If you could realise a birthday wish, what would it look like? Would it be 8 metres long, weigh 10 tonnes, be covered in spots and utterly beautiful? Mine was.

Whale sharks are the biggest fish in the world, growing up to 14 metres long and weighing over 30 tonnes. Each one has unique markings – their own thumbprint – and every year they take up temporary residence in the warm waters of Ningaloo Reef in Western Australian. I have always wanted to swim with one. This year I got my wish.

The beautiful whaleshark with us on the far right

It was my surprise birthday present from Geoff, but first we had to drive 1300km from Broome to Exmouth, a two-day race down to the beautiful Western Australia coast, passing slow cattle musters, scuttling monitor lizards and arriving to glorious sunsets.

Bringing the cattle to muster stations en-route to Exmouth

Very orderly cows

A two-metre long monitor lizard scurries out of our path

The sun setting over Ningaloo Reef

Glorious sunsets are a daily expectation

But never mind that – what about the whale sharks. We were at the very end of the season and though they said there were still big fish around, we would be lucky to see them – but we are very lucky people,  so we got to see three!

The shark was totally unfazed by our presence

Their spots are their fingerprint; each whale shark’s marking are unique

We were as up close and personal as you can get, as you will see from our video below and on our YouTube channel.

Whale sharks mouths can be up to 1.5 metres wide, so it is fortunate that they have a taste for plankton and not people. They can be found in tropical waters around the world, but Ningaloo reef is famous for these gentle giants.

In addition to the whale sharks, we also saw dozens of humpback whales, hammer head sharks, and turtles. It was a glorious day!

One of the many humpback whales we saw

Humpback mother and calf swimming on Ningaloo Reef

Obligatory cheesy snorkelling couple photo

Happily snorkelling with Geoff in the background

A humpback calf showing off to the crowd

A fine fluke

All of the ocean-based photos in this blog and the video are courtesy of Blue Media in Exmouth. The snorkelling tour was with Ningaloo Blue and they were fabulous.

All the memories and joy are courtesy of Geoff – thank you for this and oh so many other things.

We leave you with the wonderful whale sharks.