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Carnavon is famous for the tropical fruit and during the morning run I decided to look for plantations selling their products. I found one, but the lady told it was end of business. I was surprised as lots of fine, enormous mango's were on the trees and in the shed. She told she didn't get anything anymore for the mango's. While the shops still asked 2-3 dollar per medium size mango, she got only $1 or $2 per 20 kilo case. So the remainder was not picked and indeed under the trees were lots of nice mango's. Mango trees are very decorative with green and dark brown leaves. Later I saw in the supermarket near by indeed smaller mango's for $2,53. Her husband told something about the trade, the varieties and the business. In case of overproduction nothing can be done to keep up the prices for the farmer, but low product prices have no influence on the high shop prices. Probably somewhere overseas there must be a huge market, but it cost a fortune to develop a market.

We tasted the mango's and they were not only big, but delicious as well. He offered a few varieties to taste, they were all different but all delicious. We got a big bag giant mango's and it will be a hard but pleasant job to eat them all.

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Nearby we found wild passiflora. The fruit was small and yellow but delicious. We picked some for the seeds and next season we try them in our garden in Hungary. The flowers are small but typical for a passiflora. The fruit develops in a kind of netting that dries when the fruit turns yellow, when ripe. The taste is delicious.

We found an Internet cafe with high speed connection, for only $2 per hour. It was a computer shop with the newest equipment, so a good opportunity to save the pictures from the camera and to load up the pictures and story on the Internet. )

Carnavon is the last town on our tour to the North and in previous tourist villages we saw prices soar. So we have to stock up with lots of essentials as baby food,spring water and all we expect to be difficult to get. The shopping takes all so much time that we decide to stay another night in Carnavon, to hit the road for Coral Bay in the early morning.

Lots of red flowers on some trees showed during the morning run. After that we prepared for the trip of today. With all the mango's on board we had an 'all-you-can-eat' program. But that is no problem: is there something more delicious than a juicy mango? Of course!

Next morning a long drive to Coral Bay. The route goes North over the only sealed road. So you may expect lots of traffic, but there are the only few cars on the road. Some 3 times per hour we are overtaken and seldom we meet another car. The landscape is typical savannah, empty plains with low trees or shrubs. We pass half way the trip the Tropic of Capricorn and are geographically in the tropics. The typical built up of huge thunderstorms can be seen, at the horizon, but around us the weather looks nice. The road and roadside are littered with corpses of animals, the result of road hits. Mostly kangaroos, but other wildlife, including feral goats as well.The road is almost lined with spots where white bones can be seen, bleached by the sun. You may have quite a lot of car damage by a hit of a kangaroo. Many fresh corpses lay around as well and once a big bird of prey was devouring a small kangaroo which was just hit and lying in the middle of the road. The bird had a wingspan wider than the car and when we approached, the bird took off and flew many seconds majestically just in front of the car. Before we had the camera ready, the bird suddenly broke off to the right. It was brown, with some white tail feathers, we still have to look up which bird it was.

If you see something special, don't wait to long to make a picture or take a closer look. Many interesting animals, plants are living only very locally and when you think, I stop .later there is a good chance you never see them again. A nice example are the termite or ant hills. We only saw in the last 6 weeks only a few small ones, but suddenly we see huge red 3-4 meter high termite hills. We stop to study them and that was the last chance, as the termite hills were only present at a small area. We never saw those particular termite hills again on the trip to Coral Bay.

A family of emus was roaming around in the bush land The parents did look very alert and took care for their young.

A nice landscape like a intrinsic designed carpet lined the road. Interesting that it did look different on both sides of the road, up sun and down sun

The village Coral Bay is a compact, thriving holiday resort. Two huge campings, restaurants, a dive shop and many booking bureau's for several kinds of adventure trips.made up the resort. Of course the dive shop had special interest. Last time diving was 2 years ago on the Great Barrier Reef on the east coast of Australia, so I need a refresher course. Unfortunately there is none so I have to go right the way deep under the sea, First we go snorkelling for the manta rays. They may grow up to 6 meters in span and fly like a plane in the sea, with big delta wings as fins To find them it's a needle in a haystack but with the help of a light spotter airplane, circling over the sea, it is very likely you see them. You slide then quietly with snorkel gear from the boat and swim to them. We saw a few and a picture from a manta at the surface show his black upperside. Under the surface the water was opaque in this area and the manta's disappeared prior a nice.picture could be made. We saw a few big Manta's but only a short time. Normally they circle curiously around people but this time they seemed scared.

Next was the dive. I was exited to dive again and to try out my new underwater camera. The dive was exiting as always, lots of coral, not in the fancy bright colours, but more in all shades of brown and grey, With beautiful formed shapes. And of course the most exotic brilliant coloured fish like pipefish. Impressive were the trevallies and many grey reef sharks. My buddy Graig made a picture of me but to my surprise the memory card of the camera was full. I did not understand it, as there should be enough capacity on the card.The fins did hurt as they did not fit perfect, so after 54 minutes the fun was over and we had to surface again.The mystery with the memory card was solved, as the camera was inadvertently placed in the movie mode and just took movies. An so the card was quickly full. Of course very few things to see,except one fragment, which is nice.

In the evening we went to the tops of the dunes, to see the sunset, always good for a few nice pictures. On the land side, exactly opposite the sun, very strange rays were visible. In no way I can explain those rays. They seems to come from behind the horizon, from one point. If anyone knows this phenomenon, please let me know.

The skin on my feet was locally chafed away by the bad fitting fins. That need a few days to recover and a good opportunity to travel to Exmouth, at the north side of the Ningaloo Reef.

The Ningaloo Reef is the only barrier reef located on the west side of a continent, so very special. Interesting is that the reef at some locations starts a few meters from the coast. Unlike the Great Barrier Reef, east of Australia. There you have to travel at least 4 hours by boat to see the closest coral reefs.

Earlier we described a giant anthill which appeared very locally. On our way to Exmouth, we saw them again and we noticed a 'live' one which allowed us to see how they were built. We saw on the side of the anthill a lobe of very soft and fragile shell like 3-4 cm leaves of a sandy type structure. If you touched them they fell apart. But if it rains then the shells compact to mud and when it dries it hardens like concrete in a predetermined shape. So many generations ants or termites contribute to the building. Interesting is that the ants use the rain as a tool to finish their building activities in this arid land.

Some what further we saw an anthill which was damaged and it was good visible that the anthill from the inside has all canals and chambers.

We saw again an emu family, very alert, catching their meal.

After passing air base Learmonth, typically prepared for combat, we entered the hills of Cape Range to see some magnificent gorges ; The area was a complex of islands long ago and still many unusual plants and animals can be seen. The mountains consist of red sandstone and form impressive, vertical cliffs.

The town of Exmouth was a normal functioning town, not only a holiday resort. An air base, Learmonth and naval base close by.is a firm base for living here. But most of all is Exmouth famous for the Ningaloo reef. It should have an impressive beach, but it was tiny and only a couple and a dog there. But a quick look on the map showed that that Exmouth was on the east side of the Cape and all the magic was on the west side . So we have to go further

It is dead season now. The peak of the temperature, yesterday 40 degrees, and unlike in Europe in the summer season almost nobody here; relatively many tourists from Europe, escaping the winter there. Only 2 dive schools are presently operating and one of them has no activity as the fleet of boats get their maintenance in preparation for the season of whale sharks.

One thing is for sure, I will not dive with the whale sharks. First because they are not there now, secondly if they were there, only snorkelling is allowed, just like the manta experience. It is again fully regulated by the CALM and extremely high fees apply. Count on 350 dollar for that 'once in a lifetime experience', snorkelling with a whaleshark. Many operators are in the business, so it looks like that from all parts of the world people come to enjoy this event. But fortunately there are other great things to do as well.

The plan is to leave tomorrow for the reef, to check it out and to enjoy the magic of coral and exotic fishes,

The temperature in Exmouth is high, about 40 degrees and the swimming pool is lovely. Mariska and Birgitt often dip in the pool and both )love it. The air conditioning of the campervan works all day and keep it pleasantly cool inside. As a bonus the air conditioning produces lots of pure condensed water and that makes perfect tea.

)Next morning we saw that the caravan park was empty, all guest gone. We do some shopping and prepare ourselves for camping in the National Park, with no facilities. That means no electricity. We set of to the north point of the peninsula, to see the surf coast and the ship wreck just for the coast. The weather was rainy and cloudy, but .warm. It stayed cloudy and that is unusual this area. We pass a camping which is complete empty. Then we pass another camping, empty as well. So no hurry to claim a place. We further proceed to the Cape Range National Park. We see emu's, kangaroos and a big bird, which look like a brown stork. At home we will research what is was. Then we see a sweet animal, a porcupine with big barbs and a long conical nose. At the visitor centre we hear that something .is looming a cyclones as they calll a hurricane.here It is expected to come at the coast in 6 hours. Was this the reason for the empty caravan parks? It is too late to leave as the rain will be heavy and the roads will be flooded for a few days. If we leave now, there is a good chance we are caught, so accept what you ncannot change.and ride out the storm. Nearly 7 years ago Exmouth was flatteded by tropical cyclone Vance, which had windspeeds of 280 km/hr and, as Hurricane Katrina, was a category 5. In Exmouth, 100 homes were flattened like matchboxes. A cyclone is fed by hot seawater and occurs only if the sea water temperature is 26 degrees or more. And the seawater temperature is now higher. So here we are, waiting for the cyclone. We take some precautions, park the campervan with the nose in the wind and remove all movable objects around, like dustbins and metal sprinklers. We block the carwheels with stones and close the ventilation openenings . We make a plan where we can hide in case our campervan is wrecked. Then start the long waiting. We have to expect stormy gales and tons of rainwater. The campervan will be shaken by the storm. Hopefully we survive the storm without damage, as the campervan is not insured and damage by cyclones is own risk. In the mean time we are stuck in Exmouth, riding out the storm. It is not advised to leave as the catchment area's inland catch the enormous ammounts of rain and flood the roads locally. You might be caught there, or completely isolated between 2 flooded area's, so we prefer to stay, tie down the campervan on steel hooks, embedded in concrete and move, if required, to the cyclone shelter in town.