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...

Scotland part 2

The second half of the week continued in much the same vein. We had one rainy afternoon which was actually quite nice to be holed up in the house with the rain lashing the windows. It probably wasn't quite so nice for the two visitors that came on their bikes but they're tough cookies - and its only water- but I did feel sorry for them having to cycle six miles back down the track in the wind and rain, but given Scotland, it wasn't as bad as it could be. The big quest for the 2nd half of the week was to find some deer antiers! The chap that owned the house dropped in to visit - he was a very friendly fella and was chatting about how this was the time of year when all the Stags lost their antlers (he collected them and sold them) so after that we were on the serious lookout. It's always been Fred's mission to find some dropped antlers.... The Monro baggers continued with the mission to bag the remaining three Monros... there is discussion as whet...

Vigo

We left the ship to explore Vigo. Its a much larger place then we expected... although tbh I hadn't given ut a lot of thought. Its a real mish mash of old and new and having got a map from tourist info we decided to follow the walking trail to the Monte Castro... the highest point of the town. Most of the town was pretty much as everywhere else... lots of traffic... lots of people... one or two interesting buildings and a lot of shopping. We headed to the art gallery - this has been a year of gallery visits so we we seen o reason to change now. The Museo de Marco is housed in the towns ex prison building and its very grand. In fact, I think that on this occaision the building might have been more interesting than the art.... Although the visiting exhibition by Susanne S D Themlitz was strangely compelling. It was a huge varied collection of eclectic items... found, salavaged, manipulated and arranged in lots of ways - weirdly inspiring - and mostly enjoyable to look at...

verdant lushness

Its a never ending island hop... today we hopped of the boat at Kingstown, on the island St. Vincents and Grenadine. Once through the usual port duty free - cheap booze and diamonds to go milarkey we were straight into the town... crazy noisy smelly chaos... refreshingly no tat shops for tourists, just local markets and street traders all vying for local sales. Music blasting from everywhere, cars (very battered and often very pimped) all over the roads - parked in the middle of the street, loading, unloading, chatting seemingly oblivious to the total traffic jam caused behind them... We walked through this mayhem - the temperatures were rising probably about 30 degrees - tourists evident by trying to walk on the shady side of the street - even when we turned off the main drag and there were less people it was still like carnival time with music blasting everywhere. Its very atmospheric and mostly promotes a good vibe although I have heard '3 little birds' everywhich way a...

Planet Ruby Starrs

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