Ningaloo, Ningawhere?

Mazzie had watched too many PADI videos and decided that a pink mask was all the rage!

It's May so it must be time for an update from our January trip :o)

Like Andy's manbag?

Back in January, Lisa and myself boarded a flight from Wellington to Perth to begin a trip to the west coast of Oz, we travelled in exalted company - none less than a World Cup Winner was on the same flight! Sydney had been playing Wellington Phoenix in the 'A' league and next to us in the queue at 4am was none other than Juninho (if you've never heard of him then have a read of this)

We had a night in Perth and then headed north to Ningaloo, an isolated spot about 1000kms north of Perth - as far from fecking civilisation as you can get, and in Western Australia that's saying a lot!! More on Ningaloo here

We flew for an hour and a half from Perth to the airport at Exmouth, then another hour on road to get to Coral Bay to met up with Mazzie, Dave, Kyley, Andy and Nick for 5 days of fun!!

There be sharks in them there waters!

The coral reef at Ningaloo is the longest shore fringing coral reef in the world - now use that at the next pub quiz you attend. We spent our days diving on the reefs, the afternoons snorkeling with the turtles and the evenings sipping G&Ts and beers on the veranda. I'm not going to ruin it all by mentioning the flies.

Crush, dude!

Ningaloo is renowned for both the quality of its coral but also due to its unique location it one of the few places in the world where Whale Sharks can be seen on a regular basis - but not whilst we were there.

If I can take a shot of coral as good as this then the stuff must be good.

The lesser spotted Nick
You're ridiculous man!

The afternoon visitor to the pool

We had the chance to spend 2 days swimming with Manta Rays. The first day was spent trying to keep up with the Michelle De Brun of the manta world, fortunately the ray on the second day was happy to spend its time feeding and showing off, an amazing sight to see.

The reason we came to Ningalo - sort of!