Hattie on Tour

We  are sad to leave Cape Range National Park and our little camp at Lakeside.  The unspoilt, uncrowded beauty and laid-back lazy days are going to be hard to replicate.  We wonder, too, how long it will be before this idylic spot will remain undeveloped and commercialised.   Apperently there is already talk of setting up a large ‘holding’ camp at the entrance to the park to manage the entry of  increasing numbers of people coming here. 

It’s about 40 kilometres up and round the coast to Exmouth on the east of the peninsular, where we spend most of the morning stocking up on supplies, catching up on emails – we haven’t logged on for five days – and contacting the Indian embassy about visa arrangements. 10 working days are required to process an application from a non-resident of Australia, which mayput paid to our plans to spend the next three weeks making our way down to Perth;  wee may have to fast forward our arrive in Perth in order to lodge our application at the consulate there.  But, first we are going to investigate the possibility of applying by post and picking up the visas just before we fly out.

It takes a couple of hours to do the drive from Exmouth to Coral Bay.  Coral Bay is described by Lonely Planet as a samll beachcomber village;  but initial impressions are more of a very large caravan park.  There are two caravan parks an a small shopping centre which seem to make up the entire community.  So a little more commercialised and certainly a lot busier than we had anticipated.  And expensive.  A powered pitch is $33 , but tonight we are treating ourselves so that we can power up all our electrical gadgetry, have showers and do our laundry! It’s been five days since we have been able to do that!  Although at Lakeside we were lucky enough to be camped next to a family who had a generator and were kind enough to charge one of our laptops everyday.  Essential in order to keep up to date with the blogging.

The weather is glorious today and we spend most of it at Lakeside simply relaxing – this life is so hard!  All we have to worry about is getting some more ice and topping up on the water supplies.  That takes us to lunch-time.  We spent the afternoon on the beach sunbathing and doing some snorkeling.  There are hundreds of Red Bell Jellyfish in the sea by the campsite, bobbing in the waves, the unlucky ones being washed up on the sand.  Fortunately, it’s a localized influx carried in on a warm current at the tide came in.  Further round the shore in the protected zone there are only one or two – easy to avoid and apparently their stings are not much worse than that of nettles.  The snorkeling is just as good as yesterday and we come across a shoal of black fish amongst them some parrot fish and we stay with them a while.  There’s a huge Manta Ray too, must be at least 6ft from head to tip of the tail, just resting on the sand. 

The National Park operates a hosting system at each of the camping grounds.  The hosts are volunteers who  live on the site and supervise the coming and goings of the campers and visitors.  Our hosts are Greg and Marg.  Originally from South Africa, they settled in Australia some years ago and seem to spend a lot of their time travelling around the country.  One of a band of ‘grey nomads’ that seem to be permanently on the road.  They host the site during the peak season, liaising with the ranger , looking after the site and it’s facilities (such as they are) and making sure that there is no illegal camping.  All of which means that the site runs smoothly;  no-one comes and steals your site when you’re out for the day, or camps in the day parking area – which apparently several people have tried to do arguing with the hosts (as if they wouldn’t know) that it’s free to camp overnight in the day parking area, as opposed to the official sites for which a fee is payable.   But the whole system within the park still depends on people’s honesty, since it would be easy enough to come into the park at night and camp at one of the beaches out of sight of the road.  In fact, people camp illegally in the visitors centre car park.

Light has been shed on the large numbers of children who are out of school during term-time.  Apparently taking children out of school is as simple as writing a sick note.  One of the mothers here explained that all she needed to do was write a note to school the day before she intended taking them out to say that her children would not be in school for the next 13-week term!   This is quite commonplace apparently and for children out of school for more than three months there are official correspondence courses which are posted out to parents and and a postal homework marking system.  similarly.   Unimaginable in the UK where you have to jump through hoops to be allowed to educate your children at home!

We walk along the beach about a kilometre or so to a perfectly still bay and sit on the sand dunes to watch the sunset.  The sun sinks below the horizon incredibly quickly;  from the moment it touches the horizon to it sinking out of sight takes just 2 minutes and 19 seconds.  The sunsets here produce a deep orange skyline, but there is no after glow, no after sunset development through a range of colours as in Darwin or Broome.   Once it’s gone, it’s gone.

A sunny, blue sky greets us this morning!  A day of snorkeling awaits.  Turquoise Bay is reputedly the best snorkeling area in the park and it certainly lives up to its name;  the water is oh so beautifully turquoise blue and the sand oh so white.  And, as befits the best, it attracts a host of people including groups on commercial trips!   Coral only a few metres out from the beach is home to myriad colourful fish!  All the colours of the rainbow are represented in this tropical fish tank, vivid greens, electric blue, vibrant yellows, pinks and reds.   Fish with beautiful patterns, dots and stripes, if only we could identify them all!  Now, under the shimmering sun,  the sublime beauty of Ningaloo Reef, this well-kept secret of
Western Australia, really comes into its own!  So accessible – and teeming with life – forget the Great Barrier Reef, with its expensive tours, commercialization and, in our experience, disappointing reef  – for sheer natural beauty this has got to be hard to beat.

Oyster Stacks is another excellent snorkeling site just a little further along the coast.  It’s rocky makes it a bit more difficult to get into the water , but there is a tidal current to carry you effortlessly over the coral  and when you’ve drifted far enough you can out on the sandy beach further along and walk back.  If anything, there is a more and greater variety of fish at this spot than Turquoise Bay, but the water isn’t quite so picturesquely turquoise blue. 

We plan to finish off the day with a bit more snorkeling at Lakeside, but by the time we get back the tide is out and the wind up making it a bit too choppy and shallow.  We will try again tomorrow.  As we stroll along the beach in the evening light we stop to chat with our host, Marg, who is on her way back to camp.  She has hurriedly retreated from the water after coming face to face with a Tiger shark, which whilst not supposed to be aggressive can be just a little intimidating when you are swimming on your own! 

Now is the season for Whale Sharks, which are the largest fish in the world.  For those with $350 to (175 pounds) to spare it is possible to take a trip from Exmouth to swim with these enormous, but harmless creatures.  It is an amazing experience, according to everyone we have spoken to.  Tempting!    

It’s another disappointingly cloudy and windy day, but it is so relaxing here and the scenery so wild and unspoilt that we have booked in for another night in the hope that the weather will improve eventually.  The sea is choppy, and snorkeling is still off the agenda, so we drive out of the park to get some supplies and fill up on petrol before spending the day exploring the beaches along the coast, all of which have a slightly different character;  some rugged and rocky with crashing waves, others sandy stretches attracting those who want to fish (although no-one seems to be catching anything).  Jurabi Turtle Centre turns out to be nothing more than a set of information boards and we don’t see any turtles, but then we’re not really looking because, according to the boards, they are not coming into nest at this time of year.  It’s not until we chat with some people further down the coast that we discover that there are turtles in the lagoon and if you look carefully enough it’s possible to see the occasional turtle’s head pop up out of the water followed by its body.  But you need to be keen sighted.  At the Jurabi Coastal Reserve we scale an enormous mountain of a sand dune which is surprisingly solid and firm on the top and offers a splendid panorama of the coast and the
Cape Range behind.    Mangrove Bay is different again;  edged with mangroves this secluded bay is completely calm in stark contrast to the rest of the coast.  The mangroves attract many migrating bird species from as far away as Siberia and Asia – in the summer months- so nothing to see today! 

Last stop of the afternoon is Neds Camp – a boating and fishing spot with a secluded campsite.  Here we spot a couple of turtle’s heads popping up to the surface.  More emu and Roo sightings along the road.   Emus, interestingly, are considered a pest especially by farmers.  Apparently they migrate from the centre to converge on Western Australia in their thousands, finding gaps in the rabbit proof fence, and ravage farmland eating all the crops.  The farmers answer?  Shoot the blighters.

There is only one water tap in the National Park providing a limited supply of bore water.  We are not sure how limited or indeed if it is drinking water.  There is no sign indicating it isn’t, but then again there is nothing to say it is,  so we are erring on the side of caution and using the water for washing only.  We are drawing on our fresh water supplies for drinking.  At the water point there are several pretty pink and grey galahs perched in the bushes seemingly unconcerned by our arrival.  In fact our presence seems to be the cue for the arrival of a large flock;  perhaps they are expecting to be fed or to take advantage of any water spillage.   

A cloudy day!  The temperature has dropped quite significantly but it is still warm.  Unlike yesterday which was sunny by afternoon, the sun doesn’t manage to break through and the wide doesn’t drop until late afternoon.  It’s perfect weather, though, for a walk through Mandu Mandu Gorge 14km along the coastal road.  Another walk classed as moderately difficult, the two-hour trail winds its’s way along the rocky, white creek bed deep into this sheer sided gorge.  A steep scramble leads up onto the gorge rim and more superb views of the coast, the surrounding country as well as down into the gorge itself.  The return along the top involves more scrambles up and down several smaller tributary valleys cut deep into the hills.  It’s on these sort of walks that we are glad of the cloud cover  to provide protection from the glare of the sun. 

On the drive back to camp we take a look at
Sandy Bay – a curved stretch of white sand-  and Pilgramunna – a rocky little cove popular with the boating fraternity.  At Pilgrammunna we get stuck in the sand, which looked quite firm but turns out to be deceptively soft and we need a push to get free. 

Back at Lakeside for lunch and then a spot of fishing while I blog a while.  Until Andy comes rushing back from the beach to report a pod of dolphins just a few metres off shore.  This sends people rushing to the waters edge to get a glimpse of themas they arc gracefully through the water for a few minutes before disappearing out to sea.  By mid afternoon the wind has dropped and the water is wonderfully calm and crystal clear.  Time for a spot of snorkeling.  The water is a bit chillier than the 30 degrees we are used to, so we don’t stay in long, but we do see some colorful parrot fish, a manta ray and several tiny electric blue fish.  Red Bell Jellyfish are around in these waters so it’s necessary to keep an wary eye out.  There stings are not as severe as the box jelly fish which is out of season at the moment, but are still best avoided. 

On the walk back to the campground we spot three or four huge manta rays with their long tails basking in the shallows only a couple of feet from us. 

We are up before dawn this morning, and at the ranger’s office by 7.30 am in order to be second in the queue for a camping pitch in the national park.  It’s cloudy and much cooler, the first dull day of our trip.  Has this anything to do with the fact that we’ve just bought snorkeling gear on the assumption that the good weather was going to continue?  There is a well defined booking procedure for obtaining a pitch which involves paying a park entry fee to the ranger.  While we wait for to pay the ranger is radioing all the camp grounds to find out how many pitches are available today and we can then  choose which one we want to take.  The ranger then radios ahead to secure our pitch for us.  But when we arrive there is some confusion as a French woman has arrived 10 minutes before us and been directed to our pitch.  Each campground has volunteer hosts who manage the site and on this occasion they hadn’t checked this woman’s reservation slip, simply assuming that she was the booking that had been radioed through.  The confusion is soon resolved, and French lady is dispatched to another site.  It later turns out that said French lady had been here yesterday without a booking and the whole process had been explained to her and she had been turned away to come back today.  Obviously she hadn’t fully grasped the niceties of the process even so!

There are about 16 campsites in the park with only a handful of pitches on each.  We are at
Lakeside where there are seven pitches and no facilities apart from a long-drop toilet.  The campsite is tucked into the dunes with a little shade provided by some pines, a lovely white sand beach and turquoise blue water.  This is one of the three main snorkeling areas along the coast, so we have done well to get a place here.  Our neighbours  are mainly families who have taken their children out of school to travel.  Judging by the number of families in the area this seems to be nothing out of the ordinary.  Although attempts at home schooling seem to be giving rise to some strife on one side of us and it is only 9am.  It’s easy to see why as neither parent seems to have either the temperament or inclination for it! 

The Ningaloo Marine Park stretches along the west coast of North West Cape Peninsular.  It protects the Ningaloo Reef which stretches from Red Bluff in the south to Exmouth in the north.   Ningaloo Reef is the largest fringing reef in the world, covering 5000 sq km.  In parts the reef is only a 100 metres off shore and it is possible distinguish it by the huge waves breaking over it.  The existence of the reef creates shallow lagoons which are home to a huge range of fish species.  It’s too windy and choppy to snorkel today though.

There are a huge numbers of bays and beaches to explore along the coast and but today we drive Yardie Creek  at the southern end of the sealed coastal road.  Beyond this point a 4wd drive is needed to cross the treacherous river mouth and continue the 95kms along the sandy road to Coral Bay.  There is an excellent   one-and-half hour walk up the Yardie Creek  Gorge.   It’s classed as a moderately difficult trail which takes us high above the creek with fabulous views over Ningaloo Reef and the silted river mouth.   Yardie Creek is the only all year round creek on the peninsular and meanders through a perpendicular red limestone gorge which is home to rock wallabies and several species of bird.

The day is rounded off with a communal ‘sausage sizzle’ back at the campsite.  This is a farewell bbq for some long-stayers on the site (stays are limited to a maximum of 28 days) at which sausages in bread and a little freshly caught fish and BYO drinks are on the menu.  Surprisingly, you might think, we only have one beer and a little lime and soda so it’s a rather dry night for us!  This impromptu bbq replaced  the daily ‘happy hour’ held on the site each evening as the sun goes down.  Campers pull up a chair overlooking the beach and come together for a get-to-know-you chat. 

We have extended our Wicked van hire for another 10 days, so that we now don’t have to return it until 10^th June, three days before our flight to Bali.  The plan is to get to Perth about a week before we leave Australia in order to sort out our Indian visa and explore Perth and surroundings whilst it is being processed..