Carnarvon - Blowholes - Exmouth

Had a lovely night in Carnarvon, including a delicious chocolate covered frozen banana.  I have taken to making frozen half bananas on a stick now at home - banana has always been my favorite ice cream.  Frozen banana on a stick just eliminates all those pesky added ingredients.

We hit the road and about 50km outside of Carnarvon passed the turn off to The Blowholes.  It's a 100km detour off the main road....we blew past the turn off, discussed it, and then found a good spot to hang a u-turn and made our way back.  The road seemed interminable because you knew the coast was directly ahead but you couldn't see it until you actually finally arrived.  Interestingly I noticed all these fruits on the side and even in the middle of the road.  Finally pulled off to look and turns out it was watermelons. Tiny round watermelons...each about the size of a golf ball up to about softball size.  Creatures obviously eat them as they were gnawed on and scattered all over the place.  Did someone just eat a watermelon and spit the seeds out as they drove along?  Inexplicable!

The Blow Holes were SO totally worth the detour.

It is a magnificent coastline.  That shelf that you can see below Mike was full of holes and pools and when the waves rolled out we saw fish and crabs and other creatures that were trapped...though one speculates that their stay could easily be cut short by an extra large wave washing across. 

Back on the main road continuing north there wasn't a whole lot going on.  We had, including our detour, about 470km to cover so we got to it.  To get to Exmouth you turn off the main Brand Highway on to an even smaller 2 lane road with little in the way of a shoulder - thankfully there isn't much traffic because it could be a little hairy.  But - we had our rewards in the form of crossing the Tropic of Capricorn and sighting our first fields of termite nests.  They are remarkably attractive at sunset glowing red in the fading light.

We made it to Exmouth in the afternoon, found our campsite, and walked over to the Visitors Centre to book our glass bottom boat tour for the next morning.  The campground had a lovely little byo Italian restaurant attached so we dined alfresco next to a fountain decorated with fairy lights.  The night was cool, perfectly moonless and clear and the stars were just incredible.