Swimming with Whale Sharks - June 2012

Elaine Simpson on 11 January 2018
In June 2012 I was one of a group of 21 who travelled to the Ningaloo Reef before attending the Australian Tourism Exchange in Perth as part of the Tourism Australia UK delegation.

The Ningaloo Reef is Australia’s largest fringing coral reef, and in places is only 100 metres from the shore, making snorkelling from the beach an easy option: it also has a vast array of some of the world’s most iconic marine creatures, such as the largest fish in the sea - the whale shark.

After a day in Perth, getting to know each other, experiencing the joys of the Little Creatures Brewery in Fremantle and staying at Sullivan’s Hotel (a favourite with British visitors) we flew to Learmonth airport, close to Exmouth.

Our stay was at Novotel Ningaloo, located on Sunrise Beach in Exmouth: the perfect location to explore the natural wonders of the Ningaloo Marine Park and Cape Range National Park, and with a great restaurant – Mantarays, which overlooks the marina.

The first day we joined a whale shark discovery tour operated by Ocean Eco Adventures.

From April to July the largest fish in the sea, the gentle giant, the whale-shark, is in this area, feeding on the plankton and heading north to their breeding ground. Not a lot is known about their life-cycle, so the tour company gathers information for scientific surveys, and have permission to take groups of swimmers into the water to swim with them and manta-rays.

You need to be a strong swimmer to keep up and we were advised about the group discipline and hand signals, so as not to disturb the fish. I’m not a strong swimmer so I stayed on the boat while about half of the group kitted up and enjoyed the swim which was videoed by the group leader.

However, I didn’t miss out: as I looked over the side a whale shark, with its mouth open wide to feed, swam towards the boat just below the surface and only dived down as it came very close; it was probably about 10-foot-long, an absolutely awesome sight. The swim-group told me later that I possibly got a better sighting than they did as the water on that day was quite murky.

A fantastic experience and highly recommended, whether you can swim or not, A great day out with a superb lunch and other refreshments provided.

The boat moves to other locations out of season: Coral Bay from July to October for humpbacks, turtles, dugongs and dolphins; and Dunsborough in the South West from December to March for dolphins and seals.

The following day we travelled to Coral Bay to stay at the Ningaloo Reef Resort for two nights. Coral Bay is an interesting place: very simple and unspoilt and a favourite with Aussies holidaying in campers, caravans and cabins at the Bayview Resort next door to our hotel.

On the way there we were taken on a safari tour of the Cape Ranges National Park, including viewing the turtle hatcheries (unoccupied at this time of year) and drift snorkelling at Turquoise Bay.

The following day was a relaxed sailing experience aboard Sail Ningaloo's Shore Thing, a luxury live-aboard catamaran for a maximum of 10 guests; a beautiful vessel and I would have loved to stay longer.

In the afternoon we boarded a glass-bottom boat from the beach for coral viewing and it was fascinating to see all the different shapes and colours of the coral and all the creatures that live amongst it.

It was a really interesting few days in this beautiful, unspoilt part of Australia, an area that’s well worth including in any trip to Western Australia.