‘Blowember’ – a good time to meet other traveling families

After a couple of days in and around Exmouth, it was time to explore the southern part of the world heritage region of Ningaloo Reef. We drove to Coral Bay, a tiny town nestled next to a fabulous beach with a coral reef that is very close to the shore.

At the caravan park, we set up camp and were a bit reluctant to go down to the beach due to the wind. In retrospect, that was a very smart move as we got to meet our camp neighbors Anthony, Max, Cassius (6) and Orson (3). They are on their way from Darwin to circle Australia anti-clockwise for the next year. Eventually, we ended up going to the beach together with them. Before too long, the kids headed off to play with other kids a bit further down the beach, such that their parents were able to sit together and have nice chats. All of us really enjoyed that moment (which was actually more than an hour) of quiet solitude without having to worry and actively entertain the kids.

It was fabulous. Except that Max (Cassius’ and Orson’s mom) told us of her close encounter with a King Brown Snake at Ospey Bay, just a couple of days earlier than when we had been there. Lucky us that we only heard about that now, otherwise I would have probably had second thoughts about the otherwise just perfect camp spot right along the beach.
Given that the kids were so happy playing together and the adults were really enjoying being able to have a proper uninterrupted conversation, we headed down to the local pub ‘Fin’s’ after dinner. The kids had an ice cream, the adults some drinks – life is beautiful!

So just in case you ever wonder why our blog constantly lags about three weeks behind where we are – this is it: we’re simply meeting way too many nice and friendly people along the way. In comparison with the ‘duty’ of keeping a blog up to date, we simply prefer enjoying life. And if that means that a blog entry gets published a day or two or three later than what we targeted, that’s just what it is… I’m not sure if I could do professional blogging when the blogging takes over the actual experiencing of a place, situation and fun evening.
The next morning, our new friends unfortunately had to leave already. As a good-bye breakfast, Sam treated them to his Kaiserschmarrn / ‘scrambled pancakes’, which was well appreciated, not only by them, but also by Max and me.
Once we had said our good-byes, we packed our stuff and headed off to the shark nursery. After a pleasant walk along the beach we arrived at a sand spit creating a sheltered shallow lagoon. And there they were, probably about 30 to 40 small reef sharks. Contrary to some other tourists, we chose not to get into the water and rather observed from the dunes next to the lagoon.

Once we had observed for quite a while, we hiked back and even stumbled upon an enormous dead turtle.

Unfortunately, the walk back seemed much longer and definitively much more unpleasant, as this time we had the wind in our face. And it was not just a light breeze, but really strong wind. According to the weather forecast, it must have been about 40 km/h. It was definitively strong enough to be just a bit unpleasant, which resulted just in the perfect excuse for the boys to head up to the roof top tent to play Lego.
The approaching sunset was eventually convincing Sam that it was time to leave the tent and to head off to take some pictures. Originally, Max and I were supposed to go as well, but as the wind continued to blow as hard as in the afternoon, Max simply refused to go. Which was fine for me.

At least the good news is that all Australian caravan parks have camp kitchens that are not only well equipped for cooking, but usually also have a nice seating arrangement. This was also true for our camp ground. So, Max and I headed to the camp kitchen to have our dinner and to enjoy being sheltered from the wind.
The camp kitchen turned out to be also an excellent meeting place with other campers. There we met Jörn and Ines with their kids Fiona (5) and Fabio (2). They are from Munich using a couple of months of ‘Elternzeit’ / parenting time to travel through Australia.
And we also met Lucia and Guido with their daughter Emia (7) from Switzerland. They were the first family we met, doing a round the world trip like us. Actually, they are traveling the other way around and have been already to Sri Lanka, Malaysia, Mongolia, Borneo, Thailand and Nepal before getting to Australia. They will continue onwards to New Zealand, stay once more in Australia and are still a bit undecided if they should continue via Fiji, Hawaii or somewhere else. Letting the plan develop reminded us of our own style of traveling. With so many commonalities, we found lots of things to talk about. It was simply great.
The next morning, it was an easy decision to prolong our stay for one more night. We headed to the beach and were lucky that in the morning the wind was not as strong yet as in the days before. We went snorkeling and were amazed by the beautiful corals in the bay – nicer than most other places we had seen so far.
In the afternoon, we joined the fish feeding session which is organized three times a week. Even though it was mainly trevallys coming to the feeding, there were some nicely colored parrot fish as well.

That afternoon, I also learned that the strong winds around this time of the year resulted in the nickname ‘Blowember’. And yes, this name fits perfectly. But even though the wind might be unpleasant, in the end it helps to keep the temperatures at bay. Otherwise we might have potentially complained about the heat.
After another nice evening with the other travelers in the camp kitchen and a final get together over breakfast the next morning, it was unfortunately time to say good bye. After more than a week at the Ningaloo Reef, it was time for us to head south.