It was all about the whales

An amazingly noisy conflaguration of West Australians (I think that is the right collective noun) had decamped outside our motel room last night. They had in WA tradition parked the cars in a U shape so that they could cook some yabbies and skin some goanna in the shelter provided by their utes. They then also proceeded to open and close anything that could be opened and closed, unscrew and screw anything with a thread, hammer anything with a lid and thus managed to feed the young 'uns a sandwich before bed when the re-opened, re-screwed and re-banged everything again. This production was reproduced at 6AM. On exiting our motel door I was greeted with a "G'day Mate. Want some goanna gizzard?". To which I had no verbal answer, so I merely pointed my camera at the less dark part of the sky and grunted something incoherent. I managed to exit their jerry-made fort and headed in an easterly direction to see the nullabor colours pre-dawn.

By the time I got back the westralians had finished the barbecued wombat and were packing up for the eastward progress of their pillage and rapine. The little girl looked wistfully out the window at me, regretting, no doubt she had not kicked me.

I got back to our room and Marjan was breakfasting in preparation for our scenic flight over the whales. Our pilot looked twelve, but assured us he was sixteen an had one and a half hours flight experience, so after being showed the exit doors, off we took.

The Nullabor from above is quite something. Almost as big as Victoria it has fewer trees. Also more wombats.....and camels. We did not see either camels or wombats, but the wombat holes were very evident and very numerous.

Very soon we were over the Bight and getting a totally different perspective on the whales. Almost every sighting, and there were many, many sightings, was of a mother and calf. They were coming in extraordinarily close to shore and they seemed to be everywhere in this beautiful place. Our pilot was very informative and we thoroughly enjoyed our half hour.

As soon as we got back we headed down to the Bight to watch from the cliffs. Yesterday's ticket was valid again today so we got out there early, staked our spot and whale watched.

I have yet to do the photos but I reckon I have over five hundred. There were dozens of whales in all directions. We found one vantage point and stayed. A couple of pairs seemed to be hovering nearby and we watched all sorts of interesting behavior.  Calves swimming over mothers heads, groups of whales and calves coming together, pairs swimming in circles, we even think we saw a feed ; after which one youngster became quite frisky with a few breaches and a never ending display of tail slaps.

We probably spent three hours just watching an enjoying these beautiful animals. In the end it was the cold that drove us away. Even though it was 18-19 up on the plain it was much cooler with a chilly onshore breeze in our faces. Even the dolphins were cold.

On our way back we spotted some more wildlife. The lizard was OK, but the baby brown snake on the path to the toilets was a concern. I reported it to the rangers, who seemed to have their snake wrangling gear ready to hand........not the only time it's happened obviously.

Driving back was so boring. I was falling asleep within 30 minutes. Changed drivers for a while. Stopped at Penong for a quick look at the windmill museum........yes it IS real.

Back on the road for a drive to Ceduna where we have three days on the dunes overlooking the sea. We may take a day off an just catch up....food shopping....clothes washing......staring out to sea with a rosé in our hand....etc