Exmouth 2

It’s always nice to be staying for a day and not have to pack everything away and move on. For Fathers’ Day I treated Alex to an Egg & Bacon Roll & a Flat White even though he’s not my father!!!! Today’s plan was to have a roam around the western coast and to book a place on a Glass Bottom Boat to see the reef. We managed half. Had a nice roam along the coast from the Harold Holt Naval Base with its immense communication aerials to Bundegi Beach where I found a small calm shell that I thought would be a good bird drinking container then we went along the coast to the wreck of the SS Mildura. Hundreds of bullocks died there but no people. I don’t know what caused the wreck but the skipper lost his ticket for 8 months so he goofed somehow. As I walked down towards the water a Brown Snake moved out of my way and into the grass, usually it’s Alex who meets snakes first. The nastiest things there though were big flies like March Flies and they STUNG! Next came the Vlamingh Lighthouse which didn’t seem to be flashing but looks perfect, I think there would be enough signalling going out from the Naval Base to let anyone know where they were.

Sturt Desert Peas grow along the roadside but I think they aren’t the vivid red of the Central Aust. Ones. At the Tantabiddi Boat Ramp we saw lots of crabs racing about the rocks but we couldn’t see what they were after. It was the wrong time for much action at the Bird Hide but as we were going along the road we saw life in the raw when a Monitor of some kind caught a lizard and worked it down its gullet. Once it realized we weren’t a threat it just relaxed and ate. Poor lizard.

Unfortunately because of the winds & rough water the boats aren’t going out to the reef so we’ve decided to move on to Coral Bay tomorrow hopefully we’ll be able to see the reef from there.

Fathers’ day dinner tonight, Endeavour Prawns, bought at the local market this morning, salad and a nice bottle of Margaret River, Sav-Blanc.

Brown Snake because it's a snake and it's brown!

L-o-n-g Tailed Lizard

Blue Clawed Crab

Monitor with lunch

Lizard Lunch

A GREY horse.