Day 75: Cape Range National Park (Day 1)

Today we woke up to a rather windy day so decided to drive back into Exmouth to have a look around and do a bit of grocery shopping. While in town, we checked out the Big Prawn and the Big Whaleshark. We then dropped in for a look through the visitors center in Exmouth - the kids were impressed with the stuffed animal display. On the way back to camp we stopped in at Vlamingh Head Lighthouse to learn about the history of the lighthouse, Exmouth (which was only founded in the 1960s), and the radar that was installed on the hill during World War II.

Once back at camp we found that the wind had dropped so we changed into swimmers and drove north to Lakeside to do our first snorkel on Ningaloo Reef. This was a great introduction to the reef. There were lots of fish everywhere we looked. Some of our favourite sightings were of a cowtail stingray (Theo), the humuhumunukunukuapua'a (Hawaiian) triggerfish (Olivia), schools of blue-green puller fish (Shavawn).

After almost two hours in the water Theo and I were getting out when John saw a green sea turtle. Theo and I jumped back in to swim back out to where he was, but in our rush to get out there we forgot to put on our flippers so it was a slow swim out. Once we got there we watched the turtle swim around near the coral until he came up to the surface for air before swimming away. Swimming with a turtle was the one experience that Theo really wanted to have on this trip. I'm so glad that we found one on our first day here!