Daily Mail, Saturday, August 17, 2019 Page 57Cover story
MANTA RAY
HOLIDAY
GURU
Helping you
find the
perfect break
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questions to holidayplanner@
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Travel, Northcliffe House,
2 Derry Street, London W8 5TT
— and include contact details.
We will do our best to answer
your queries, but can’t reply to
every enquiry. Please do not
send original documents.Q
MY cousin and I want to
visit Jerusalem and
other sights in Israel,
including the grave of
Oskar Schindler in the
Catholic cemetery on
Mount Zion. Can you help?
Mrs H Pilley, Edinburgh.A
RESPONSIBLE Travel
has eight-day group
tours with stays in Tel
Aviv, Galilee and Jerusalem,
including a visit to Mount
Zion, from £1,329pp plus
flights (01273 823700,
responsibletravel.com).Q
WE ARE flying to Ho Chi
Minh City in Vietnam
with an onward flight
to Cambodia’s Siem Reap
after a two-hour layover.
We return to Vietnam a
week later for a holiday.
Do we need a multiple-
entry visa for Vietnam?
Richard Gardiner, email.A
CHECK with your airline
to see if you pass through
immigration on the
layover. If so, you will need
a single-entry visa costing
£55 (vietnamvisa.govt.
vn/united-kingdom-citizens).
Then, on your return, use
the 15-day visa exemption
allowed for British citizens
visiting Vietnam.
For information, see http://www.
gov.uk/foreign-travel-advice/
vietnam/entry-requirements.
Trailfinders also has a
visa service (020 7368 1504,
trailfinders.com/visas).Q
WHAT is the best
currency for Cuba? I’ve
been told my bank
card won’t work there.
Ernest Woodhouse, York.A
SOME cards will not be
accepted. Sterling is
best, but ensure notes
have no rips or markings
and always use Cadeca
exchange houses, large
hotels or banks.
For more information,
go to http://www.gov.uk/foreign-
travel-advice/cuba/moneyboth seen and swum with a
whale shark and, thanks to
Chiara, it was probably on
video, too.
I spent my last two days
farther down the reef, at
Coral Bay. So as far as the
Big Three were concerned,
it was two down and one
to go.
If I was going to see the
huge manta rays — they can
grow up to 7 m wide from
wingtip to wingtip — Coral
Bay was the place to be.
About 850 manta rays have
been catalogued here over
the past ten years.
This time, the spotter
plane located not only one
but a whole group of mantas
feeding off the coast.
A few minutes later we
were in the water, watching
the rays barrel-roll, dip and
dive as though they wereenjoying putting on a display.
So that was it. Three out of
three and the prospect of
another glass or two of
Margaret River merlot.
But I don’t want to give
the impression that
Ningaloo is only about the
ocean and the creatures that
dwell therein.
One morning I took a dawn
walk in the Cape Range
National Park and saw more
than a dozen black-flanked
rock-wallabies.
They are on Australia’s
endangered species list and
it’s thought the total popu-
lation may be as low as 500.
Watching them hopping
from crag to crag among the
gorge’s precipitous cliffs was,
in its way, almost as exciting
as seeing the whale shark in
its spotted splendour.
And there was one finalbonus to my trip. I had a day
in Perth on the way back. I
have been coming to Perth
for years but never before
managed to visit Rottnest
Island, a 25-minute ferry ride
from Fremantle. Well, I
remedied that omission.
Shane Kearney, Rottnest’s
environment manager,
gave up his morning to show
me round.
We could have cycled but,
as ever, I was pressed for
time so we took an electric
car instead (the only kind
allowed on the island).
Amazingly, we saw two
ospreys on a nest built on a
rock out to sea and, I am
glad to say, encountered
Rottnest’s most famous
little marsupial mammal,
the quokka.
Shane took a photo of me
and a quokka. What a sweet
and pretty animal. Useful for
Scrabble, too.TRAVEL FACTS
STANLEY JOHNSON travelled
with Wexas Travel (wexas.
com), which offers an
eight-day trip from £3,815 pp,
based on two travelling
during whale season, from
June to August. Includes
flights, transfers, seven
nights’ B&B at The Westin
Perth, Sal Salis in Ningaloo
(including meals) and
Ningaloo Reef Resort Coral
Bay and touring, including a
whale swim (whale shark or
humpback) and a manta ray
interaction snorkelling. Visit
westernaustralia.comn HALFWAY up Australia’s
West coast, it’s the world’s
largest fringing reef. This
means it hugs the shore,
so you can explore by
snorkelling off the beach.
n THE name is from the
words ‘promontory’ and
‘deepwater’ in the Abo-
riginal Warajji language.
n FROM July to October,
thousands of humpback
whales migrate up and
down the West Australiancoastline on what’s some-
times referred to as the
Humpback Highway.
n ONE of the largest bio-
logical structures known,
it is visible from space.
n BY LAW, swimmers can
get no closer than 30m
(98ft) to the whales, but
that doesn’t stop them
getting close to you.
n SIX of the world’s seven
species of marine turtle
live on the reef.Why Ningaloo is so special