"Interesting fact: a shark will only attack you if you are wet."
- Sean Lock
After 6.5 months with these guys I said goodbye on Friday morning! Au pairing has had its ups and downs but it has been incredible to see these two grow so much in the time I was with them!
Before I left Karratha, there were a few things I wanted to do. One was climbing this hill to see this statue. One evening I messaged my friend Madison about 30 minutes before sunset to see if she wanted to go up. It was not the greatest idea as we basically sprinted up the hill but we at least got to the top before it was dark.
It has been very interesting to see how Australia honors the indigenous people. Before news broadcasts, radio shows, and my host mom even said before meetings, they need to thank the traditional (aboriginal) landowners. This is very different to the way we learn about and treat Native Americans in the US. We learn about the Native Americans in school in terms of our history but rarely learn about them in the present.
It is crab season in Karratha! How cool are these blue crabs? Weirdly they still turn red when they are cooked. The picture on the right is a crocodile salad. It tastes like a slightly tougher chicken. I have also eaten kangaroo while I've been here. It tastes the same as any sort of venison and could be mistaken for beef in a soup or stew.
For the past month, one set of the kid's grandparents have been visiting. One day we went to the beach to try and have a photo shoot with the kids. Lets just say 3 year olds are not fond of posing for photos.
Another place I wanted to visit before leaving Karratha was Murujuga National Park. This park was only 15 minutes from my house and I don't know why I didn't explore it earlier! This park has the highest concentration of aboriginal rock art in Australia! Some of the carvings are dated to 30,000 years old!
My favorite carvings are definitely those that depict animals.
So I left Karratha on Friday and was lucky enough to catch a ride 5 hours South to the city of Exmouth where my adventure begins!
Exmouth is home to whale sharks between March and July! Swimming with the whale sharks has always been a dream of mine! and just so you know, they are technically sharks but only eat plankton so are no danger to humans!
How cool is this?!!!!! It was incredible! The boats have spotter planes, so when the plane spots one the boat speeds over to where it is. As soon as its spotted the crew on the boat told us to get ready. Once we are in position in front of the shark, one of the crew jumps in to see which direction it is swimming. Then the boat gets ahead of it. That's when it gets real!
As soon as the boat is ahead of the whale sharks path the crew starts screaming, "go, go, go" and you go, go, go jumping in the water as quick as you can. This photo is so cool because you can see all of us behind the whale shark getting ready.
Once you are in the water, the guide tries to get you to line up parallel to the whale shark, but as its a wild animal it does not tend to swim in a straight line. Once you are lined up the start yelling to put your face in the water and start swimming!
The first time we did this when I stuck my face in the water I saw the giant mouth of a 20 foot fish coming straight towards me. I have never panicked so much in my life. I had to swim away as quick as I possibly could, unfortunately I picked the wrong direction because the shark decided to also turn the way I was swimming! The do not care if you are in their way, they will bump into you, but if this happens they will just dive down and that will be the end of the swim with that whale shark. This photo was our of the first whale shark we swam with on its way down. We were able to swim with two different sharks. The first shark, I only swam with once but the second one I went in 6 times!
After getting your bearings and seeing the giant fish next to you, you start swimming, and keep swimming trying to keep up with the shark as long as possible. It was definitely not for people who were not confident swimmers and I would say you need to be semi- in shape. They can swim quite fast. I was exhausted by the end of the day!
The photographer needs to take this shot of every whale shark that they swim with for the season. This is the identification shot. These spots are like the whale shark's fingerprint. Last year, there were over 300 documented different whale sharks seen in Exmouth during the season!
Yes, real whales are way bigger than these guys but these guys are the largest fish (not mammal as whales are) in the whole ocean! There can also be seen in other places with warm waters such as the Philippines and Mexico. But very little is known about where they go to have their babies or where they mate. There has only been one female whale shark ever caught who was pregnant and she was pregnant with over 300 babies at different stages of development.
Scientists hypothesize that the female can somehow hold onto fertilized eggs or the sperm until the conditions are right for the baby to start growing. Besides that one pregnant whale shark found only one pup or baby has ever been seen! Its crazy how we seem to know more about the stars and solar system than we know about the ocean!
We were sooooo lucky because the whaleshark tours were canceled the next two days after we went do to too big of waves and unsafe conditions for swimmers. So to get out of the wind we went on a boat ride through this canyon. The creek is called Yardie creek. It is a saltwater creek fed from the ocean when its high tide. However Just a few years ago the area got a huge storm through and the creek flooded with freshwater pushing all of the fish and saltwater out to sea. It just recently started getting its fish life back.
But the real reason we came were for these cuties! What is this chipmunk/kangaroo hybrid you ask? This is a rock wallaby! It is a marsupial just like kangaroos so they have their babies in a pouch.
They are very shy and hard to spot! The nest on the right is way up in the cliffs and has had chicks in it every year since the early 1900's!
The baby didn't like us very much and you can see him hopping back into his cave on the left of the photo.
On our way out to the creek we encountered a sandstorm. Its so strange to just suddenly be enveloped in a cloud of red dust!
Exmouth the city I was in is also home to many emus! These guys don't just live out in the bush, they strut right through town!
My last stop in Exmouth was to Turquoise Bay. This photo cannot do it justice! The water was turquoise and crystal clear! And the best part was you could just walk off the beach to snorkel over stunning coral! We even got to snorkel with two sea turtles! It was like a scenes straight out of Finding Nemo! I so wish I had an underwater camera to capture it!
I'm currently writing this sitting in Alice Springs, Northern Territory! After 7.5 months living in Western Australia, I've moved on to a new section of the country to visit. Tomorrow I will head out to visit Uluru! I am very excited but also currently very cold! It is currently 12 degrees Fahrenheit with a low of 1 degree tonight! I just looked and it is warmer in my hometown now! I was prepared for cold nights but I thought the desert would still have hot days, guess I was wrong! I might need to take a quick trip to Target to buy some more leggings!
