We have come to the Ningaloo coast to check out what all the fuss is about with whale sharks and the world famous reef.

The Ningaloo coral reef is a fringing reef that stretches from north of Exmouth down the coast to near Carnarvon, about 260km. It is never more than 12 kms off the coast and in many places comes close to the shoreline. You can look out from the beach and see waves breaking on the reef out to sea.

The reef is different from the Great Barrier Reef on the east coast. As its name suggests it is a barrier reef that is from about 16 to 160kms off the coast and stretches from Cape York down to near Bundaberg, about 2,300km. Both reefs are World Heritage Areas.

Exmouth is a curious place. It had its origins during WWII, when it served as a submarine base for the United States. Sorties were launched from here into South East Asia, including some Australian chaps in a small boat who blew up some Japanese ships in Singapore Harbour.

In the 1950s the Americans set up a naval communications base here that was pretty secretive. There are 13 big towers with wires hanging off them that communicate with American subs in the Pacific and Indian Oceans. It was so secretive that even the Australian PM was very vague as to what went on. Allthego remembers a bit of all this when he was at Uni, protests and the like by unions, students and professional rabble rousers etc. Sometime later Bob Hawke (or was it Gough Whitlam?) I think rationalised things and took over the place politely asking the Americans to go somewhere else. They are probably still there in some form keeping an eye on things. Any way when they left town we were told the population dropped to about 400 from 2,000.

They didn’t have a lot to do!

But then something generally comes along to pick up the pieces. This time it was a big blue thing with lots of white spots. Of course whale sharks had been here all along. They were ‘discovered’ along with the reef and all its sea life, and today we have a tourist mecca! The population has grown back to around 2,700 and is busy servicing the tourists and relieving them of their cash.

People come from all over the world to swim with these gentle plankton eating giants of normally about 4-8 metres in length. By the way they are not sharks but fish.

Allthego had hoped to get a chance for a swim, but School Holidays again got in the way. All booked out. The swim involves a day trip in a boat that is assisted by a whale shark spotter plane. The whale sharks cruise along near the surface and when spotted the boat finds it and all (two groups of 10) get in the water and snorkel along beside the creature, it moves slowly.

Allthego had one chance when a vacancy arose but while going through an inquisition as to his physical fitness, swimming ability etc the place was taken by someone else. In retrospect missing out may have been a bit lucky, keeping up with the all the twenty somethings and the shark might have been interesting!

So we settled for something more sedate, a semi submersible boat that we sat in below the waterline and observed the reef and life below the surface. Numerous coloured fish of various sizes and several turtles among the coral structures swam past during the afternoon.

Allthego was able to get off for a snorkel around and managed to get back on the boat.

Our other excursion was a short boat cruise up Yardi Creek. The Creek is a short water course into the landscape behind the coast.

It’s a mini gorge with colourful cliffs and a large population of rock wallabies that somehow cling to the vertical rock faces while moving around into caves and crevices. Quite a few resident fish and birdlife as well. An enjoyable jaunt.

The town has two craft breweries and we tried one out for lunch. An Exmouth prawn pizza was washed down with a selection of their product including a tasty ginger beer, there is a 4 pack in the van cellar to take back to Brisbane.

From Exmouth we moved 130km or so south to Coral Bay for a night on the way back down the coast to Carnarvon. Very crowded place. The reef comes right in close to the beach here for snorkelers to safely potter around in. Looks a good spot for youngsters compared to Exmouth.

We have now retraced our steps back to Carnarvon for a few nights before commencing the long haul back to Brisbane.