Exmouth is a lovely surprise. The loveliest surprise of all is the Novotel Ningaloo in Exmouth. An absolute delight of a hotel – I am in heaven. Beautifully appointed, gorgeous view and location just outside of town. After the basic but adequate accommodation in Coral Bay, it feels wonderful to be in luxury digs.
Day 2 in Exmouth didn’t start so well. Firstly, our swim with whale sharks was cancelled due to bad weather. For about an hour we weren’t sure if we could get onto a whale shark tour before we have to leave. Thankfully someone cancelled on the Ocean Eco tour for tomorrow and we got a spot. Hurrah! We were up early to prepare for the whale shark tour that didn’t eventuate, and decided to use this day instead to sight see and take a drive through the Cape Range National Park. Sadly, the Subaru suffered a flat tyre – correction, a wrecked stuffed tyre, so we weren’t going anywhere. The handy Greek put the spare tyre on and we went to Exmouth’s two tyre shops to get a new tyre. Sadly, we have to pay an extra $130 to get a tyre couriered overnight from Perth. Thankfully though, the tyre didn’t explode when Zorba was gunning it on the highway. That could have been really dangerous and ended up with a different set of problems altogether. So really, we were very lucky.
The drive we took today whilst the weather was moody and not WA picture perfect was lovely. Cape Range National Park is simply stunningly gorgeous. The coast line with the aqua crystal clear water lapped by white sand and fringed with yellow and green shrubs was beautiful. Even with a moody grey sky as a backdrop. And we saw a cute little echidna on our way back.
Cute little echidna
Turquoise Bay was a real highlight – just gorgeous. The light house was also a lovely drive that offered stunning views. The rest of our afternoon was spent lapping up the luxury in our wonderful apartment at the Novotel Ningaloo, drinking cocktails at the bar, and eating freshly caught Kailis prawns in our room for dinner.
Turquoise Bay Exmouth
Big shout out to the Tyre Wizard for sorting out our tyre problem and also to Steve Riley at the Exmouth Game Fishing Club for shouting us a beer!