Carnarvon and coast

Stopping at a roadhouse between Coral Bay and Carnarvon we came across this character -

Scott, the storm trooper

He's a lovely man, probably mid-30s, walking solo around Australia raising money along the way for the RCH.  We had a great chat as he was taking time out relaxing in the park.  He's been on the road since last Nov and should be back in Melb next July!  No support crew, just his own company. He was in the army, served in the Middle East and reckons that helps with his physical and mental stamina.  The helmet was for the photo, but he wears the rest of the outfit while walking as he posts on Facebook each day for the children in hospital.

Scott was about the only distraction en route to Carnarvon, which is in the Gascoyne region.  There's a lot of food production here, fruit and vegetables mainly.  We had a really good look around the area as there's a fair bit to see and learn, though 2 days in a town was plenty for us!  Our objective was the coast north of there - Pt Quobba and Red Bluff.

At Point Quobba

Pt Quobba - the calm lagoon, with the wild ocean beyond.  Photo
was taken from near the camping area.

This blowhole at Pt Quobba is incredible!  We have never seen
such force, from both the blowhole and the huge waves hitting
the rocks.  Spent a lot of time watching this over the 3 days.

We went snorkelling in the lagoon at Pt Quobba and it was so good - crystal clear water, really interesting coral, lots of giant clams and plenty of colourful fish.  We hardly had to swim out any distance at all and in fact the first afternoon we waded around the coral at low tide - hence the following photos, which were taken looking down into the water.

  

This was also a great place for seeing osprey and sea eagles, whales out in the far distance and heaps of other birds.  Not to mention the beautiful sunset and meeting some interesting people.  Oh and the fantastic view from the lighthouse ... we parked the troopy up there for an hour or two and had a great view of the distant whales splashing.  

Red Bluff, 70km further north, is a surf beach and a beautiful location where we were able to bush camp (at a cost of $30 per night for the privilege!).  It's hard not to be mesmerised by the ocean's power and beauty up here.

Dramatic coastline between Quobba and Red Bluff

Red Bluff

Red Bluff

This is all part of Quobba Station (sheep) which incorporates a large area of coastline.  We visited the station, saw the sheds, machinery and some of the unusual breed of sheep.  Looking more like a goat but with sheep's wool, we nicknamed them 'geep' for want of a better name (which I'm sure they have).

Coral Bay

We had about five days exploring the NW Cape area and Ningaloo Reef, then headed south to the southern end of Cape Range National Park.  There's a crossing at Yardie Creek that can only be made at lowest tide, so we timed our day to enable us to cross the creek and take the coastal track down to Coral Bay.  It was just a track, but the scenery was interesting and it passed through the RAAF weapons testing range.  

Plenty of termite mounds and you can see the quality of the track here

Emerging from that, we were on Ningaloo Station.  It felt odd being in this cattle station landscape with the ocean just beyond - a real 'outback meets the ocean' scenario.  Reaching the Ningaloo Homestead gate we turned onto the Coral Bay "road" which was one of the roughest we've encountered in ages.  The corrugations were horrible!  Luckily it was late afternoon and the sun bathed the countryside in the most gorgeous light so that was a good distraction.

Not ripples in the sand, but hard corrugations in the road

Next morning we were in Coral Bay, a tiny settlement on a beautiful turquoise/blue bay.  Our priority was to buy goggles and snorkel and get out in the water which was as clear as any we've seen.  The snorkelling was great, though not quite as good as up north in the national park.  It's still Ningaloo Reef here and it was mainly really big coral, fantastic stuff, like being in a completely different world.

We did see what's known as a Spanish Dancer in the shallows, which was exciting.

We spent two days in Coral Bay and explored the area.  The caravan parks didn't inspire us at all so we drove the 20km north to a bush-style camp in the Bateman Bay sanctuary area. This was a really different, interesting part of the marine park.

The cattle station joins the sand dunes.  There's a sand bar that
causes the water to converge from different directions.  It's all so
pristine and breathtaking.

We snorkelled both days in Coral Bay then decided to continue south, though it was a little hard to leave the stunning Ningaloo Reef.  However we have some wonderful memories.

Ningaloo Reef - Cape Range National Park

Sunset at Vlamingh Head lighthouse, overlooking the tip of the cape

Wobiri Beach, really beautiful

Crystal clear water in Turquoise Bay, friendly fish too.  A stunning beach!

At Turquoise Bay we went for our first ever snorkel, with gear borrowed from Kathleen & Nick.  The water's so clear and the reef so close that it wasn't difficult at all.  The beautiful coral and amazing variety of incredibly coloured fish made this an experience we'll never forget, a real highlight of our adventure.  We went in a couple of times. It didn't take me (Deb) too long to realise that exclaiming "OMG" underwater with a snorkel just results in a mouthful of salty water :)  As we don't have an underwater camera there are no photos of what we saw but it's imprinted in our memories, that's for sure.

That's an octopus in the centre, at another great snorkelling spot
known as Oyster Stacks (in Cape Range NP).  We watched it
change colours several times to match the rocks or the sand.

Oyster Stacks, so-called due to the outcrops of what look like rock but are actually oyster shells stacked on top of each other.  We went snorkelling here just before low tide, so the water's shallow but still just deep enough to float above the coral and not damage it.  We saw so much here, including octopus, starfish, clams, sea cucumbers and an eel.  Of course there were lots of colourful fish and some great coral.  Loved it.

Gorgeous Osprey Bay in the Cape Range National Park

We also snorkelled what's called the 'drift loop' at Turquoise Bay the next day - the current carries you across the reef area so you don't even have to swim, just drift.  It's gentle enough and a great experience too.  Ningaloo Reef runs the length of Cape Range National Park and there's a lot to explore.  We visited the Turtle Centre display at the beach where the sea turtles nest in summer.  Actually we saw a few big sea turtles in the water at a couple of the beaches.  Mangrove Bay was interesting.  It's a lagoon just in from the reef and being low tide we could see the root systems of these trees, with their 'breathing roots' (they do have a latin name) protruding from the wet sand.  In the bird hide there we were able to read more about them.

Phil's version of birdwatching!

We really enjoyed the National Park visitors centre which has a great display and plenty of information.  This bird's an osprey, a bit like a sea eagle, and we've seen quite a few of these.  We sat and watched a fantastic dvd, all underwater footage of marine life that may be seen along Ningaloo Reef.  It helped identify some of the fish we saw which was good.

Onslow to North West Cape

We've done quite a bit since we last wrote so will just backtrack a little.

Onslow:  a very isolated little place on the coast, not much going for it really.  However just out of town and a few kilometres in from the road is a massive gas plant project which employs something like 4000 people!  You'd never know unless you know someone who works there (Colin and Di).  It doesn't help the town much as they're all fly-in/fly-out workers housed, fed, entertained etc onsite - Onslow only has a pub, one restaurant, a couple of general stores and the beach.  There's also a salt mining operation there.

Under the salt conveyor, Onslow

The salt conveyor jetty, Onslow

We went to the restaurant in town for a beautiful dinner with Colin and Di.  We both had Red Emperor with a quinoa salad, absolutely delicious.  

Our next port of call was Exmouth, where the US navy had a base during the second world war. Along the peninsula before reaching town are a couple of good lookouts with detailed information boards and photos, a great way to brush up on some history!

The town is nothing special - as with most towns in the northern part of WA it's not that old and is really just a service centre.  It's all about the surrounding areas, in this case mainly Ningaloo Reef.  Because we didn't arrive until 6ish and needed to get groceries, we stayed at one of the caravan parks in town.  It's a good park with good facilities but crowded, noisy, expensive and a reminder of why we prefer bush or national park camps.  

Often we are forced to stay in caravan parks - many
shires have a blanket ban on camping anywhere else.

The next day we headed right to the tip of North West Cape to stay at the Ningaloo Lighthouse park, much quieter and more pleasant than the town park.  Such an amazing area up here with great views from the lighthouse lookout.

Overlooking NW Cape and the Lighthouse caravan park

Watching for whales from the lighthouse ...

... and saw plenty, with calves

North West Cape from the lighthouse lookout

One thing I loved about the view from this lookout was seeing what I called 'the map of Australia' - or at least the map of this particular peninsula.  It's such an expansive view that the shape looks just like on the map!  I know, I know ... so it should.  But to stand there and see it ... oh well, I guess you had to be there :)  

It was here I was able to catch up with my friend Kaye's daughter, Kathleen, who grew up with Shane.  She's been living in the west for 4 years and is spending a couple of months up here during winter.  It was fantastic to see her; we were camped next to a couple of her girlfriends too so had some good company.

As we couldn't camp in the Cape Range National Park without queueing at the Ranger's Station at 6am each day in the hope someone left, we spent another 4 nights at the Lighthouse park and did day trips in.  Having seen the NP campsites we're actually glad we did it this way, as they're very exposed to the wind and sun.  Will write again shortly about our Cape Range/Ningaloo Reef experiences.

Dampier Karratha area

From Karijini we headed north into Millstream Chichester NP, a beautiful peaceful place which is an oasis in the desert.  From there we turned west for a bit of outback 4WD country, just to see what the countryside's like further from the Hamersley Range.  This took us to the mining township of Pannawonica, a smaller version of Tom Price but not as attractive (and very windy).  It was a lovely drive across here - still the fabulous red earth, spinifex and gums but more flat plains.

We then joined the coastal highway to Karratha, a purpose-built service town for the mining industry.  Not wanting to stay in a town caravan park, we drove 25km out to a coastal area named Cleaverville where there were dozens of bush camping sites.  Most were already taken by caravans (the dreaded grey nomads haha) but being in a 4WD and not towing anything, we had our pick of spots almost on the beach.  Unbelievable sunset colours!

Happy Hour at our campsite on the beach at Cleaverville

We had a good couple of days here, visiting the Rio Tinto port facilities and watching some of the loading machinery at work, seeing the iron ore carriers in the harbour, the trains carrying their loads of ore and the whole thing illuminated in the distance at night.  All of this runs 24/7, 365 days a year.

In Dampier we visited the port, saw the salt mine and today visited Woodside's massive North West Shelf gas project.  That was really interesting as we didn't know much about it.  We were able to watch a short, informative film at the visitor centre and see models of the rigs, carrier ships, processing plants etc.  It was a great way to get a bit of an understanding.

Iron ore train, all 2.5km of it, Dampier port

North West Shelf gas project, north of Dampier

While in this area we had a look around Roebourne (not much there as a newer town, Wickham, was built by Rio Tinto some time ago).  We went up to Point Samson, a nice little beachside place, then later spent some time in the historic township of Cossack.  It's being restored and there are a few very nice, solid old buildings there along with lots of information about the town's past.  It used to be the main port for this area and harboured around 80 pearl luggers at one time.  You'd never know that looking at it now!

Sent him back to school - the historic schoolhouse at Cossack

Yesterday we visited Deep Gorge on the Burrup Peninsula north of Dampier.  This is a national heritage site due to there being over a million Aboriginal petroglyphs etched into the piles and piles of rocks.  It was amazing as nothing's signposted, you just walk through the gorge and around the ironstone hills seeing artwork everywhere you look.  If anyone reading this gets Aust Geographic there was a feature on this (and Karijini) in the recent issue #120.

Oh yes, in Dampier we made sure to visit Red Dog who is immortalised in bronze.  This afternoon we left and drove through more classic Pilbara red to Onslow, out on the coast.  Tomorrow night we're catching up with Colin, an old friend of Deb's, and his partner Di for tea at the pub.  The following day we'll make our way toward Exmouth and Ningaloo Reef for a few days.

Life on the road

Just a few random shots - there's nothing hard about life on the road.  We love it!

It's a satellite dish swing and soooo comfortable! (Port Hedland)

The views we wake up to are many and varied - and often breathtaking

Breakfast on the road (Karijini NP)

Dinners are so easy - no oven, but no worries in our little kitchen

In the NT the termite mounds were often clothed

 

In the Pilbara they wear hard hats

Washing off some Kimberley dust in a river

The Pilbara red needs a pressure washer

No I will not massage your feet ...

...when they look like that!

Finally learning to take a 'selfie'

Interesting ...