Stimson Python

This beautiful creature decided to hide under my fuzzy pink slippers, in the annex of the caravan. Its a Stimson Python, harmless and relatively friendly (he visited another caravan the following morning).

In the first photo you can see the brick that holds down the shoe rack on the left, and my fuzzy pink slippers on the right, and Stimpy in the middle.

He peeked out from under the brick.

Eventually he slithered out of the annex, wound his way around the stabilizers for the caravan, and took off. Dave estimates he was about a meter long.

Exmouth Top Ten so far

We've been in Exmouth just over two months so far. We feel quite lucky, even though there are disadvantages to living in a caravan on a fish farm (I won't mention those here!).

So in no particular order:

10. Living a short walk from a lovely beach that isn't frequented by lots of people. We try to go and swim after work a few nights a week, sometimes we just wind up walking down the shoreline. The low tides reveal mudflats and all kinds of interesting things- starfish making hundreds of little footprints, coral, little fishes, hermit crabs making crazy patterns in the sand.

9. Turtles- laying and hatching. The laying turtles were huge- a meter long, the hatchlings palm-sized... with up to a 200 year difference in between. We're looking forward to whale sharks, whales, dolphins (we've already seen a few). We've also seen small sharks and went snorkelling with a meter + long one!

8. Sunrises over the bay and sunsets over the ranges. Moonrises over the bay.

7. Emus- odd looking things. Wallabies, kangaroos, cockatoos, lizards that run on their hind legs.

6. Small town life, population 2000. The population doubles when a cruise ship comes. The locals are friendly. The in-jokes are numerous. The town raised over $36000 for the Victorian Bushfires appeal.

5. Snorkelling- we have a year-long National Parks Pass, so we can go snorkelling at any time, for 'free.' The diversity is amazing, we've seen everything from turtles to sharks.

4. Cape Range National Park- it is like having the grand canyon in your backyard.

3. Fishing- for work and for fun. We go fishing off the beach behind the property sometimes, and once a little shark stole Dave's bait and hook. We are never without fresh fish for dinner.

2. Small church. Exmouth Anglican (or whatever it is called) averages 20-25 people, with one family almost a third of that number! We were welcomed into church and taken out for lunch the first Sunday we were there.

1. The laid-back attitude of the town and the residents, the casual approach to life, the relaxed atmosphere.

Baby Turtles!

Tuesday was Craft morning at the senior center. I made two cards and did a lot of playing around. There are a few ladies who make cards so between the three or four of us we have a lot of things (stamps! scissors! embellishments!) to play around with. I did wind up ordering a craft tote from a catalog- I need something more organized than a lidless plastic tote to store my stuff in! Tuesday night our caravan ran out of (cooking) gas, in the middle of dinner. We had hamburgers from the fish and chips shop on the way to Bible Study.

This week I had two days of relief teaching in the Kindy class. I have been preparing my own materials as I don't have any for kindy, and used them.

Thursday night is usually our date night, but since we already ate out once this week we made dinner and took it to the beach to look for baby turtles:

Turtle hatchling making his way to the ocean ... his little flippers were really pumping!

Finally, he made his way to the ocean. The water pushed him back onto the shore then pulled him into the ocean.

5 March

Heather's been getting more relief teaching at the primary school- three days a week for the last few weeks. The weather hasn't been too hot, and we've been able to go snorkelling and out to the National Park a few times. Last weekend we also went fishing off the beach behind our house. We had a few nibbles, and a small shark took Dave's bait and hook a few times.

Dave has finished marking a Masters thesis for the university. It took a while but it was interesting.

Church has been going well, with plans for building on the block of land purchased recently becoming more concrete. There is also much discussion, planning and anticipation of the Easter sunrise service at the lighthouse.