Woonona Mob "Zig Zag Oz": Ningaloo dreaming

We have just been to Ningaloo (Cape Range) National Park, where we went snorkelling in turquoise waters, and saw a rainbow of fish every different shape and colour.

Ningaloo is the largest fringing coral reef in Australia, and attracts thousands of tourists every year just because of its reef. It became World Heritage Listed this year.

I saw parrot fish, angel fish, clams, coral, rays and so much more.

We went drift snorkelling at turquoise bay, named because of its turquoise water, drift snorkelling is really relaxing and fun, all you have to do is float and let the current take you along while you view the underwater city bustling beneath you!

We went on a whale watching cruise, and saw so many whales, some with calves as well.

This time of year all the humpback whales come here to breed and give birth.

The amount of tail slapping, belly flopping, big breaching and overall whale-“ness” was amazing it’s definitely a thing that YOU must do.

We saw the large Potato Coral on the cruise as well, also named the “bungle bungles” because of its shape, there were also 3 turtles that we saw slowly gliding along in their relaxed fashion.

There was a myriad of fish every single shade that you can think of!

Now there was Monkey Mia and we saw a whole new set of things! The Indo-Pacific Bottlenose Dolphins were soooo beautiful, gentle and amusing they can bring tears to your eyes (for all different reasons). We found out that some of those dolphins have learnt to use a sea-sponge, as a tool, to sift around the bottom of the ocean for flathead without scratching their nose! We went to Francois Peron National Park and saw heaps of familiar and new animals at this lookout like; manta-rays, turtles, pied cormorants and …… DUGONGS!!!! We went on a wildlife cruise and saw some dolphins and calves really close up and some dugongs as well.

By Maeve

In the Ningaloo Reef we saw heaps of animals,

including turtles, fish ,starfish ,sea cucumbers and crabs. We went on a glass bottom boat and went up really close to whales breaching. We went drift snorkelling and I felt scared at first but then I got used to it. After a while I saw a brown stingray and I started to panic. I went back and had some fruit and shapes. We went out really far and there was dead coral and I thought it was a grave. The next night we went to the other camp and had dinner with our friends. While we were there we went ghost crabbing and I caught a golden crab. We then let them go.

In Monkey Mia we saw a variety of dolphins and dugongs. We went on a boat tour and saw dolphins riding the engine waves. We went to a lookout and saw rays, dolphins, dugongs, cormorants a turtle and a whale. The dolphins got up close to us and one was feeding it’s calf.

by Ellen