At Hamelin Pool I learnt what stromatolites are and I admit I had no clue what they were. But James was really keen to see them so I played along until he asked me why I was packing in a jumper to go see them. I thought we needed to go into a cave – stromatolites, stalactites, I thought they were all of the same family. Well so much about pretending to be clever 🙂 They look like rocks but they are actually one of the oldest living organisms. Quite hard to grasp and fascinating.

The manta rays were an unexpected surprise at the end of a dive/snorkel trip. We were ready to head back into the bay when one of the diving instructor shouted “manta rays” and literally went over board. Never in my life have I seen 10 people jumping of a boat that quick and swimming for their lives to catch up with them. But it was worth all that to see them swirling in the water only a few meters from us and finally gliding off into the distance.

It was good to take a day’s break from the water after that race and so we headed to Cape Range National Park to do some walking and to spot rock wallabies, kangaroos, emus and tons of birds.

It’s hard to describe how it feels when you first see a whale shark coming at you with the mouth open feeding on a soup of plankton. They’re harmless creatures but the sheer size of them is quite scary at first. We saw a 6m and a smaller juvenile one and once you get over the first freeze moment, you don’t want to get out of that water anymore. It took a few days for it to sink in and I still see them swimming by in front of my eyes when I lie in bed at night.

We’re now in Broome after 3 days of serious driving and a fun stay at Sandfire Roadhouse, looking at the stars, drinking red wine with our neighbours and listening to all sorts of weird animal noises from the animals they kept at that place. It’s gotten a lot hotter and thankfully Broome’s Cable Beach with a water temperature of 28 degrees is only 7 min around the corner. Not trying to make you jealous.