Posted on 03 September 2025
by
Mum 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!
Posted on 02 September 2025
by
Mum 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.
Posted on 01 September 2025
by
Mum 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.
Posted on 31 August 2025
by
Mum 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!
Posted on 30 August 2025
by
Mum 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.
