12 September 2005 (Day 7 – Perth to Exmouth via Geraldton)

With our body clocks still on AEST, Daniel woke up at around 5am this morning. We had put a wake up call in for 6:30am just so we could make the check-in for our Skywest flight to Exmouth.
The call came, and whilst we were already up it was strange, the time was 6:25am according to the alarm clock. We were getting the bus at 7am. It was only when Daniel checked his watch that we realised that the alarm clock was 5 minutes slow!
Just as we were leaving the room we got a call from reception telling us the bus was leaving in a few minutes. We got on the bus with a minute to spare, but the bus driver drove like…. well, like Daniel, to the airport.
We made it to check-in, and for the first time we had to surrender something at check-in. The can of Mortein that we had to keep away any pests is flammable and can’t be taken on flights – apparently (it made it okay to Perth from Sydney via Hamilton Island, Brisbane and Melbourne!)
Daniel had a pie for breakfast whilst we waited to board the plane. The plane was a Fokker 50 – a small propeller plane seating 46 people. On the flight to Geraldton we got our first airplane food – breakfast. We had become so used to not having food we ate beforehand, but as it was ‘complimentary’ we had some airline food anyway!
Stopping off in Geraldton we disembarked for ten minutes, walked around the tiny terminal where they have a fish tank with fish local to the area. We spent our time trying to identify the fish!
On the second leg of the flight to Exmouth, the cabin crew (of which there are two) switched roles for the safety demonstration. As we were sitting up the front we could hear the laughter from the guy reading the safety information whilst the woman did the demonstrating. Normally (and we’ve heard this heaps of times now!) it starts with emergency exits at the front of the plane and work their way back – he started at the rear and worked forward (well, there are two at the front and two at the back) and then the lights on the ceiling followed by the floor lights – but he did floor first then ceiling. Of course, the woman wasn’t expecting it and had to change what she was pointing to. I’m sure the next flight she’ll get her own back!
Flying inland towards Exmouth, we could see the coast in the distance, but beneath us was red sand with speckled with sparse vegetation. This, and the coastal area where the sand dunes seem to go back kilometres and don’t end with abrupt rocky cliff faces, is the first different sort of landscape that we’ve seen – admittedly, all we could see crossing from Melbourne to Perth was black! Hamilton Island looked like the rest of the East Coast of Australia. Dry sclerophyll Eucalypt forest, interspersed with palms. The geology appeared to be granite and clay. The Whitsundays is a mountain range that is mostly underwater now.
Flying over the coast we think we flew over Monkey Mia, which is the isthmus on the Western Australia coast half way up. At Monkey Mia you can stand in the waters edge and dolphins will actually come right up to you. We won’t be going there but Wolffa did on his trip earlier this year before he swam with the Whale Sharks at Exmouth. We’ll be extremely lucky to see Whale Sharks as it isn’t the right time of year for them in Exmouth.
As we circled the Exmouth Gulf, the pilot pointed out a number of whales – one was even waving to us as we flew over! It’s always a good day when you see a whale or four!
We arrived at Exmouth (well, technically it is Learmonth, but even the airliner called the airport Exmouth!) We had booked a shuttle bus from the airport to our accommodation, which made life a little easier. On the way in we saw the dark red soils and two emus walking along the side of the road!
We were dropped off at our accommodation – Exmouth Villas. We were greeted by a group of blue fibro buildings with a row of doors. It looked weird but we thought maybe it has been a building converted into something useful. The real estate agent had left keys in the power box for us, or so we thought. The keys didn’t fit any of the four doors. Helen called the agent and they brought down the real keys. We opened up one door and found that each door actually opens up to a separate room. There is a kitchen and lounge room (with one door sealed off), a bedroom with three single beds, one with two single beds, and a room with a double bed. All the rooms are joined by a veranda. As our lodgings are Unit 20, we’ve called it Stalag 20.
We walked through the much better accommodation of Pot Shots – associated with a pub – to see the dive shop, fill out paperwork and show our log books. Whilst there we found a rash shirt for Helen and much cheaper than Daniel’s in Hamilton Island!
We had hamburgers and chips for lunch at Pot Shots before finding the Exmouth shopping centre. There is only a handful of shops and that is about it.
When we got back to our cell, we decided that there is no way that we can stay in Stalag 20 between dives, and there is nothing else to do in Exmouth. One of the staff at the dive shop said on their days off, they go diving. So we decided that we’d hire a car. We shopped around but in the end Budget seemed to be the cheapest.
After we signed the paperwork, we were told that we couldn’t drive outside of the township after sunset due to kangaroos and emus. Great – we couldn’t go for a long drive and come back at night.
Another thing about Stalag 20 – no phone, and there is no mobile phone reception on the Optus network. Telstra has reception, so Helen’s phone works. But apart from that, we’re isolated – no email or internet.
We went for a snorkel at Bundigei Beach – there were fishermen everywhere, but we couldn’t figure out why, there weren’t any fish! A bit of an exaggeration – there were some small fish around anchors that had been torn off their boats when Cyclone Vernon hit the area in the late 90’s.
We came back to Stalag 20 and had baked pasta for dinner for crashing.