More Ningaloo

Mandu Mandu gorge

view of the car and trailer

ningaloo

 

francois peron NP

Point Quobba near carnarvon

dolphin at cape peron

us from behind

warroora station

Cape Range NP Mesa beach

27th june.
Sorry some of these photos are out of sync, just stuck them in anyway.
We set a trip record this morning in that we drove out of the campsite at 8.10am – and that was even with having to take down the annex. It meant that even though we had a few things to do in Exmouth ($200 in food later!), we still got away at a reasonable time. We’ve covered a good distance because of this, and have ended up only 100k away from Tom Price at a roadside stop – first time we’ve been allowed a fire in a while, which is a nice change. The drive was through lots of red dirt – I guess we’re in the Pilbara now – and it’s changing from coastal heath to big scrub plains dotted with smallish hills jutting up every once in a while, to now bigger mountains which are just beautiful in the evening and in the morning sun. The sun is shining down, and when I commented to the guy at Nanutarra Roadhouse that it was a pretty hot one, he just laughed at me and said he thinks it’s a beautiful day, and it gets to 48 degrees in summer (I forget it’s winter here sometimes). You wonder who on earth would live and work out here where there’s literally nothing for miles, but I think it’s considered seasonal work, so people do it for a couple of months, there’s nothing to spend their money on so they save up for a bit before travelling.

There has been lots of traffic up until we turned off towards Tom Price, lots of road trains and loads of wedge tailed eagles hovering near the road. I don’t think it’s necessarily the roadkill since there actually isn’t that much of it (or maybe they’ve already eaten it). There was quite a lot up around Exmouth, and we had to drive slowly in the national park most of the time because there were constantly kangaroos and emus jumping out on the road in front of us, or looking like they were about to. We also keep driving through floodplains today so I can imagine in the wet season a lot of it is under water. Funnily enough all but one of the rivers or creeks we’ve driven over have been completely dry though. There hasn’t been reception of course for most of the drive, which is why I’ve uploaded so many days’ worth of blog in one go. We bought 3kg of frozen prawns in Exmouth which were very cheap, and had them for dinner which was great, although we had completely numb fingers after peeling them frozen before cooking – we had grand ideas for 3 different types of prawns, but it meant that by the time it came to eating them I couldn’t face peeling another one so only had the two dishes that were pre-peeled, not the plain boiled ones (how’s that for spoilt).

Ningaloo

We went through a cloud of locusts and this one was very determined

Warroora Station (I think)

27th June. We had an easy night (hair and clothes washing, camp kitchen, unlimited water) at Yardie Creek Homestead campground, which is the closest to the Cape Range NP, and then Nick and Vin, the troopers, were up at 5am in the dark and drove to the gate of the national park, to sit there until 8am when it opens. They were 2^nd in line! Apparently the people in front of them were a family with young kids who went there at 3am and just went back to sleep, and when the ranger found that out he threatened them with a $100/person fine for ‘camping’ in a no camping zone. It’s a bit rough though I thought, as when it’s first come first served, I’m not sure what else people are supposed to do to actually get a place in here. Anyway we were one of the lucky ones and have been camped at Mesa campground for 2 nights now. The national park has a funny set of campgrounds all down the coast, they’re basically just cleared car parks right next to each of the beaches, with two toilets and about 12 – 15 spots at each campground. There’s a campground host at each spot who collects the fees and allots spaces and kicks out people who try and turn up after the rangers have gone home, and then organises drinks each evening (BYO) in the centre so that people get to meet each other. Because each campground is so small and you all feel a bit lucky to be here, there is actually quite a friendly feel to it. Ours is a mixture of grey nomads and backpackers (Israeli and French so far).

Each morning we sit having our breakfast or washing up as we watch the lucky few new (tired) people that come in (if someone leaves) and are thankful that we are already here. Once the national park gate opens at 8am and you work out which campground you can go to, you have an hour to claim your spot, so people seem to come straight here, dump some stuff or set up their tent and then go off for the day. This morning quite a few caravans left so there will be quite a few new people to liven up the drinks. There was a young German or French couple in a van, and a family with a teenager and two younger girls. Last night the backpackers seemed to find each other by moving their chairs during the drinks and sitting up later than anyone else talking (which made us feel a bit old) maybe the other back packers will be glad of some new younger blood. The host said that you can stay 28 days in the national park in a year, and some people even try to stay 28 days at one, and then move to another one, which seems a bit unfair when people are getting up at 5am. I reckon they should make it a week maximum at a time. One of the caravans in ours must have been there quite a while, they had their annex set up on their caravan, with a shower tent around the back, and they had even laid down rubber tile mats and other mats to lay a garden path from their front annex door, around the side, and to the back to the shower tent. Maybe they had a loo in there for night time visits or maybe it was so that they don’t get their feet dirty after a shower, but it just looked really funny to have such a set up in a site that’s basically a gravel car park.

Funnily enough we haven’t actually swum at our beach, although Nick and Vin have tried numerous (unsuccessful) times to catch some fish and the kids have done sandcastles. The first day we scored the campsite it was actually very cloudy and threatening rain all day so we first went into Exmouth to do some shopping and didn’t get here until late in the afternoon. We just hung out on the beach for a bit before all having an early night. Yesterday the weather was beautiful again, although a bit windy, so we dragged the kids away from their games in the sand dunes to do a walk alongside Yardie Creek Gorge. It was just a short one along the top of the river but we managed to get there right in the middle of the day so it was pretty hot. Afterwards we drove back past Turquoise Bay (just like in Are We There Yet!) which is the main snorkelling place in this national park and after lunch had a great time snorkelling in the bay. It’s very protected and although there’s a bit of a current the reef was very close in and there were lots of different fish to see. We even saw a couple of small stingrays with blue spots, loads of sea cucumbers, parrotfish (in fact every fish seemed to be munching on the coral), a fish with two long whiskers it seemed to drag along the bottom as feelers, a little tiny clownfish and lots of ones we haven’t looked up yet and didn’t recognise. It’s just so easy for the kids to jump in and out when the reef is metres from the shoreline, so they had a bit of a go with Daniel holding onto a boogie board to keep him up, then stuck to sandcastles while we could also easily keep snorkelling where we could see them. I was exhausted by the end since I’ve broken one of my fins so did without, and have gotten out of shape what with not doing much exercise on this trip!

This morning it was lovely yet again, although the wind seems to really build up during the day. Nick and Vin went out for another (unsuccessful) attempt at fishing a bit earlier this time so we got off for another walk in the morning so it wasn’t quite so hot. This time it was Mandu Mandu Gorge which is now dry, so you first walk along what used to be the riverbed which is covered in small pebbles of varying colours which looked really cool. We then climbed up the side of the gorge and came back along the top which gave a fantastic view of the sea and the reef. It was the same distance as yesterday’s walk but a bit harder with more scrambling up and down rocky bits, but I preferred it because of the two different terrains and the gorge just seemed more scenic to me. We’ve now come back for lunch at the tent (a treat as we’re usually out on the road) and are all catching up on journals while it’s hot, and before going back to Turquoise Bay for our last snorkel on Ningaloo. Tomorrow we’re going to try and pack up early, do a shop in Exmouth and go as far as we can towards Tom Price and Karajini NP.

Yardie Creek Gorge

snorkelling Turquoise Bay

Warroora Station and Coral Bay

Conor and Ben's cowrie collection

Lunch with the Ralhs at Warroora Station

It’s getting warmer and warmer – Daniel and I even got out the summer pyjamas last night! Conor has grudgingly agreed to give up his thermals (he was actually sweating at night) but is holding onto his winter pyjamas. At least he’s gotten rid of one of his blankets. The water is also getting warmer, although the kids still want wetsuits on to get in the sea. This morning we packed up, left Warroora Station and drove through the beautiful big nothingness to Coral Bay. It was a bit of a contrast with where we’d come from in that it was absolutely teeming with people and cars. You can hardly call it a town in that it’s two caravan parks, a servo, a shop and a National Parks information booth but it’s absolutely packed. Probably because the sun was sparkling on the crystal clear blue water, that’s knee deep for quite a while and then drops off right when it hits the reef, which is only 50m from the shore again. Obviously people come and plonk themselves down in a caravan park for a week or more, walk 100m to the beach and back again.
We did a bit of investigating about the Cape Range NP, made a few calls and realised that we weren’t going to get in tonight, so we’ve booked in at a campground at another station just outside the national park and Nick and Vin are thinking about getting up before dawn and going and queuing up outside the gates to see if we can get a spot, or else we’ll just do a day trip in. Once we had that sorted we could relax a bit more and hit the beach for a snorkel, which was great. It was different to yesterday in that the water was quite a bit deeper and the visibility not quite as good, but there were different fish and different coral. The biggest achievement was getting Daniel in to have a snorkel finally, he held onto a boogie board and went out a little way so he’s inching into it. There were these really big fish hanging around right on the edge of the reef (they have a fish feeding session in the afternoon) which were a bit scary for him but once Nick swam him past them he managed to see a bit of coral and a few other fish. I saw a trumpet fish and lots of parrot fish chomping away on the coral. Unfortunately quite a bit of it looks dead and bleached which is a shame, maybe further out it’s more colourful. Now we’re back in the car with the foot down trying to make it to Yardie Creek Homestead which is holding spots until 5pm for us.

Carnarvon

Carnarvon

Lookout near Wooramel Roadhouse (between Hamelin and Carnarvon)

blowhole at Point Quobba

We headed off yesterday morning, by this time all well and truly covered in sandfly bites and rubbing and scratching like crazy people, the only downside about Francois Peron NP. I thought I would be ok only putting repellent on the bits of skin that were showing but no, they got in *everywhere*. Aloe vera seems to relieve things a bit and we’re just trying really hard not to itch. It was mainly a driving day to get to Carnarvon, although we stopped briefly at a lookout which had a great view – it was just a small hill basically in this big expanse of flat heath that seems to go forever in all directions. A man there recommended a great little roadhouse at Worramel nearby, which sells homemade danishes and pastries. They made a great morning tea, and we got some homemade sausage rolls and pasties for lunch as well, a big treat. We drove into Carnarvon at the same time as what looked like a huge bunch of posties on postie bikes putt-putting along, and it turned out to be…. A group of posties doing a big tour to raise money. We headed out to the mile long jetty for lunch and then to walk off our morning tea and lunch on the (mile) long jetty which was built in the late 1800’s. After that it was a quick shop and a drive out to where we’d chosen to camp for the night, which was unfortunately absolutely packed (got to arrive early at these cheap places). We still found a spot with the Ralh’s tucked in a bit behind the dunes (there was a bit of a breeze), set up just as the sun was going down and had a nice warm dinner.

This morning we were up just *before* the sun came up because we had to get into town by 8.30am to visit the Carnarvon School of the Air – you can sit in on a lesson on certain days, and after reading about the Catteralls doing it we thought it might be interesting. It kind of was, but unfortunately more interesting for us than for the kids who just couldn’t sit through it. After that we looked around the town for a bit, trying to find a few things on our shopping list (not very successfully), and met the Ralhs again for lunch at a playground. We stopped at a few farms to buy some fresh fruit and veggies which is a nice change after lots of supermarket stuff – fresh herbs! One place even makes their own mushed up fruit icecreams which were just fantastic. Conor even bought a chocolate covered chocolate-pudding fruit icecream, and then regretted it, but Nick was nice enough to swap his chocolate covered custard apple one which went down better. Daniel and I went to town on Mango icecreams. Now it’s back to the campground, Nick reckons for a swim but I’m not so sure as it’s windy. Unfortunately we have to first clean out the fridge as when we put it back in yesterday morning we forgot to turn it on! Thankfully we only had one pack of sausages left in there which we had to throw out, the other stuff is ok to have just been kept cool I think (we’ll find out when we get back). There’s a fair amount of festy smelling water at the bottom though….

Peron Homestead for a bath

We’ve had a great time up at Francois Peron, had perfect weather, and lots of fun. Nick and Vin went down to the beach again this morning to try and catch some fish for dinner, and came back with a perfectly respectable catch of smaller ones. The rest of us packed up and had breakfast, then we all headed back to Peron Homestead to the ‘pool’ which is just a big corrugated iron tank fed by the artesian bore, so it’s really warm (too warm for me at first). It was fantastic to have a wash, very refreshing, and it’s also a nice place to have a sandwich at the tables on the grass. By that time it was mid afternoon so we just headed straight to our stop for the night, which is Hamelin Station nearer to the main road. It’s a nice station set up as a camping stop, with new bathrooms etc and a laundry – but only one washing machine, one line and no dryer! They’re on generator power so they can’t cope with power-hungry dryers. Anyway we’ve each put on a load so I’m hoping it might get a bit dry overnight. We’ve got so many socks and undies each time I think we’re going to have to start changing them less as I don’t have enough pegs to hang them out! I suppose as the weather gets warmer they’ll dry quicker and quicker. Tomorrow we’ll go through Carnarvon, stock up on fresh fruit and veggies and keep moving north.

Francois Peron with the Ralhs

After a fair length very sandy, sometimes corrugated and bumpy drive up the peninsula, we ended up staying at Bottle Bay, towards the tip of the peninsula, which is just beautiful. Not many other people here, and we camp about 50m from the beach behind small dunes which makes it nice and easy to have a swim! It’s the first time we’ve had a proper swim and it was lovely – the weather is really quite warm, clear sunny days, so you actually feel like getting in the water even though it’s still a bit cool. It’s flat as a tack but that just makes it easier for the kids. We had a nice play at the beach yesterday afternoon, and Nick and Vin caught 10 small fish between them which fried up great for a (late) dinner - Conor even caught one of them! It was very impressive, and we had grand plans for a fish dinner tonight but as of 4.30pm this afternoon, not much luck.

This morning after everyone writing their journals we drove a little bit further to Cape Peron and did the walk to Skipjack Point along the ridge where we could see lots of cormorants, and at Skipjack point there’s a great platform where you can look down over the water and hopefully see marine life – which we did! There was a pod of dolphins that were even jumping out of the water sometimes, playing, and a turtle which wandered around underneath us, lots of fish, something we wondered if it might have been a shark (but possibly not), and a stingray on the way back. After the walk it was pretty hot by then so it was back to the tents for lunch and another swim in the afternoon. The kids have built amazing sandcastles all afternoon, and now it seems like we might have to come up with something else for dinner, other than the fish which aren’t biting. Tomorrow it will probably be back down the sandy road (bit hard when you meet people coming the other way) and not sure where tomorrow night will be yet, but we are going to need to do some clothes washing pretty soon….

Skipjack Point

Hamelin stromatolites and Eagle Bluff

We had a relatively easy drive yesterday to the Shark Bay peninsula, which was actually handy since Nick woke up not feeling so great. We stayed at a free camp at Eagle Bluff – even saw a couple flying around, which is just behind the beach along the western side of the peninsula. The weather is beautiful – still not warm enough to swim but sunny, shorts and t-shirts, and that’s enough to keep me happy for the moment. There was no-one else there, two other people turned up later in the afternoon but as water from the lagoon seemed to be covering the track they both turned around (2WD). We didn’t attempt to cross it because it looked quite deep but just drove along the side in the sand for a bit and set up there since it was just for one night. We ended up facing exactly the right way, east-west, so that we got a view of the sun setting over a sparkling ocean through one window of the tent, and from the other side, where I was washing up after dinner, I had an uninterrupted view of the full moon rising over the horizon, just magic. The photos of course don’t do it justice….

On the way there we stopped at Hamelin Pool to see some more live stromatolites, quite a bit more than at Lake Thetis and with a bit of a better boardwalk to see them from. There were also some dead ones (which have died as the water level has reduced) which are bright red on the top, I think from iron in the sand/soil? The sand around there was full of tiny shells too, which has turned into limestone a bit inland and they even used to cut it with saws and use it to build buildings.

Once we got to Eagle Bluff where we were camping, Nick slept it off in the tent in the afternoon and I took the kids to a nearby boardwalk which allows you to look down over the clear shallow water below the cliff, where, sometimes, you can apparently see turtles, dugongs etc etc swimming along…. But not when we were there. Apparently the sea grass forest here is world heritage listed and is one of the biggest in the world, which is why it’s such a good place for dugongs. We all had an early night and headed off this morning to Denham to buy a few things before meeting up with the Ralhs to go up into the Francois Peron NP together. We did our 4WD course with them in February and they’re basically doing the same trip in a camper trailer but with 4 kids! Their youngest two are the same ages as ours so Conor and Daniel are very excited at the prospect of other kids to play with – it turns out that Ben even has some pokemon cards! We’ve had a nice lunch at Peron Homestead anyway (saving the artesian spring for on the way back), and have now lowered our tyre pressure and are feeling very intrepid, heading north. One of the campsites is closed for renovation, and apparently there’s a king tide today so another one will be hard to get into, so there isn’t much choice of where to go, but they’re all supposed to be beautiful….