Living Squishy: Exmouth Ahoy!

Hey there,

Hello from sunny Exmouth - and I do mean sunny. While you guys in Perth have battled grey skies and rain it's rather warmish here. I am sitting inside the caravan with the air-conditioning on. It's 2pm and phaw - I made the mistake of getting Chris to drop me into town around lunch, where I did some errands buying a new wash basket and other exciting things like that before toddling back here to the caravan park. Mistake! The sun was blazing and I was hot and bothered lugging the stuff back by the time I was done lol. Note to self: do not do stupid things like this in the future!

We had a mammoth drive up here last Sunday. We left the Carnarvon Caravan park by 9.30am and decided to wing it and head for Coral Bay. I had heard mixed reviews about the place - anything from it's over-commercialised to it's beautiful to it's horribly crowded to the beaches are lovely. Well, it's all of those things. We had tried a few days ago to book a night there but it was a no-go. Fully booked out. Oh, unless we didn't mind paying four hundred dollars a night for a three bedroom unit at the back of one of the caravan parks.. eek! Even though we weren't able to stay, we still had a quick stop over at Coral Bay since it's on the way to Exmouth. We got out and stretched our legs, I took some pictures (um.. not very good ones, my cameras being a bum) and fed the kids lunch. It was SO busy there. Unbelievably busy - kind of resort like but mostly just over-crowded with ages of all kinds walking the footpaths (and laying on the beach). I had an ick moment that the boys were glad they missed. I was straggling behind the guys as usual (shorter legs than theirs are the bane of my life) where I spied an old guy, maybe 60, nut brown, laying on his towel in budgie smugglers .....with a diamond naval ring glinting in the light.. sheesh! I took one look and fled especially when he suddenly sat up and gave me a leering smile. Seriously? lol. After having our fill of Coral Bay (all one and half hours of it) we loaded back into the 4wd and pushed on towards Exmouth, finally getting there about 4pm.

Exmouth - at least to me - at first seemed like every other little seaside town we had stayed at so far. But the longer we stay (so far on our third day) the more we like it. It's small and the shops are nothing much to speak of - but I guess that's the joy of it. People don't come here to shop, they come to relax, get away from it all and to mostly fish. Which, as usual, my lot have been hard at. We've done our fair share of sight seeing and again, there's nothing really different about anything here. The beaches are pretty (but then so are Kalbarri and Shark Bay etc) and the people are nice as usual. We have struck up a friendship with the couple staying next to us at the caravan park - that would be Colin and Angie - and Colin is full of advice on where to catch the best fish. Last night we went beach fishing - in the pitch dark - and I even had a go. Caught myself an undersized fish (is there any other size?) which Jake unhooked and threw back for me. Poor kid didn't have much luck himself. He caught a couple himself but managed to snag his line somewhere in the deep dark sea, had to rejig his line, then got snagged again within minutes. Luckily he managed to pull that one free. The days are fairly lazy - we just hang out (Riley loves kicking my butt at foolsball at the rec room) and do some sight seeing if and when we feel like it, so all in all it's a pretty hard life right now.

So here's a question for you. What's the quickest way of getting a man to take action when all he does is hear blah blah blah in his ear without really having a clue what you are talking about. With mine, it's getting him involved. Deeply involved. Intrigued? Well, it goes like this. Riles and I have been struggling a bit with the school work he has to complete. He gets a set of three thick books in two week lots and it's fairly intensive and time consuming. Not much fun when they say you need to get the child into a routine yet it's virtually impossible when you are holidaying the way we are (and I imagine it's the same for other families, too.) So I had a grizzle (hence the blah blah in the ear.. or make that several blah blah's) tellilng Chris that there's just too much to do with so little time and we weren't keeping up with what needed doing. So I put him on the job (like I should have in the first place, but he kept wangling his way out of it) of handling the math side of things with Riley, and I would do the English. That's pretty much what we've always done with the kids and their homework. Anyway, within a week he was the one grizzling. What the heck? What is the point of cutting out these stupid bloody shapes only to stick them back down to make a shape he already knows. And why does he have to tie a bag to a tree to find out how much water it collects overnight and then record it? Is this really going to help him in the long run? Hmmm. Within 24 hours he had sent an email off to Riley's tutor back in Perth. Too time intensive, too hard blah blah. She rang this morning lol whereas I hand-balled the call to him. We didn't get much joy because all in all he has to follow a curriculum BUT we can substitute what needs doing with something else if it's something like heavy research (hard to do when there's no net) or getting him to write a story which is good for his English instead of finding out what postage was in 1865 and how long it took a horse to carry the letter to a certain person back in the day. As long and his math and English are kept up to date all is good. So there you go girls. Get them in the thick of it to see what it's actually like and voila... you get action!

Not sure if we will be in contact in the next few days because we are taking a detour. Instead of heading around the top of Oz through Karratha and Dampier etc we are cutting through and going straight through to Tom Price. We really want to visit the Karijini National Park. And that way we miss a lot of boring long stretches of road with not much going on. I think we might have to have two stops on the way overnight though as it's a fairly long haul. We will stick to Tom Price and surrounds for a few days then head north again up to (and passing straight through) Port Hedland and onward and upward towards Eighty Mile Beach and Broome. Really looking forward to Broome.

Before I sign off I want to say HAPPY FATHERS DAY to my lovely father. Love you and I hope you have a day where you are looked after (read spoilt!) by all the women in your life. Will be missing you xxx

Guess that's all I have to write for now.
Adios for now - hope you're all keeping well and you are in our thoughts.
Carolyn x

I'm going to add some pictures that I missed last time from when we were in Canarvon. They are first up then come the Exmouth ones.

One of the many pubs in Carnarvon. This is the main street.

The Saturday morning markets in Carnarvon central.

More markets ...

Yum - sausage sizzle for breakfast. Riley and Jake chowing down.

The beautiful Gascoyne river.

Mason found a witchedy grub at the Caravan park in Carnarvon. He put it on the ground and that sucker buried into and under the hard ground in about thirty seconds. Here one minute, gone the next.

These strange humps are termite nests. We saw thousands on the way between Carnarvon and Exmouth. A weird landscape on otherwise a really flat plain.

These two are Coral Bay beach.

Just added this because I liked the picture. My wonderful son Mason.

Ningaloo Caravan Park in Exmouth where we are staying. This is a 'four star' park and they don't go any higher yet I would debate the fact on how they gained the top star slot. It's expensive - that I know - but there are some questions.The bathroom and toilets (with which you need an annoying key to get into) are dismal - the surrounds - while okay are very dusty and they keep plonking people in the smaller lots where there's not much shade. I wonder who they are keeping the shady lots for? Plus there's the fish bin. Blech - catch the wind going the right way and you get a whiff of it. Nasty. You pay FIVE dollars a load to use their horrible old wash machines that are on their last legs. The rec room hasn't been opened on time yet and you get a grumpy old soul that just grunts at you instead of talking. I think he resents being called to open the rec room door every morning. That said: the pool area is lovely and there's a lovely Italian restaurant just off the pool. Maybe this is what lifts the star rating. Who knows?