Aussie hospitality rules :-)

Hats off to Western Australia...great bunch of people. My day started early in Adelaide with the 6am wake-up call that found me in the sort of zombie state you'd associate with round-the-clock air-travel. No problems getting to the airport on-time and Qantas even let me off with 2kg (40 Aussie Dollars-worth) of excess luggage. It seemed that there were a lot of people stranded in Adelaide overnight, trying to get to Perth, where the weather had been very foggy. For this reason, they changed our plane at the last minute to accommodate the extra passengers and ended up taking of half-an-hour late.
However, the flight was full of lovely folks, willing to chat and shoot the breeze, including my neighbour Mick, who had worked on construction projects through the length and breadth of Australia. He waxed lyrical about the joys of Western Australia, gave me loads of good advice about places to go and generally just took an interest in the world around him and the people in his vicinity.
I also had some good banter with the cabin crew, who were an especially cheery bunch...not like the sour-faced Ryanair and Easyjet miseries we're used to. Customer service genuinely still means something here in Australia - which is just as well because you mostly end up paying through the nose.
I had a couple of hours layover in Perth, which was a chance to catch up with an old Uni/rugby mate and his girlfriend. James has been living in Oz for over 4 years now, plying his trade as a secondary maths teacher. The way he described the quality of life, the great outdoors and the living space had me reconsidering Oz as a future home once again. Lisa joined him about a year back and they now live in a 4 bed, 2 bathroom house with a huge garden, despite being on a single salary (although James is pretty well-paid as a teacher. We didn't have long to hang out...breakfast and a bottle of Aussie beer (it wasn't awful, and certainly better than the rancid Coca-Cola here, which has a whiff of DEET about it, in my opinion). I left for my flight, vowing to plan my next trip a bit better and ensure a night on the bevvies in Perth.

Headroom on boar Perth-Exmout flight...not much!

Flight number 2 was on a somewhat smaller plane - not like the 9-seat job that I flew into the Himalayas with on my last trip - but sufficiently small that the overhead lockers would be more accurately named 'overshoulder' lockers. We still received a nice picnic lunch and drinks, all delivered with a smile. The rest of the journey was spent gawping out of the porthole windows at the gorgeous west-coast scenery. Dazzling azure ocean, crisp white waves and seemingly endless miles of golden sand out of the port-side; scrub, signature orange dust, craggy outcrops and interminable, arrow-straight roads, criss-crossing the outback sporadically via the starboard windows. There was a collective audible intake of breath from the whole plane as the Exmouth peninsula's coastline finally hove into view - the water morphing into an otherworldly aquamarine / green, scattered with low-level dust-ringed, scrub-topped islands: we were definitely arriving in the back of beyond. Touching down at Learmonth Airforce base, Exmouth Peninsula, W.A. .

It was my favourite kind of airport: the kind where you walk off the plane and into the terminal via the only gate; the luggage conveyor (there is only one) can be seen to be loaded through the windows and everybody is reunited with their luggage and loved ones in a matter of minutes, leaving the place devoid of life in the blink of an eye. Except me and the car-hire lady. Once again my 'wallet-disappearing trick' was continuing to affect my day-to-day. To be fair, in Europe, arriving at the carhire place without a credit card would have a elicited a briefly mournful (not quite regretful) expression - the kind that says "Well we really wanted to take your money off you...but there's nothing we can do about it now...so please bugger off and don't make it my problem!". Instead, Janne listened sympathetically to my problem and promised to see what she could sort out as soon as she'd sorted out the other hires. At no point did she give me the impression that the outcome would be anything other than positive and, although we were unable to resolve the situation immediately, she still gave me a lift into town to my campsite, promising to sort everything out with Dave Wynne (my friend in Melbourne, who had kindly offered his credit card services), while I was out whale-shark swimming the following day. We had a good natter in the car on the way into town and her enthusiasm for her local area, its flora and fauna and the various activities available was highly infectious. If she ever gets sick of the carhire business, she would make a killer tour-guide, nature-spotter, tourism agent. I left her with a huge smile on my face and a promise to come and pick up my car the day after.

So, I turned up at Ningaloo Reef Caravan and Camping Resort in Exmouth (not to be confused with the little seaside place near my old stomping grounds of Exeter, Devon, Blighty. On arrival, I explained that I had used the web enquiry form to book a site but that I hadn't received a response. The reception ladies looked a little concerned and explained that this being the local school winter holidays, the town had swelled from a normal 2500 to over 8000 people...and accommodation of any sort was a bit scarce on the ground. Nonetheless, they found me a little spot for my tiny tent, furnished me with keys for the gate and the Ablutions Block and left me to my devices. Now, as a lover of outdoor living (even camping in Blighty is fun if you're prepared enough for the weather and any eventualities), my friends and family will be well aware of the quantity of camping kit I have amassed over the years, with never too many a gadget for the right occasion. Let me tell you, these Western Australians know how to camp! When I say camp, while they may hate the term, I would more properly call it glamping...they have every home-comfort imaginable! Outdoor erections that would put many a wedding marquee to shame are commonplace; camping chairs and refrigerating devices to make my mouth water; facilities that many homeowners would be happy to call their own; the greatest array of caravans, campervans, trailer-tents, pop-up shelters, tents and awnings that you could envisage - and campsites (for mine is but one of about 20 in a 5 mile radius) that spread out over several acres, with mettled roads, facility blocks and signposts rather like small towns. As I wandered around to gather my bearings, I began to feel a deep affinity with these affable, welcoming folk, who never passed up an opportunity for a 'G'day' or 'How's it going?'. Salt of the earth, every last one of the buggers! And probably at least half are actually of British Origin.

I pitched my little tent, which was worryingly full of stuff, seeing as I didn't have the car I was expecting to have! It was a bit of a squeeze with me and two rucksacks, sharing my 1.5man space...particularly (as I'm sure some of you will point out) as I am already 1.5 mans myself! ;-) I then went for a wonder to find food, water and take a look at the beautiful sunset. The evening smelt of the heat of the day and the tang of the salt air - filling me with optimism for the following days aquatic activities...swimming with the world's biggest fish! :-)