# Exmouth trip.



## Niall (Mar 28, 2011)

Hey everyone.

After a successful trip in the Pilbara then coming back down to Perth and hardly finding anything whilst spotting at night, I thought its time to head back up north before winter hits.

It ended up being quite an adventurous trip and one to remember.
We headed up North, with a few family friends in another car (first time they have been to Exmouth and past Kalbarri).

I have to say, in the past 11 years that we have been going up to Exmouth we have never seen the place so green and never seen so many locus (took ages cleaning the fount of the car when we got back!)

It was also the first time we have ever seen the river that runs through Carnarvon with water it in.







Here are a few area shots of how green Exmouth is at the moment.
















One of the main reasons I wanted to go was to find baby Green Turtles hatching and to watch Loggerhead Turtles come ashore to lay their eggs.

Unfortunately with the amount of Cyclones/tropical lows they have had this season and let’s not forget the high tides they have had because of the Moon, most nests have been washed away.

This is a turtle nest we found on the edge of a 60cm sand bank whiles looking for babies, most the eggs were full of bones so I would say this clutch didn't make it.






Nearly every year that we have been, we always come across dead Green Turtles in the dunes facing the ocean (this is a natural occurrence as the older turtles might not have enough energy to return to the ocean after digging a hole, laying her eggs and burying them).






We did however see Loggerhead Turtles mating just off shore and a few other Loggerheads offshore, that I would think are waiting for it to go dark to come ashore to lay their eggs.






At this beach, we had quite a awkward experience with Black Tip Reef Sharks.
Never had such a close experience with them until that day, we were snorkelling at this beach we have never gone to before. It was mostly sharp rocks and my mum ended up cutting her leg whiles snorkelling and didn't think it would be a problem until I noticed these sharks were starting to come closer and closer, so I stood up and said "why the hell are these Sharks coming so close"? She ended up saying “I don’t know but I have cut my leg on the rocks" that is when I shouted my Dad to come over with the kayak to pick her up and take her back to shore.






The whale Sharks where there a month early so we took the opportunity to go swim with them and it was bloody worth it!
The first time the skipper said "get ready to jump" the first thing my mum said was "oh ****!", as she was still not so keen on doing it.

I have to say the first time I jumped in it was a bit freaky because we where in 40m+ deep water and couldn't see the bottom, so didn't know what was swimming below us.
Im never going to forget the 3rd time I jumped in, I was looking for the Shark and ended up finding it with its mouth wide open heading towards me so I needed to swim out of its way before I ended up head first in its month.

When I get the photos, I will upload them up for you to see.

Only ended up going night spotting once whiles I was up and it ended up to be successfully in my books.

We found:
5 Stimson's Pythons
1 Mulga
1 Burtons Lizard
1 Knob Tailed gecko
and plenty of Northern Spiny Tailed Geckos, Fat tailed Geckos, Bynoe geckos and a few other types, but not sure what they were because we didn't spot and look.

Stimson's Python.











Burtons Lizard.






Northern Spiny Tailed Gecko.





Knob Tail Gecko.






I didn't notice that it did a crap just before I photographed it and only noticed when i got back into the car, I would of gone back to get better photos but we needed to get back into town to clean and bandage up my foot (NEVER go night spotting in bare foot!)






Whiles there is so much water around, even the ticks are breeding like rabbits whiles they can.






In the day, we mostly found Ta ta Dragons (most were full of eggs)











Only ended up finding one Bearded Dragon and with my luck, the photo turned out crap.





Animals we did see but didn't photograph:
Military Dragon.
Netted Dragon.
Thorny Devil.

The DOA list was:
Yellow Faced Whip Snake.
Mulga.
Stimson's Python.
Perentie.
Netted Dragons.


All in all it was a great trip and experience.

Niall


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## AllThingsReptile (Mar 28, 2011)

nice mate, would love a chance to do a trip like that one day


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## Southern_Forest_Drag (Mar 28, 2011)

dam woulda loved to have seen some millitary dragons and thorny devils very nice high quality pics though bud, hope u had fun.


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## guzzo (Mar 28, 2011)

Great photos there.


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## SteveNT (Mar 28, 2011)

Goodonya mate. Great story and pics.

Did you go to the caves central in pic 3. I would have gravitated to that spot in auto pilot. 

Thanks for sharing.


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## Niall (Mar 28, 2011)

Didn't end up going into any caves.
There was some good size one on the cliffs all through the NP and was tempted to go climbing down the cliffs to check what was inside them but didn't end up doing it.


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## moloch05 (Apr 16, 2011)

Excellent report, Niall. Looks much greener there than on my previous visits. The cape is one of the best places that I have visited for herps with such an incredible diversity of lizards.


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## jinin (Apr 16, 2011)

I love exmouth, I went there once and that was about 6 Years ago. Same thing happened to us with the Sharks, was that at Turquoise Bay? And we also got to see the turtles laying eggs and coming ashore. Awesome place. Whats the marina like now? Last time there was basically nothing there, but they had plans to build cafes and houses or something.


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## Niall (Apr 16, 2011)

The beach was before Turquoise Bay.
The marina has its own fishing club/bar, where the locals bring in fish they caught that day and cook it up for anyone who wants some.
There is also a bloody big/posh hotel on the marina now, a few houses are starting to pop up around the man made canals aswell.


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## jinin (Apr 17, 2011)

Niall said:


> The beach was before Turquoise Bay.
> The marina has its own fishing club/bar, where the locals bring in fish they caught that day and cook it up for anyone who wants some.
> There is also a bloody big/posh hotel on the marina now, a few houses are starting to pop up around the man made canals aswell.


 
Ahh ok. Thanks for that info. Would you say the new bar and hotel are ruining the place or making it better?


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## lizardman59 (Jul 23, 2011)

wow nice trip wan to go up there soon what camera do you have i want a good camera trying to decide


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