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Weis Family Expedition!
Whale sharking with Lanye

May 2

Today was the big day for the helicopter flight to Oomari Falls/Mitchel Falls. Our flight was in the afternoon. We had to give our weights for crew to determine who went where. Julie Dad and I ended up on one helicopter along with my gym friends Vivienne and Sara. Peter and Susan were on a different helicopter. The trip was amazing. Its just coming to the end of the wet season so there was so much water flowing and everything is green. Dad got to tell his life story after the helicopter guy asked him what he did for a living. Word was out that the Weis Bar guy was on the cruise. Once we landed near Oomari falls it was a short but tricky walk for Dad trip across the rocks to the falls. The pics tell it all as to how lovely it was and the shear amount of water was truly amazing. We then went visiting and art gallery in Wollaston Bay. The pysical features of the beings depicted in Wadjinah paintings usually have two meanings, for the Wandijinas are the "spirit in the cloud" and the Aborginals understandd them to be both human in form and cloud-like.

Vivienne and Sarah, my gym junkie friends.

Helicopter flights are very windy. Susan Mobile phone lanyard was very difficult and painful to untangle.

Wandijina rock art at Wollaston Bay.

Gary

May 3

The ship has a number of guest lecturers; all have been great. Today Gary spoke about "Climatology of the Kimberley". I wouldnt want to do an exam on his lectures but his enthusiasm for the geology of the area is inspiring. He describes the geology in very simple terms, eg its just like a big layer cake formed from collisions with other land masses (godwana), erosion and water. Gary has a master in Geology but reckons he's learnt most of what he knows from working in the mining industry and of course from u-tube.

Today we also visited a sea cave which can only be visited at certain times and a ceremonial site.

We also saw quite a lot of sharks around the boat at night. Marleen the quite annoying Dutch lady was very quick to tell me the species. She does seem to know everything about anything. The general consensus is that we avoid explorer trips with Marleen. Susan has pointed out a number of other people she doesn't which to socialise with which include bogans from Adelaide, Rocky and Mackay.

Poppy and Dawn our fearless leader

Susans Hitlist below

Gibo

Bogans from Adelaide - who refer to me as level 6 with a bathroom.

Ladbroke because he loves a branded running shirt.

Raffles to the right!

Leonie, Raffles Wife who was busy approaching us at dinner tables to organise a karoke night.

May 4

Breakfast is a buffet which is ok - coffee is mixed, Julie reguarly sends hers back.

Today we visited Prince Frederick Harbour. King and Hunter explored Prince Frederick Harbour and the Hunter River. King named the river after his surgeon, Hunter. Its was definitely the trend to name this landscape after the explorers or their helpers. We visit Porosus Creek which is named so Porousus is the genus term for Crocodile. We went in the explorers then shifted into the zodiacs for a closer look for crocs. It didn't take long, and we came across a small salty submerged in the water. They love the mangroves and the plentiful schools of fish. This was the only salty we saw but he/she was not really worried about us although you could see his eyes watching us all the time. They say that the most dangerous crococidiles are the ones you can not see.

In the afternoon we were boated out to Naturalist Beach where island where we had beach drinks and canapes. As we headed in on the explorer in our best island wear and the staff were waiting with welcome drinks it felt very White Lotus. I can only imagine what they were saying. Mani is the head Percer and he makes these events very stylish with his French accent and knowledge of wine.

Mudskippers were there in there hundreds.

Ramani Kite

Sunset Drinks

May 5

Poppy and Susan running a little late to get the Explorer.

Mula Mula flower

Bower bird nest. Build by the males to impress the females.

Hugging a Boab tree brings good luck.

Mermaid Boab Tree.

May 6

Today we went to (Yohab) Montgomery Reef which the viewing of is heavily tide dependent. To see it properly it has to be exposed but not too much as it can be difficult to navigate the boat. We saw lots of turtles sticking their heads out of the water, hard to photograph as they tend to bob back into the water too quickly. The reef is not limestone but rather part of the Kimberly (sandstone) so it has a very different look and feel to what we see on the east coast - brown, not so colorful but rich with marine life, turtles, sharks (black reef sharks). Again the reef was named after a surgeon (Montgomery) who saved the captain from bleeding to death.

Dad attends all the night time docos on level 6 but has a tendency to nod off straight away and wake up just as the credits roll up. I'm not sure how he would go on an exam either.

May 7

Today we have stopped in Talbot Bay (Ganbadba) and we did one of the most spectacular cruises so far up Cyclone Creek. The rock formations got Gary particular excited. The coastal line has lots of dramatic folding, twisting and buckling rock.

The afternoon involved one of the highlights of the cruise - the Horizontal falls. These are narrow gaps formed in the sandstone that have water forced through them due to the intense tides in the area. A Gary perspective - "There are two gaps in the McLarty Range which cut through the Pentecost Sandstone - these sandstones are the most common rocks of Talbot Bay. The are likely to have formed part of a creek cut through a joint or a fault line, eroding its way through softer siltstone, as it flowed from higher part of the range. Once the gap had widened sufficiently the tides would have forced water into the basins (flooded valleys) behind the gaps. The Horizontal falls is due to be handed back to the local mob in the next couple of years. It will simply mean that you can't do a zodiac trip through the narrow gap we went thru

A fashion parade was also held selling the ships merch. Poppy will probably buy a shirt with pockets. We also had a coral BBQ dinner on the vista (level 7). We got our usual table reserved and had a nice buffet dinner. The bogans were quite pissed and more comments on my luxurious bathroom.

May 8

Its my birthday today. Went to the gym first then greeted Julie with a big birthday huggie which she rejected until I had a shower.

Slide night of the horizontal falls above

May 9

Arrive in Broome - staying in the Moonlight suites near the mangrove hotel where the best spot for viewing the stairway to the moon is. Very pretty spot. We said farewell to Peter and Susan who were going to Perth for a few days but ran into them in town getting a good coffee. It was nice to see Julie didnt send this coffee back.

May 10 - Broome

Went for a run to the jetty this morning (before the heat of the day) and then the Broome Markets in the morning. Nice mix of indigenous art, crafts etc. As recommended from the cruise i got a boab carving from a local aboriginal guy TJ. I asked for a wanjana and lily (like my tramp stamp)

May 11 - Broome

Today we moved to the Oaks cable beach- its bit dodgey, julie had a cockroach on her pillow and poppy couldn't open his door because a very ugly brown mat was blocking it. We called in housekeeping and Julie ordered them to fix the situation which took quite some time. At night we met some of our cruising buddies (Vivienne and Sara from Ozharvest) at Matsos for dinner.

May 12 - Broome

This morning I got up early to go for a walk/jog along the famous Cable Beach. Its 22kms long and so wide at low tide. The water is like a pond, has very few waves although the locals say you get surf at high tide - yet to see that. After my jog i decided to have a swim as its been torture not being able to swim in these beautiful beaches. So stripped down to my underwear (decided not to go to the nudiest beach that is appaently here) and went in. The water was a little murky near the shoreline, i wasnt in for long before i almost shat myself - suddenly i saw big brown thing in the water ...luckily it turned out to be a large manta ray not a huge salty as i first througt..it gave me a fright.

Met Julie and Dad At Zookeeper Cafe for brekky before we took our get a guide helicopter trip to Willie Creek. Our helicopter lady Abbey looked about 17 and picked us up in a little old toyota something - Julie wondered whether i got the tour through the dogey old Oaks. Abbey was good, poppy noted she walked very confidently which put him at ease especially cause the helicopter was about half the size of the one we took to Mitchel Falls on the cruise. The flight of was spectacular the fluro blue, red cliffes and all the black brown spolges of the manta rays in the water. We didnt see any sharks or crocs though. Willy Creek Pearl farm was quite an education, basically pearls come from the gonads (sexual organs) of large oysters. They take two years to produce a pearl and the process of producing cultured pearls starts in a laboratory type seeting where theres core is placed inside the oyster for the it to produce a pearl around the core (yes very simplified). Poppy has kindly offered to buy both Julie and I pearls but there wasn't anything we particularly like and i still think its weird they come from "gonads". I did get to model some pearls and as the picture showed they were a complete mismatch with me and my attire. My favourites were the Keisi pearls, name the "untamed" collection" because they are the oysters that simply reject the core that is used to make the perfectly round pearl. Instead you get a much more rustic, irregular look of a pearl that is essentially spat out.

May 13 - Broome

Today was a pretty chilled day. Highlight was the sunset on Cable beach. Poppy and Julie got massages at the Bali Hi Resort which they both enjoyed. Julie and Dad went into town for a final shop and Julie came back with a beautiful "golden" pearl necklace, (taken from a particular species of pearl shells which are local to the area). The colours went well with her good dresses and pefectly with the sunset

May 14 - Broome

Today was stairway to the moon day, the big day we'd decided to hang around Broome for. I decided to get a Pedi in the morning at the same place Julie and dad had a massage. It was much needed both for foot appeal and moisturizing parched legs. For the rest of the day we hung out around cable beach and town.

The stair way to the moon - so the stairway to the moon is a phenoma that happens when there is a full moon and the light of the moon hits the tidal pools and reflects the light such that a beautiful stairway of light lifts all the way up to the moon. Some Broome residents apparently say that it can only been seen from Broome but there are other parts of the world it exists. There are a few viewpoints of in town - town beach, mangrove hotel and apparently the golf. We decided on town beach and headed down about 530 with the actual stairway to start at 630. It was great atmosphere with just the usual number of French and Spanish tourists setting up for the view. We got some wine and cheese from the local store, Julie was pleased to be asked for ID not sure if its and age or an identity thing though. So i had googled how to photograph the stair way to the moon but it soon became apparent that my camera was not working properly to go fully manual. If you go automatic the moon comes out as a blob.

May 15

Today we left Broome and i said goodbye to Dad and Julie at Perth airport. It was sad to see them rushing off to get there flight home. It was a rushed goodbye as Dad took a while in the toilet, a little nerve racking as the boarding calls for their flight had already started. Anyway, they made it and all was good. I headed off to meet my mate Lanye in Perth to start our whale shark adventure. Lanye had booked all the accommodation and car for us to have just over 24 hours in Perth. We were staying at Scarborough about 20 minutes west from the CBD. Its my first time in Perth and whilst id heard the beaches were lovely, they really were absolutely stunning. Once Lanye arrived we headed off for a walk and brief swim at the beach for me, got quite dumped and always a little spooky around dusk for a swim. We had a far bit to catch up on as i have been away for almost 3 weeks so we headed off to La Capannina restaurant across the road...had a great meal of octopus and fish.

May 16

Today was my only full day in Perth before we headed off to Exmouth. Lanye was driver as she had been to Perth a number of times. We started with a walk in the morning along the beach track that follows the road. The highlight after a good coffee was a swim at Hammershams pool which is a beautifully, protected beach cove with reef. Locals were snorkelling or doing their daily swim, the idea of having a spot this close to the city is just incredible. I can see why people love the place. Sydney and Perth are now definitly my pick for best city beaches in Australia.

May 17

Arrive Exmouth

May 18

Whale Sharks

May 19

Ningaloo dive

May 20

May 21

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