All this and turtles too!

It feels a bit empty without Papa. Its funny how quickly you adapt to a situation, yet it takes much longer to readjust afterwards. This morning, the wind has settled, Timna and Linda decide to go for a little snorkel and then visit the Milyering Visitors Centre. An incredibly informative and interactive centre. They also sit back and watch a movie about the Ningaloo Reef and its incredible marine life.

The campground we are staying in has no fresh water or power. We have drinking water that we purchased before coming into the park, and when you need water for washing yourself or the dishes etc you can collect bore water from this tap. The local neighbours hang out here because there is always water spillage on the ground. You are asked to not feed the Emus no matter how appealing the idea might be. These are wild animals and there are issues with making them dependant on this water as their only source, with the risk they will not search elsewhere. They then run the big risk of dehydrating when there are fewer travellers accessing the bore tap.

During happy hour it became a common sight to see kids piled in the van watching Croc Dundee or Phineas and Ferb.

And happy hour for the adults. Tonight the guitars finally come out. We all really look forward to this part of the day, time to catch up with old friends and meet new ones, to hear of others adventures and to share experiences. Robbie aptly referred to this time as the meeting of the United Nations- representatives from France, Switzerland, German, Italy, Ireland, Austria, England, Scotland, New Zealand and Australia.

Timna and her new friend Chloe.

We are very lucky as we have arrived in Ningaloo Reef at the beginning of the Turtle nesting season. An amazing part of nature that we are able to observe close up and very personal. At present there are no restrictions from accessing the beach just the request that you respect nature and don't interfere. After reading all the available information about turtles, we decide to explore one of the beaches and see what we can find. So as to avoid disappointment we prepare the children that we may not see anything.....

...but we were not disappointed. All of those black shadows are turtles. We counted 100 turtles just in the shorebreak in a stretch of approximately 200 metres.

There were quite a few turtles resting on the shore. The mating process is quite vigorous for the poor female, and she will bring herself on to the sand for a rest. The rangers have had to put notices up explaining this process, as there were many well meaning travellers, who on seeing these turtles, tried helping them back  to the water that they had escaped from. This unfortunately can lead to the drowning death of the turtle who no longer has the energy to cope with the males and their persistent mating attempts.

Back at the campsite, sunset behind the vans..but most importantly this signals the time for happy hour !!

Views of the moon rising , wow!!

We returned to the turtle beach that night with some other campers to observe the nesting process. You feel very privileged and then at the same time almost like an intruder. The kids were fascinated watching these enormous turtles drag themselves up the sand. These turtles might go through this process multiple times during one season. They may lay 100 eggs in  each clutch, however, the survival rate is maybe one turtle in 10,000. Once they hatch the turtle is on its own. The first danger is getting from the nest in the sand dune down to the water. Then they need to not be eaten by fish, birds or sharks.

y tWhat a lovely way to spend the morning. Our lovely neighbours next door let the children hang out in their hammock. This is certainly something we will be getting for our next adventure.

Looking back up at our van from the beach.

Endless hours were spent on this rock ledge with a hand line fishing, watching crabs and eels nibble at the bait. Robbie did manage to catch a few fish which cooked up a treat.

Building dams with new friends.

And loads of pleasure out of throwing sand against the rock ledge in this nice and sheltered spot.

Glen and Rowena and their boys, our camp hosts at Mesa. As we say all the time, we are having the most incredible journey, partly for the places we are seeing but mostly because of the people we have been lucky enough to share our time with along the way. Thank you camp hosts, we hope that we get to share some more laughs with you sometime in the not too distant future. We promise should we be in your part of the world we will call!!!!

So after 7 days and six nights it is time to leave Cape Range.We met some really wonderful characters during our time here....Marg and Phil, Dave, who in the the late 70's was working in Tom Price, the German girls, John and Lyn, Jennifer and Rob from Ireland, Sam and her family, Cassie's family, the mining family who camped next door to us, the lovely couple from Perth who let the kids use their hammock, the Swiss fellow on his bike we met previously and many more. Today we return to Coral Bay with plans to stay about a week. The kids are beside themselves with excitement as we are about to reconnect with the friends they made in Katherine. We did only spend about 4 hours with this family, so it is with some trepidation that we head towards Coral Bay hoping that there will be no disappointments. Here we go..............................