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Day 64 - Carnarvon (Quobba Blow Holes)
Today 150kms / Total 9788kms
Not much to report today as the day's main outing was a bit of a damp squib due to showers and a calm sea, so no blow hole activity. Around the point from the quiescent blow holes was this delightful lagoon with coral and (according to a snorkelling tourist) lots of fish.
This lagoon would have looked brilliant in the sunshine, but the weather gods were against us.
The weather gods are also planning similar conditions for our next 3 day stop (rain, wind and the occasional thunderstorm). I fear that a sacrifice to them may be necessary. Due to the Beast's fuel consumption and its draining of my wallet, I must investigate if there's anything cheaper than the customary virgin. Feel free to offer suggestions (or money).
However, we did visit the Gascoigne Aboriginal Heritage Centre in town and were agreeably surprised at the standard of both art and the weaving from the local women.
As Carnarvon is in an area that gets hit by cyclones, new buildings need to have some sort of protection from both the high winds and debris that gets thrown around by it. This new building has a most ingenious and artistic method of protecting itself. The external screens were designed by a group of local high school students. They look plain from the outside, but once you get inside...
...it really makes an impression! This is the view from the coffee shop in the Centre ('2 mile' is a local beach). The pattern is cut from solid steel, so you'd need something really big to make a dent, even for a cyclone.
Day 65 - Carnarvon
Today 0kms / Total 9788 kms
Shopping and generally catching up on reading, the internet and general maintenance.
We're now fuelled, watered and provisioned for the next leg of the trip to Cape Range. This will be a big test as there is nothing at the next camp site in the way of water or power.
Day 66 - Carnarvon
Today 0kms / Total 9788 kms
We were going to move on today, but decided to just make a longer day out of tomorrow as it looked like rain today and we weren't really feeling like bush camping in the wet.
Day 67 - Carnarvon -> Cape Range Nat. Pk.
Today 425kms / Total 10213kms
We've passed the 10,000km mark!
On the way to Cape Range NP, we detoured in to look at Coral Bay. This is a small but popular resort town that is known for coral viewing as it's at the southern end of the Ningaloo Reef. It had been raining most of the time on the way north from Carnarvon,
but when we got near Coral Bay...
... the heavens opened! This is the road outside the caravan park. We decided to keep going.
Cape Range National Park is on the North West Cape peninsula of WA and is adjacent to the Ningaloo Marine Park. It's also a World Heritage area. It's served by the rapidly expanding town of Exmouth on the eastern side of the peninsula. One of the attractions of this area is the ability to swim with whale sharks off the Ningaloo Reef and to that end, there are seven charter boat operators willing to take your money. While it would have been a great experience, it would have cost nearly $800 for the two of us, so we decided to keep our credit cards shut this time.
We had booked our campsite on-line via the DEC web site before we left Perth, and this proved to be a very good idea as the Nat. Pk. has only limited spaces and during the tourist season, the place is always full with people lining up from 1 or 2 am to get a camp site. We stayed at Tulki Beach; a rather exposed (no trees) site about 150m from the beach, but still with the soothing sound of breakers on the reef.
With so much space available, I'm still not sure why we all have to be within a couple of metres of each other. (Sea to the left)
The view out through the dunes at sunset with the nasty black rain clouds having gone away.
One of the local mob decided to check us out.
These are Euros (no, not the stuff Europeans buy things with), also known as Common Wallaroos. They are an arid-zone sub-species of the normal kangaroo. You could hear them around the caravan at night as they grunted to themselves. One big male even drank the soapy water we accidentally left out in a bowl overnight. Anyone seeing a Euro blowing bubbles in the Cape Range Nat Pk should report it to the local ranger ASAP...
Day 68 - Cape Range Nat. Pk. (Canyons)
(If you click on the link above, you'll note that Google doesn't know about the roads we took. So the decode on the map is:
A Our campsite at Tulki Beach
B Shothole Canyon car park
C Charles Knife Rd lookout
D The Big Prawn
E Vlaming Head Lighthouse
F If I tell you what this is, I'll have to kill you, but I'm reliably informed that it has absolutely, positively nothing to do with communicating with US subs, honest! ;-)
If you want to know more about what it isn't, click here.
)
Today 118kms / Total 10331kms
Today we decided to explore the spine of the ridge that runs down the centre of the peninsula. It's a limestone ridge and has two roads leading into the park from the eastern (Exmouth) side, so we had quite a drive to get to them from our campsite.
The first road was the Shothole Canyon road. This was so named from seismic explorations in the 1950s. It enters the ridge by following a canyon along a creek bed. This road has only just been repaired (rebuilt is closer to the truth, I suspect) after the cyclone season earlier in the year. The scenery was delightful as we drove in along the floor of the canyon and was certainly not what we'd expected.
Looking back along Shothole Canyon.
The camper coming along the dirt road is typical of the ability of these little vehicles to go anywhere, regardless of the fine print on their rental agreements.
The whole of WA is full of Britz, Kia, Apollo, Maui and Wicked Campers. I guess that the old adage of "The most capable off-road vehicle is a rental car" is certainly true here. :-)
Car park at the end of Shothole Canyon. Note more dark and nasty clouds!
The next road we took was the Charles Knife Rd. This time, the road takes us up onto the range instead of through the canyons, so we could get a fantastic view down into the gorge. No one could tell us who Charles Knife was, the plinth at the top of the gorge was missing, and Google was less than helpful.
It reminded us a bit of Jebel Akhdar in Oman, only a bit greener and smaller.
With the amount of rain this normally dry area has received in the last few months, it wasn't surprising that the place was green and there were some wildflowers in bloom. As you'll see below, I've researched them extensively.
Flowerus Jaundicii
Rufus Stalkii
Petalus Yelowii (See how I'm figuring out all this botanical naming stuff?)
The other result of all the rain on an area with red dirt is that it can get very muddy. It also sticks to just about everything.
Landcroozer Rossus Filthyii
Water is very scarce in the NW of WA, so there's no water available to wash your vehicle. Consequently, there are lots of cars and 4WDs looking like ours.
As we exited the gorges, we "happened" across the local prawn export plant that was in full swing as the prawning season had recently started.
You can't really miss a 4m high prawn, can you?
We then "happened" to purchase 1Kg of freshly cooked, never-frozen, less-than-12-hours-out-of-the-sea Tiger Prawns...
... that we just "happened" to consume for dinner, accompanied by bread and butter and a glass of exquisite Vin Blanc de Château de Cardboard.
Mmmmm, fresh Tiger Prawns...
One of our happy diners enjoying simple fare. A note to our American readers: Sue is holding a PRAWN; this is NOT a shrimp!
On the way back to the campsite, we stopped at the Vlaming Head Lighthouse at the head of the peninsula.
The view looking south along the coast and Ningaloo Reef. The structure on the left is the remains of an early warning radar from WWII.
Looking back towards the lighthouse as we left, the nasty black clouds were back on the scene. We hoped it wouldn't wreck the plans for tomorrow.
Day 69 - Cape Range Nat. Pk. (Yardie Creek)
Today 66kms / Total 10397kms
At the southern end of the park is Yardie Creek, the only permanently running creek on the peninsula. While only a small creek, it is an important location for marine creatures to breed, as it has both rock and mangrove habitats as well as fresh and brackish water areas. In addition, it has a couple of small colonies of the endangered Black-footed Rock Wallabies who live in the gorge walls. There are about 40 living there at the moment.
Our luxurious cruise liner is about to depart from the shipping terminal for a tour of the Yardie Creek Gorge.
It's not just Wallabies that live along the gorge. This female Osprey is one of a breeding pair. Love the talons!
Our first glimpse of a Rock Wallaby peeking out from behind a ledge. They generally only grow to about 60cms (2'). As the lifespan of a Rock Wallaby is about 12 years, and the cruise boat has been operating for about 20, the total population here has grown up with the (albeit muted) sound of the cruise boat's motor, so they do not seem to be too alarmed by us humans in close proximity on the water. I doubt that we could have got this close if we were walking.
This Heron certainly doesn't want for a feed of fish in the creek.
There was a lot of fishy activity beneath the boat, and at one time a beautiful leopard spotted stingray passed under the boat (no pic, sorry).
We get quite close to the gorge walls.
Ahhhh, cute, cute, cute! Mother and a biggish joey.
It was a really great trip up and down the gorge.
On the way back to the campsite, we went snorkelling at Turquoise Bay. This is a great place as there's a constant current along the beach, so you only have to walk out about 5m (15') into the water, float head down and let the current sweep you gently passed the coral until you get to the far end of the beach. It's rather important to keep track of your position while you're being gently floated over the coral as the current then turns out to sea through a gap in the reef. It's a long way to Africa if you don't get out of the current at the end of the beach.
No pics as no underwater housing for the camera, but we can tell you that we saw lots of very colourful reef fish and a large (1m/3') stingray resting on the bottom nearly covered with sand.
Day 70 - Cape Range -> House Creek Rest Area
Today 399kms / Total 10730kms
We packed up and were under way by 9am, but after refuelling, dumping the loo waste and having a cuppa in Exmouth, we really didn't leave until about 10:30.
One further stop outside Exmouth was to visit the Z-Force / Operation Jaywick Memorial. This is the place where the Krait left Australia for the daring raid on Japanese shipping in Singapore Harbour in Sep, 1943. The story is a Boys' Own adventure that thrilled me when I was growing up. More can be read here.
The picnic shelter and steps down to the beach were recently built by service personnel from the nearby RAAF base at Learmonth.
We crossed a number of different areas today, from the sand dunes of the North West Cape to the plains of the western Pilbara and then into scrubby country where we ended up camping for the night.
As we've said before, the countryside around here is so green at the moment (for Australian standards of green).
House Creek Rest Area, our stop for the night. Note red dusty camouflage still with us on car.
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