Distance Travelled: 549 km
Time Taken: About 6 and a half hours
The journey from Karratha to Exmouth was pretty uneventful aside from a short stop at Nanutarra Roadhouse. Luke had spent a couple of weeks at the roadhouse about ten years ago because it was the closest accommodation to the random spot of dirt where he was commissioning some equipment. So he took a few photos to send to the mate he'd been working with and we pressed on to Exmouth.
When we arrived we got our first bit of bad news. The humpback whale swim tour we were booked on for the next day had been cancelled because visibility was bad and they had no other spots available for later in the week. It was so disappointing because we'd done the whale shark swim with the same company last year, Ocean Eco Adventures, and they were fantastic. I can't fault them for cancelling because you have to stay 30 metres from the whales and if visibility is only 10 metres, then there's no real point going. The company went above and beyond finding another group who could take us out on Thursday which we agreed to.
I had already organised with the owner of Ocean Eco Adventures to interview him for my next romantic suspense series and he graciously agreed to meet me at the boat so I could still ask him all my questions. So after a walk along the beach, we headed out to the marina where we chatted to Jimmy for a while and he showed us around his boat. He was such a great help and I have a few fun ideas for the new series already.
I've been wandering around town to get a real feel for Exmouth because my plan is to base my new small town on it. It's a really interesting town surrounded by some wonderful landscape and my notebook is full of ideas.