Awake early , the wind was blowing a bit hard , rattling the awning - it sounded like someone moving otto bins around ! It was completely overcast as well - something we haven’t seen for a long time .
Relenting , we got up and had some breakfast , then sat & contemplated what we might do for the day . After an hour or so we got up and got organised - time for a ride around Exmouth .
Exmouth is a town very much based on tourism , with 2 caravan parks , a Novotel Hotel , a new marina development , lots of accommodation , a small shopping centre , 1 service station , lots of tour operators for whale , whale shark and manta ray watching , fishing trips , then there is access to Cape Range National Park and Ningaloo Reef World Heritage Area . It is not a very big town .
We jump on the bikes and ride down to Town Beach , past the Yacht Club and on to the marina & Game Fishing Club and past The Novotel . The marina is where all the fishing boats & whale watching boats leave from . We had a headwind all the way as well . While at Town Beach , we sat & watched the whales again - there were six that we could see - all a fair way out .
We rode back from the marina over the new footbridge , quite a structure , even the sea eagles like it so much , they decided to build their nest right on top in the middle of the arch .
Riding back up the bike track beside the main road was great with a nice tailwind , so good , we went past the park and into the shopping centre and back home .
Lunch was the next step for today , so we went and got some fish & chips , drove up to Bundegi Beach ( about 5 mins drive north ) , and ate them there .
There is a boat ramp there , so we went for a walk on it to the side section that people were fishing from . Below us there was a huge school of fish - about 150mm long , and there were 1,000’s of them !!
From out here on the boat ramp , you look back over the beach and you see 13 aerials , very large aerials and associated wires and stay wires . It is a very low frequency transmitting aerial , used by the USA to contact their submarines , built in the 1960’s at the height of the Cold War - apparently USA wanted to make Exmouth another state of America !!! There was a huge contingent of Americans here then , shops took US dollars or Australian currency , there were a lot of left hand drive vehicles etc , etc . Exmouth was built to service this VLF facility , that was named the Harold E Holt Communications Station . It is the worlds largest VLF transmitter !! It is also the second tallest structure in the southern hemisphere , being 387.6 metres tall - 100m taller than Sydney Tower !! Tower zero is surrounded by 12 other towers to help support the wires and weight . It weighs 800 tonnes and can withstand 500klm/hr winds !!!
We then drove up to Vlamingh Head Lighthouse , Lighthouse Bay & SS Mildura wreck . The flies are the friendliest we’ve encountered for some time , they just wouldn’t go away !! The headland has views all round - over to the aerials , south to Exmouth , west to Ningaloo Reef and north to Muiron Islands and lots of off shore oil & gas rigs .
We sat and watched more whales breaching and fin slapping , there were at least 12 whales out there that we could see .
From here we went back to Lighthouse Bay and out to the wreck of SS Mildura - a cattle freighter , that got caught out in a cyclone and ran aground .
Time for a swim , it was 35 degrees , so we headed for home and jumped in to cool down - it didn’t take long , very refreshing !!
Cool on the outside , cheese & biscuits & a beer to cool inside !!
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