Life in a Humpback

Day 78: Cape Range National Park to Coral Bay

I got up early to watch my first and last sunrise from Cape Range. While walking along the beach I saw lots of birds and bluespotted fantail rays in the water. I was about to turn back when I saw a shadow in the water. I climbed up the sand dune in order to get a better look through the water. It was a 1m shark of some sort. Later looking through the ID book at the Exmouth visitors centre I think it was a type of dogfish(?). No matter what its called it was very cool to see it swimming along the shoreline.

After all that excitement I headed back to camp to help pack up and get ready to move further south along the Ningaloo coast. First we stopped in Exmouth again to grab supplies before heading to Coral Bay.

We rolled into Coral Bay after lunch and stayed at the People Park Coral Bay caravan park, which was just across the road from the beach. As soon as we had our site set up the kids and I went for a swim/snorkel but visibility was low so did not stay in for long. Instead we messed around jumping into the water from the sand bank into a deep drop-off.

Then everyone had showers to get the last several days of salt water out of our hair!

Day 77: Cape Range National Park (Day 3)

This morning Olivia and I headed into the national park visitors centre for a look around while the boys hung around camp. When we were done we drove back to camp to pick up the boys to have one last snorkel on the reef - this time at Turquoise Bay. The Turquoise Bay snorkel site is unique in that it as a strong south to north current along the coast. This means that we walked down to the southern part of the beach, got into the water and drifted with the current back north along the beach. The visibility was pretty good here despite the partly cloudy day. We again saw lots and lots of fish - including for the first time a yellow trumpetfish and a very large school of convict surgeonfish. Sadly this was the first day that we did not see any turtles, but we did see a couple of very large cowtail stingrays.

After three long days of snorkelling we were all pretty tired. We had a quiet evening around camp, found a few more bluespotted fantail rays along our local beach, and watched the sunset on our last night here in the Cape Range National Park.

Day 76: Cape Range National Park (Day 2)

Today there was a lot less wind so we drove down the coast to Osprey Bay to go snorkelling again. This location had fewer reef structures and more sea grass areas but we still saw lots of fish. There were large schools of some type of trevally (bigeye?) that we followed around for a while looking for turtles as Osprey Bay is known for having a resident population.

John saw a few green sea turtles just before he came in for lunch but the rest of us didn't have any luck. After a break for lunch we went back into the water to see if we could find those elusive turtles. It took Theo and I a little while but eventually we found one (John saw another two before us - he must be the turtle whisper of our family). Olivia also got to see her first turtle as she missed the one we saw yesterday.

Once we were all worn out we piled back into the car and drove further south to Yardie Creek to have a look around. When we pulled up we noticed a large osprey nest on the bank of the river. We jumped out of the car to watch the two parents and a chick on the nest for a while. We also spent some time watching a few wrasse (fish) from a small dock on the river. On the way home Theo spotted two (a mum and joey) black-footed rock wallabies along the side of the road.

Back at camp we had a quiet afternoon before watching the sunset on another day.

Day 75: Cape Range National Park (Day 1)

Today we woke up to a rather windy day so decided to drive back into Exmouth to have a look around and do a bit of grocery shopping. While in town, we checked out the Big Prawn and the Big Whaleshark. We then dropped in for a look through the visitors center in Exmouth - the kids were impressed with the stuffed animal display. On the way back to camp we stopped in at Vlamingh Head Lighthouse to learn about the history of the lighthouse, Exmouth (which was only founded in the 1960s), and the radar that was installed on the hill during World War II.

Once back at camp we found that the wind had dropped so we changed into swimmers and drove north to Lakeside to do our first snorkel on Ningaloo Reef. This was a great introduction to the reef. There were lots of fish everywhere we looked. Some of our favourite sightings were of a cowtail stingray (Theo), the humuhumunukunukuapua'a (Hawaiian) triggerfish (Olivia), schools of blue-green puller fish (Shavawn).

After almost two hours in the water Theo and I were getting out when John saw a green sea turtle. Theo and I jumped back in to swim back out to where he was, but in our rush to get out there we forgot to put on our flippers so it was a slow swim out. Once we got there we watched the turtle swim around near the coral until he came up to the surface for air before swimming away. Swimming with a turtle was the one experience that Theo really wanted to have on this trip. I'm so glad that we found one on our first day here!

Day 74: Nanutarra Roadhouse to Cape Range National Park

Today we drove south and west into the Cape Range National Park. We stopped on the way at Exmouth to fill up with drinking water and fuel. Once topped up we made our way to our campsite at Tulki Beach in the national park via the Milyering Visitors Centre.

After we were greeted by our campground host, Janet, and had our camp set up, Olivia and I went for a walk along the beach. We were surprised to see lots bluespotted fantail rays hanging out in the shallow water next to the beach. Theo came down a bit later to see the rays and we also spotted a shark fin moving across the surface of the water - but we're not sure what kind of shark it was. Olivia was the first one in the family to have a swim at Ningaloo Reef while the rest of us opted to wait until the next day.

Day 72: Karijini National Park (Day 3)

After three big days of walking in the gorges we took it a bit slower today. In the morning the kids finished their junior ranger workbooks and we went to the visitors centre to get them signed off. The ranger had them do a pledge, a welcome to country, and sign their books with red dirt hand prints before they could become official Karijini Junior Rangers.

Then we went on a drive to see some of the wildflowers that were blooming in the park.

To wrap up our day we walked back down Dales Gorge to Fern Pool for a swim out to the waterfall and back.

Day 69: Karijini Free Camp to Karijini National Park

Today started with a beautiful sunrise over the hills of Karijini National Park. Once we packed up camp we headed to the visitors centre in the park to get our maps and some suggestions of what order to do all the gorge walks in. We then drove out to our campsite at Dales Gorge.

Once we had set up camp we walked out to the Circular Pool Lookout. We then continued along the rim of Dales Gorge before descending the 300 stairs to Fortescue Falls. From the falls we walked up the gorge (past a tree full of bats) to Fern Pool for a look, and regretted not bringing our swimmers. We then walked back down the gorge until just before Circular Pool, where we climbed back up out of the gorge and made our way home to camp. All up our hike was around 8km - a bit longer than we were expecting but a great introduction to the gorges of the park.

Back at camp for the night, Olivia sat down with Dad to teach him how to crochet so they could make matching axolotls.

Day 68: De Grey River Rest Area to Karijini Free Camp

This morning we drove the last 80km into Port Hedland to pick up some groceries and have a look around town. It was very interesting to see all of the mining transport infrastructure. There were large hills of salt bring loaded onto road trains, and iron ore being moved by very long trains (over 250 carriages per train) and ships.

Once we had our fill of the sites of Port Hedland we drove inland once again towards Karijini National Park. Soon after leaving the coastal highway we started gaining elevation and found ourselves back in the red rock hills covered in spinifex and gum trees. We also passed more road trains today than we have in the whole trip, the majority of which were filled with iron ore.

Just before getting into camp we stopped at the Albert Tognolini Lookout for a view over Karijini Range and down onto the road cut that we drove through. From the lookout we could watch the road trains coming and going.

A bit before sunset we found the Karijini Free Camp site just outside the national park. Here we drove up the hill and found a great spot for the night under some gum trees in amongst the spinifex. It was the first cool evening we had had in ages. In fact we think today was the first day that it did not get to 30 degrees since we left Mataranka. We all enjoyed the cooler evening around the campfire.

Day 67: Broome to De Grey River Rest Area

Today we left Broome for the last time, heading south along the West Australian coast. We drove 540km passing:

• a very large herd of cattle (1000+)
• fields covered in purple mulla mulla
• several brula birds along the side of the road out of Broome
• a road train that was carrying a big mining dump truck
• some pretty funky roadhouses at Sandfire and Pardoo
• a nice lunch spot at Stanley Rest Area
• and our first sunset in ages that had clouds

All before pulling into the De Grey River Rest Area just before sunset. This was another great free camp along the river, with lots of space for all the caravans to spread out. Only complaint about this site was the overwhelming number of little bugs that kept getting through our fly screens tonight. The only way we were able to combat them was to have all the lights off (even John gave up trying to fight them and went to sleep early).

Day 66: Broome (Day 4)

Today we headed out to the Broome Bird Observatory on Roebuck Bay. I think the kids favourite part of the day was hanging out in the observatory discovery centre trying to see how many wing flaps they could do in 60 seconds (to determine the distance they could fly). John held the family record of just shy of 3000m where as the kids are I couldn't break the 2000m mark. Once we all had sore arms we went for a walk along the Pindan Trail and over to the view point out onto to Roebuck Bay. Along the way we saw lots birds, two small snakes, a bower bird nest, a few blue tongue lizards and a large python under one of the buildings.

Back in Broome we had one last look around Chinatown and Town Jetty before calling it a day.