Day 17 - Ningaloo Around

A day of rest, I head out on the Ningaloo Discovery to try my luck swimming with whale sharks.

Quick Stats

• 20 minutes on bike
• 32 km
• 7002 km total

On the other side of the North West Cape to Exmouth, crossing the Cape Ranges lies the start of the Ningaloo reef. The largest [citation needed] fringing reef in the world, it extends down to Carnarvon.

The reef is one of the most protected feeding grounds for the megafauna known as whale sharks. They grow up to 12 metres, are sharks and not whales and can dive to a thousand metres.

They tend to feed here April to July before going elsewhere where there's more plankton. This means I've hit the shoulder season. I decide to take the gamble and grab some heavily discounted (compared to peak season) tickets.

Its a full day affair with food, drinks and we go snorkelling on the Ningaloo Reef as well. Theres a 50 dollar adhoc fee if they find a whale shark and you swim with it.

Picked up from my hotel at 8 am by bus, we head around the cape to be ferried to our powerboat.

A quick morning snorkel on the reef to test our gear and have our fitness assessed, we depart out past the reef and wait for word from the spotter plane. Yep, each boat has its own spotter plane searching.

We're not waiting idley though, there's humpback whales absolutely everywhere out here and we follow a few of them to watch them breach and jump. Sorry, not nearly a talented enough photographer for that.

It's not long before the spotter plane radios down that he's seen something. So we motor south toward his sighting. We've been briefed on what to do, and its a lot more dynamic than I expected.

The whale sharks can dive at any time if they want, so there's no guarantee they'll hang around. We form two groups, one is ready snorkels and all, the other on standby.

The photographer goes in the water first and, with help from the skipper, finds the whale shark. The "Go Go Go" order is given and we all dive in, we are to swim toward our guide and then form a line and await the shark.

Seconds later there is an absolute monster of a fish swimming right in front of us along the surface. They don't really pay any attention to you, they're just lazily swimming along eating plankton.

Once the initial pass is done, all bets are off (beyond staying 3 metres from fins and 4 metres from tail) and those that can, swim as hard as you can to keep pace with this creature.

It seems only myself, two others and the photographer are able to keep up. Within a couple minutes we're told to stop swimming so group two can have a go.

Keep in mind we're bobbing about in 50 metre deep open waters, its a pretty strange sensation.

Ordinarily this would be the end, as theres usually a dozen other boats in the water to take their turn. Its the shoulder season though, and not only that but the other three boats out today have headed north to chase a different whale shark. So we get to go for another dive. And another. And another.

By the third swim, we've got the drill downpat and I can finally take it in.

The crew is over the moon, confessing to us they've only had two whale sharks in a week, and the other didn't come above ten metres depth.

We head in for some lunch and a snorkel on the reef.

There's some pretty colourful fish and reef and even a colour changing octopus.

We head back ashore and are ferried to our accommodation. On the way back, I spot the Vlamingh Head Lighthouse on the cape and plan to return. Dropped back at the hotel, I shower and do exactly that.

There's the towers I talked about yesterday, hard to miss. Embarrassed during the cold war that the US Navy didn't have ubiquitous communications with their submarines, this comms transmitter was the solution put forward in 1963.

After Harold Holt disappeared swimming at the beach in 1967, they formally renamed the facility the Harold E Holt Naval Communication Station. I think that's nearly as offensive as the swimming pool named after him, right?

It was a pretty big deal back in the 60s to setup a complete town and infrastructure for a communications transmitter...

There's three sixty degree views here, think I'll hang around for sunset.

Also I cracked 7000 total kilometres on the short ride, without actually going anywhere.

Better get out of here, its getting cold and I'm hungry.

Tomorrow I'm heading down the coast some more.