The Black Hole

We've just spent six wonderful days at Ningaloo Station. Our camp site was about fifty metres from the water's edge, close enough to see everything and far enough  away to escape the wind-blown sand. And windy it was! Not in the terrible sense, though. The wind was strong enough that I could only launch the kayak on one day, but it kept the temperatures at a very comfortable level. We didn't need to fire up the generator to power the air conditioner, even though it was 49 Degrees C at Exmouth, just a hundred Km away.

Ningaloo camp sites are just $5.00 per person per night, or $20.00 per person per week. For that you get a key to gain access to your site and nothing else. There is no water, no rubbish collection, no toilets or dump-points and certainly no electricity. What you do get is a couple of shady trees and lots of serenity. From the beach in front of our van we could walk for an hour in either direction and not come across another camp site. We did meet one other couple, but only because they had walked an hour from their camp site!

Here's the camp site. That's the southern end of the range of hills that run the entire length of the North West Cape. The Tamarisk trees around the camp offer good shade but you don't leave anything important under them - they drip pure brine from their leaves in the cool of the evening.

Looking south from in front of our camp. The water is crystal clear and very safe for swimming (if you don't mind sharks).

The view facing north from in front of our camp site. The next closest camp to us was about a kilometre around the other side of the Point that you can see in this picture.

The fishing at Ningaloo is excellent. You could literally catch a fish at will. The first time I went fishing I noticed massive schools of Mullet swimming past. I figured I'd catch some to use for bait, so I tried catching them using my very light tackle and some bread dough on a very small hook. They were interested, but didn't bite. I gave up and started using small pieces of prawn on the same rig, trying to catch a whiting or two. To my surprise, the "Mullet" went crazy over the prawn and I had one on the beach within seconds. It was then that I realised that the "Mullet" were actually Threadfin Salmon! From that moment on, I fished with small lures like the one in the photo (above) and could literally catch a thready whenever a school swam past (and that was pretty often.)

So, we didn't need to worry about fish for food for the rest of the stay - I could just go and catch one on demand. The fish in the photo is a Golden Trevally. Unfortunately, they lose their beautiful golden colour immediately after coming out of the water. This little beauty put up an excellent fight after being tempted with the lure while I was sight-casting for fish. I landed the lure pretty much on its head and it was hooked almost instantaneously. I released him to fight another day. (It is a "him" as they all turn into "hers" after they get larger.)

I mentioned sharks earlier. We saw dozens of sharks. You could bank on one swimming by at least every three or four minutes. They always swim in the same direction - south during the rising tide and north during the falling tide. I identified four different species and although none were very big (the largest was just two metres), it certainly made us keep our eyes open while swimming.

The ferocity of sharks became very apparent to me on one occasion. I had hooked a Threadfin Salmon and it was putting up a very good fight on light tackle. Unfortunately it also attracted the attention of a 1.2 metre Black Tip Reef Shark that swooped in from the weed bank and savagely attacked the poor Salmon. At the time that it struck I pulled as hard as I could on the fish, trying to get it away from the shark. There was an explosion of water and spray and then the Salmon came in a lot faster. The shark rounded for another go and I cranked like crazy to get the fish up the beach and on the dry land. The shark came straight at the fish and literally launched itself up the beach until fully two-thirds of its body was high and dry - and the entire time it was snapping away at the Salmon!

Realising that it wasn't going to get the fish, the shark rolled itself back into the water. That was a real eye-opener for me. Close inspection revealed that the shark was successful in the first strike and had taken about six inches off the back-end of the fish - which explained why I was able to pull it in so quickly after the initial attack. What to do? The fish wasn't going to survive and the shark had worked hard for his dinner, so I threw the remains to the shark. It devoured them in a single gulp.

                                          Our "neighbour" from around the other side of the Point

Some of you will have noticed that the title of this blog post is "The Black Hole". This is a reference to the only drawback of staying at Ningaloo Station......no signals of any sort get in or out of the place. We could not get mobile phone coverage, Internet coverage, AM radio, FM radio, any TV stations.....nada, nil, nothing. So for almost a week we knew nothing of what was going on in the outside world. This isn't a bad thing in itself, but in this part of Oz, at this time of year, you really need to know if there are cyclones about. The only contact we had with anyone was the people at the Station Homestead via UHF CB radio.

Right now we are at Geraldton (got here this morning) and will spend Christmas with our both of our children (a rare event these days). From here we will leave on the 27th and start our way East. Next blog will be from somewhere on the Nullarbor Plain (Satellites and/or other whizzy things permitting.)