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...

Alesund

Our final destination stop was Alesund. This is a very pretty town in southern Norway built on a peninsula. All the houses are painted pretty colours and a lot of the architecture is all very Art Nouveau based. This is because the town itself was completely burnt to the ground In 1904 by a fire for which they never found the original cause. The whole town had to be rebuilt and this became a huge National Effort and a lot of prominent and up and coming architects flocked to the town to stick there 20 pence in. Consequently the town is very heavily Art Nouveau which was very fashionable at the time. There is this wonderful Museum just off the harbour which is a very beautiful Art Nouveau house. It has amazing panelling, doors, wallpaper, and it's all furnished with beautiful art Nouveau Furniture. It also house a collection of of enameled Art Nouveau Trinkets,boxes, spoons, jewellery, very very beautiful. There is an interesting collection of old books and paintings a...

Isle of Bute

Another Landmark Trust tick - this time Ascog House on the Isle of Bute - stunning as always... a very comfortable warm accommodation for the usual 8 suspects. This time we had a wee tower house for Dr Fred and myself - a lovely bedroom up the stairs with a big window and a bathroom al to ourselves - having said that all the other bedrooms in the big house were large and serviced by two bathrooms so there was no hardship for any visitors! The grounds of the house were very extensive with ponds and secret passages - hidden paths and we even spotted a deer late afternoon - there were lots of old features - ornate staircases and a lovely hidden door which I did a quick sketch of. Bute provided quite a lot of entertainment as well - the weather was kind and we did a a muddy wander down the south of the Island taking in St Blanes Monastery and Kilcannon Bay. The views were spectacular and it was fabulous to be out in the fresh (and it was fresh on the tops) air and we...

The Blue Dot

Excellent evening spent at the first Blue Dot festival held at Jodrell Bank. Clever use of the radio telescope as back drop for the main stage... there were some major teething issues which hopefully will addressed if this event happens again - mainly access and parking.. it was a nightmare approach to the festival and fortunately as we were only doing one night we decided to ditch the car and chose to walk the last mile and half into the site... what a relief as if we had queued we would most certainly missed Public Service Broadcasting which was one of the reasons we were going.. anyway we caught them and then enjoyed fantastic set by Underworld - danced much of the night away in the rain - my trusty solfest poncho almost kept me dry.. it was a splendid evening and the telescope looked brilliant when lit up when it got dark. There was a rather fab "installation" called a luminarium, lack of site information - another hiccup meant we were really lucky to catch it just ...

Planet Ruby Starrs

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