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.
2macstracks 
Comments on: "Exmouth 2" (3)
Great photos of ‘wildlife’.
First couple of days brilliant for Royal Show, wetter today and ‘showers’ for the rest of the week.
Highlight in Adelaide was the AFL game at Adelaide Oval on Sunday – Port Power v Melbourne. I am not a Power fan but after Father’s Day Lunch at Pete’s came home and watched the last 3 quarters on TV. Almost 30,000 fans, 99.9% of them Port supporters displayed a sea of Teal Blue, Black and White colours – and lots of noise. It was a close game with Port just coming out the victors, thanks to Melbourne’s last two scoring shots missing goal and being points. ADELAIDE ALIVE – and how! It was fantastic and the boost of confidence Adelaide needed to reassure everyone that AFL at Adelaide Oval will be a goer. Free buses only took 30 mins to Adelaide instead of about an hour to AAMI. 2014 can’t come fast enough for footie fans.
Other good news was that Kevin Foley is to stand down same day as Mike Rann, Oct 20.
They may both leave politics within a few months which will cause two by-elections. Interesting times!
Love
Cindy
x
The Monitor blends in so well I can’t see the size of the prey. Mr Brown Snake is giving me goose bumps and the creeps from here.
You’re right, Kit, it was really difficult keeping sight of him, Alex didn’t take his eyes off so he could show me where the Monitor was. Pity he didn’t just stay by the road to eat his tucker. Because the lizard was curled we couldn’t tell exactly how big it was but certainly very long. Lunch was about 1/3 the size of the Monitor.