the beach road and taking some of our view!

The "Whale Show" continued

"Telstra Hill" at sunset, a favourite time to go and check your messages and emails

Our neighbours who were camped behind us had a $4,000 drone, which flew over our campsite nearly everyday. Alex asked if we were ok with this, which of course we were. In return he gave us some of his photos.

Warning: These pictures will make you realise just what you're missing in this special place and you'll want to visit it costing you time and money! As it's not cheap to get here.

You can see our caravan, car and boat, plus all the other campsites along the beach.

You can see how clear the water is, and the reef and coral so close to the shore.

You can see Jayne and I are actually in the water with our boat in this shot

Now I did warn you that these pictures are incredible. Thanks Alex for sharing them with us.

You'll have to hurry as this place may not be open for much longer. The WA National Parks want to take over it and change it dramatically, including a 600 room Resort. What a silly idea, it's in the middle of our most dry coastal area - a true coastal desert.  The Supreme Court hearing is in February next year when the judge will decide the fate of Ningaloo Station.

As beautiful as Ningaloo Station camping is, it certainly goes to terrible with the wind. And to absolutely unbearable when the wind gets stronger and just doesn't stop. So after 2 weeks and 1 day, we decided to cut our losses and leave a couple of days earlier than we planned.  The forecast was for stronger wind than the last 2 days and changing direction so it would be blowing right at us.

The two perfect weeks of weather were great and we didn't want to spoil our time if we'd stayed for more windy weather. As sad as it was, it was time to leave.

We lost the antenna to our Tyre Pressure Monitoring System (TMPS) somewhere on the Gary Junction Road. This meant we were able to monitor the pressure of the car tyres, but not the van. We ordered a new antenna which was delivered to us in Exmouth, before we went out to Ningaloo Station.

However, we didn't only just lose the antenna the actual bracket was broken and we couldn't get it fixed in Exmouth.

This is what's left of the antenna mount

So we had to go into Ningaloo without monitoring the van tyre pressures. A very unsatisfactory thing to have to do. We made it there ok, but not back.

This tyre was fine not even 5 minutes before this. It happened that fast

The scary thing was, as the driver I couldn't tell the tyre had gone.  The road in and out of Ningaloo Station is a shocker. A car passing us in the other direction alerted us to our tyre situation. So we're up for a new tyre and rim as to have the rim repaired costs more than a new one.

Changing of the tyre was ok, except the wind was blowing right under the van and I ended up with both eyes, ears and everywhere else filled with sand!

We were 5kms from the safety of the tar. Nearly made it!

We've seen many other drivers with vans on dirt roads with tyres that look like this or worse, and I always thought they would have been able to tell the tyre had gone. Well it's been proven to me that you can't tell! The only way to avoid this is with a TMPS that works. Frustrating that we have the best one around, but without an antenna it won't monitor the van tyres.

So now we're in windy Carnarvon, where instead of sand blowing everywhere we have dirt swirling around - and we're in a caravan park.  The replacement flyscreen to replace the one we torched with the oven explosion was waiting at reception for us, and I fitted it today. 

We're off to Geraldton on Monday, heading south, although we think we're silly doing this as the weather down south is terrible.

There's a guy in Geraldton that reckons he can fix our TPMS antenna. Here's hoping so.

We need to get the van inspected for rego on Monday and that's booked in. Now that it's over 3.5T GVM Queensland Roads and Transport require it to be inspected every year.

We passed the Tropic of Capricorn on the way from Ningaloo, we've been in the tropics for just over 4 weeks, nowhere near long enough.