Exmouth Adventures

Before I write this I just want to credit Andy with most of the pictures... the good ones are his the snaps are mine..

Next I wrote a whole dissertation about our time in Exmouth and the phone deleted it so this is the short version with photos...

Exmouth.. official population just under 3000 had approx 20,000 visitors and did them selves proud.

At first we were led to believe a lot of the national parks were shut... or very restricted access - saftey and wildlife issues and we were disappointed. We had had to book camping for a week... we expected to explore parks and coast and it looked like we might be confined to the town.. but it turned out all ok in the end there was restricted access but we managed to get most places we wanted to...

We set up camp, having met the Castlemaine duo... and went to explore... sussing out the best option for the eclipse view - we soon had plans A to H..

The boys went climbing and wanderung in the canyons and gorges spotting loads of rock wallabies

and us girls went swimming in the river.. making do with lots of fishes...our turn for wildlife would come...

In the evening we drove to a completely deserted beach and star gazed under the expert tuition of Dr Fred... fantastic clear skies and even a sighting of the plough - upside down!

The boys were in their element, rocks.. crags.. caves galore we girls needed an adventure so we booked a morning snorkeling on the Ningaloo Reef.

It was fabulous -BUT to say I was out of my comfort zone was an understatement - almost naked in the middle of an ocean with sharks and crocodiles... ( crocs very rare but had been recent sighting) but after swallowing half the Indian Ocean and a lot of encouragement and support from my co snorkeler and the (all Women) boat crew I finally got the hang of it... the coral was stunning, the fish were stunning, the little shark swimming under me was stunning...the stingray on the sea bed was stunning... the giant clams were... well you get the idea - clear warm water.. mind you my legs were still like jelly everytime Igot back onto the boat!

We saw turtles and dolphins from the boat.

The national parks were excellent.. restricted access meant early starts but that beat the heat.. there were good walks and interesting information centres and in one of them there was an amazing 'yarn reef'. Beautiful art work by a local stitching group.

Exmouth - nice town - had put on a 3 day 'Sol Fest Dark Skies Festival' with music, giant puppets, food stalls, childrens entertainment, star gazing and talks... it was very good and mostly about 50 yards from our camping. (Double whammy this... good access - very noisy).

The first night we watched the first half of The Waifs in front of the stage and the second half from our bed in the van with the back up... the second day... eclipse day we were up before 5.00am and after the stunning display by the moon and sun we went back to camp - had a siesta... then a lovely meal out and went to watch The Hot Dub Time Machine DJ set. Good family entertainment - great fun... ( Tom the DJ and his colleague had been snorkeling with us so we were biased) - we watched the whole set on the field which was just as well because we were all so cream crackered once in bed were all out like a light...

Friday- quiet day... the castlemainers istoked up on donuts (we helped)

my comrade in surviving bad jokes flew home 😒(she has proper job) we went ro the most nortern point of the pemninsular - so also our most northern point of the trip.. I have collecting beach treasure... much of which will not make it home so I left beach art instead...

and now our journey home begins...

RubyStarrs in Paris...

Finally we have made it to Paris. It was a bit of a long travel day - we decided to come by train so we could experience the full glory of British Rail or whatever it's called now which actually delivered perfectly on time... and then the Eurostar which was incredibly disappointing! All that beautiful St. Pancreas Station and the Eurostar is sited in the dungeon... overcrowded, dark, lousy facilitated space... and then the train was an hour late it felt like a long time before we got any fresh air - but eventually we wound up in gay Paree... We navigated the metro and found our airbnb gaff. A mere 70 steps to the fourth floor on a rather lovely winding wooden staircase to a very nice roof top flat which is comfortable and gives a view across a lovely Courtyard with some obviously much posher flats. It's located really centrally about two minutes away from the Opera Garnier so a very good location for getting everywhere...

Funchal

So after three days at sea we finally hit Funchal in Madeira. An escape from the ship, and I have to say it was very pleasant indeed. First of all the weather is really splendid. Especially when you know that everybody else in the UK is suffering grim storms and vile winds.. Over here it is between 22 and 25 degrees is really quite warm. Funchal is a pretty city. It's built on a hill it with lots of lovely white houses with stunning red roofs. In order to get the best of it we walked along the sea front until we got to the cable car and we took it up the hill. It was a really good ride much longer than we imagined and it's quite weird because it goes right through the town - completely over everybody's house... So not only do you get a lovely vista of the bay but you can view the beautiful rooftops and get to look in everybody's gardens and to look at their picnic sets.. clean washing nice plants... scratty backyards.... We got off th

Another Day in Norway where our Trusty Traveller finds Tromsø, Trolls and Totally misses Aurora....

Tromsø - the most northern city on the planet... Its quite a pretty little town with lots of wood fronted shops, but of course like everywhere like this, it is just one big tourist hive and every shop is selling 'indigenous' gifts- didthe Sami make aurora themed mugs and fridge magnets? Nearest I'll get a polar bear (i hope) Although I have to say I did like the big stuffed polar bear and black bear and I am presuming that these are either not real (unlikely) or culled as they sometimes have to be. But most of the stuff is just northern lights tat or Troll tat. Peer Gynt.. famous worldover To be fair the best bit of Tromsø for me was the Troll Museum! We went to the art gallery which was quite interesting (see instagram account) but not astounding, but I always like to look at the local art. We had a mooch around town in the snow and then we went to find the Trolls. This museum was absolutely crazy daft... it was totally dedi

Planet Ruby Starrs

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