Straight to the Reef

Thursday 13

We decided the next day we had seen all that we had needed to see in Karijini – despite many other walks in the NP, we wanted to leave some for when we one day return. Nothing could top Weano gorge. It was just simply incredible. Definitely the best gorge walk-adventure we had done so far. We had a deadline to be in Kalgoorlie to see my best man and his family before they left to go on holiday. We knew we wanted a few extra days on the beach beforehand so we made the decision to leave and make our way for Exmouth.

The drive out of Karijini NP was almightily stunning. The landscape held every colour in the rainbow. Purple, black and orange hills and ridges lined the view. The yellow and green patches of spinifex sprayed across the scenery. Pure white gum trees with bright leaves sat in front of a deep iron ore orange rocky hill with the blue sky above. Every hill with different colours plagued the landscape. Purple, blue and red flowers and fauna. It was stunning. We even saw a grey hill. Karijini had everything, beautiful roads, walks and scenery. We will be back in the future I know that for sure.

As we pushed on, we noticed a tiny ant every now and then scramble across the windscreen. I would squash it with my finger and flick it out of the window not thinking much of it. These are the ants that a minuscule and you normally find them coming for food. Maybe they had smelt crumbs in the floor of the car and had made their way up as we were parked last night. Then they started becoming more frequent. “This is odd, there cant surely be that many hey babe. We’re driving at 95 kph. If we keep killing them they’ll be gone soon right?” I said to Cath. Well were we in for a surprise. Cath found a swarm of them in her foot well making their way around the car, searching for food. “Ohh my god babe this is ridiculous, there’s hundreds of them!” she cried. We pulled over and opened our doors. They were coming from behind the dash on both sides and were in their masses. We got out disinfectant wipes and started on our killing spree. This only slowed them down. After ten minutes of mass destruction we were ready to get back on our journey. Well, all we had done was slow their pace by removing their scent. Further down the road they were crawling up my legs and coming from the centre console and making there way up my arm. Literally a nightmare! Making it impossible to concentrate on the road. We pulled over once again. We jumped out arming ourselves once again with disinfectant wipes and our vacuum cleaner. We jumped back on the attack, sucking them up and squashing every one we came across until the battery went flat on the vacuum cleaner. “Where the bloody hell are they coming from?!” we said. Twenty or so minutes passed and they were still coming. We had slowed the pace of them, but this was insane! We got to the point where now only five or so were in view so we decided to push on again, hoping that the remaining ants we could kill as we went.

It was lunch time before we knew it. The ants were still coming yet we had them under control to the point that as we killed one and got rid of it, it would be a few seconds before the next one would appear. As Cath whipped up a feed, I set out to get the remaining few. As I opened my door I was met with a large ant with a fat tail. “Ohh no you don’t” as I squashed it.
“Babe, babe, I killed what looked like the queen!” I shouted. But what the hell was it doing? Had it thought our ute was a great place to build a future and come to create a nest? Well, the amount of ants in the car that day, it wouldn’t of surprised me if she had brought her whole colony.
We only ended up killing a small hand-full more that day. After I got that bigger one there was an immediate decrease in the amount we saw. “I think we got ‘em babe!” I told Cath. “No more food in the cab from now on, unless we can dispose of it straight away” Cath replied.
The rest of the day was long and hot. The ant episode had made the morning fly by. Its not everyday you get an ants nest in your car while your trying to drive. Lets hope we don’t get another, Jesus!

As we neared Exmouth we struggled to find a place to stop for the night that was not windy. The peninsula up to Exmouth was blowing an absolute gale. There were also signs everywhere informing you that you can only park in designated camp sites, which gave us limited options. We don’t like staying in caravan parks as there are always bright lights and people making the evening’s sleep not as pleasurable as if we were remote. We had no choice however. The sun was going down and we needed a sheltered place out of the wind. The down side to the RTT is that we find we are always exposed to the elements a lot more than with our swag, especially in windy conditions. The tent flaps a lot, which in turn, gives you a limited amount of true rest for the night. Cath rang ahead and booked us in to the caravan park.

As we drove into town, we noticed houses to our right that had their own moorings at the back of them. An inlet, or small harbour, had been created. The streets etched around the edges and large houses were built backing onto private mornings. I had never seen anything like it. It was a man-made canal system that was tidal and connected to the ocean. If you were a budding fisherman and loved the ocean, I cannot think of a more suitable place. Sheltered and unexposed to the ocean, it couldn’t be better suited. It was a great and really different thing to see! Exmouth’s trademark signature for sure ­­– one that I had not seen anywhere else before.

Friday 14

With a quick shave and re-fill of our water tanks at the caravan park, we headed to the information centre. The woman behind the counter gave us a great free booklet with all the relevant information on the Cape Range NP and Ningaloo reef. I asked her about the condition of the four-wheel drive track that headed south along the western side of the Exmouth peninsula. She told us that there was a tidal crossing that we would have to cross, but only on a low tide. She then went on to say that it is highly un-advisable to attempt it even at low tide as a lot of people get stuck and then the tide comes in. With this, I instantly knew we had to attempt it. Well isn’t this what we came to do and had built our rig to take on! “Were doing it babe for sure” I said.
“What are the times for low tide? Do you know please?” I asked.
“High tide is at 14:17 and, erm… low tide is… 19:48”. Ok that would present a problem. Crossing it at night. We chatted about our plans for the day’s activities whilst re-stocking the ute with food to last until Kalgoorlie. We were deliberating on whether to drive the length of the park and then check out the crossing in daylight, followed by having dinner then wait till the evening to cross. Or, just check the crossing out and come all the way back around to Exmouth to spend another night. In the end we decided we had to attempt it. It was totally part of the adventure and we could sleep on the beach that night and not waste fuel on the return trip.

We came to the ranger gate where we paid our entry fee. $13 for a day pass. “What’s the go with Yardi Creek crossing? We’ve been advised not to cross it?” I asked.
“Yeh, we recommend you don’t cross it, as a lot of people get bogged and can’t get out. It cost’s a thousand bucks to get a guy in town to come get you out”.
“Is that because they have a lack of 4WD knowledge and experience?”
“It could be. People do cross it. Its up to you, we just like giving information to people as a lot do get stuck. Its not to say you will. Our rangers do cross it on the regular. What time is low tide?”
“19:48” I replied.
“Yeh, I definitely wouldn’t do it then in the dark!” Damn it, we had to change our plan. It was such a shame. We really wanted to take the back track all the way down to Coral Bay. We had planned this route before we left home.

Pulling up into the Visitor Centre we noticed they had snorkel and flipper hire. “Lets go snorkelling babe. We have got to do it! We’re in Ningaloo Reef, we would be stupid not too” I told Cath. We grabbed a set and went down to the beach local to the Visitor Centre to have lunch before we made it to Oyster Stack for our first snorkel round the reef. I have never seen water so beautiful in all my life. The turquoise green coming from the ocean was fluorescent. It glowed as if it was superman’s kryptonite. I was stunned at how the ocean could be so beautiful. We both were so excited to get in and rushed our lunch so we could carry on.

We were told Oyster Stack was the best beach to go snorkelling in at any tide, and had very light currents so made it the best spot for those who had no experience. We waded down and mucked around getting the goggles set in the right position. I have had problems in the past with my small pea head and getting any goggles to fit right for me. Cath on the other hand has a huge head so had no dramas getting them to fit! After 5 minutes of mucking around with the straps we were set. “You have to walk into the surf backwards babe. You can’t walk in forward with the flippers, its too hard. You’ll just get knocked over”. I said. She ignored me and waded in like a duck learning to walk for the first time. Goggles fogged with her snorkel already in her mouth. What a site. I dunked my head in. The water was like a bath – so warm, and the reef was right there. It was incredible. Not even two steps into the ocean and we had coral at our toes. Colourful rainbow fish swam past. It was incredible. I turned my head to look around. My goggles started taking in water. Damn it. I stood up in the chest height water to adjust them again. Cath had also stood up trying to wipe the steam from the inside of her own set. We re-adjusted and set off again. No luck with mine. They just kept filling up. I was so disappointed. No matter what I tried I could not get them right. My stupid pea head. In the end I worked out a way. It involved me pushing the goggles into my face with one hand and the other I used to take photos of the coral with the GoPro. We saw so many fish and different types of coral… until I copped a whole breath of sea water. Where the snorkel was cheap and not a proper goggle mount, it kept dropping forward and I’d take in water as a wave rolled by. I persisted again and again but I had no luck. Choking on sea water and then filling my goggles up was not the one. I gave up and headed in. Cath had no luck either. Her goggles kept steaming up and she could not see. It was incredibly disappointing. Here we were on Ningaloo reef with gear to use but unable to use it. Frustrated we towelled off and decided to continue south.

“That cant be high tide?” We had made it to the crossing by 14:30. There was literally a foot of water in the river that led out to the ocean. Not being any wider than two meters. I walked across it and the sand under foot was firm. “You have got to be joking! That’s so easy! How bloody ridiculous!” I said. We had to get the snorkelling set back to the visitor centre by 15:30. Knowing how quick the tides were, we had no chance of driving all the way back then making it south again to beat the tide. “She must of got the high and low tide times muddled up at the Visitor Centre. It’s now cost us that track”. Cath agreed. Feeling gutted we headed north again for Turquoise Bay. We were told by a few people it was the beach to go and see. I could not get the disappointment of not being able to cross the track from my head. We had planned to do it and now we would have to head back into town and take the long way round. I was devastated and I could not hide it. If we hadn’t had the hire gear we could of made the crossing, yet in hindsight we would not of seen the beauty of Turquoise Bay.

With only fifteen minutes before we had to get the snorkel gear back we raced from the carpark down to the beach. Cath wanted another dip, yet the water felt so much cooler that it had at Oyster Stack. Eventually she took the plunge and was in. There were large fish swimming all around us. Even wading in to our knees, the clear water was breathtakingly beautiful with iridescent fish swimming around our legs. If only we had more time and the bloody goggles had worked.

We made the long trip back around the great peninsula and through Exmouth to the local fish and chip shop. We were starving but the shop did not open till five o’clock. We sat salivating – eagerly waiting for the door to open. It wasn’t long till we had full bellies with an early dinner, so we pushed on.

Checking the Hema map we saw that the back track down to Coral bay could be accessed from the south along the main road. It showed how there was a four-wheel drive track that ran right next to the beach. “That’s us for the night babe”, Cath wanted the same thing. She’d been dreaming of her secluded ocean view.

We finally made it to the gravel road that lead towards a station, along with the track that we wanted to join. By now it was pitch black, only the stars were out with me as I aired the tyres down. I’m so glad I put all the lights on the rear, it lit up all the wheels enabling me to see the valves easily and made a quick job.

The track was rough. We met crest after crest. As we could only see where the spotties lay ahead of us, we crawled over each crest not knowing what was on the other side. Luckily we did so as any quicker and we would have been air born, each summit was steep on either side. It took us a while to reach the turn off, with a bit of a scout in the dark we found a spot in some dunes. The sound of the ocean crashing just over a dune in front of us. We couldn’t see much at all as the moon was not out. We drove around until we found a flat spot over looking the ocean. Not knowing what the view would be like we crawled into the RTT shattered from a big day.

Saturday 15

“Wow look at the ocean, not a bad spot babe” I said to Cath. We were up early. We had planned for a big day ahead. We had also planned to get up early as we weren’t sure whether we were allowed to camp where we were. Trying to escape before any rangers came, another ute drove passed. We had seen camp lights a little further back from where we had camped the night before. “I bet they had the same strategy darl” I told Cath.

The track south towards Coral Bay was extremely scenic. It took us along the coast. Untouched meadows of tall grass and termite mounds dotted through them, the track from two tyre marks carved its way through as we followed them with a constant dune on our right side. Every now and then, there was a track that lead off down to the ocean that was met with a remote coastal view of the Ningaloo Reef and beach.

We finally hit the end of the track. I aired up and we drove into town. It had been marked on the map as a town, yet to our surprise we were met with one large caravan park full of campers. They were squeezed in like beans in a can, it was ridiculous. Clearly a well used spot. The beach was littered with holidayers. Cath wanted one last dip before we continued on south. My wife is ever the eager one to get in any waterhole she can find – she can never seize to take the opportunity to cool herself off. It was a shame we did not plan for more time along the Ningaloo Reef, both of us had fallen in love with its coast line and warm waters – it will definitely be a place we will return to one day. If only it was not so far away.

We pulled into Carnarvon just before lunch time. We needed to restock the supplies once again. As always we buy our groceries and argue about where they are going to go. It’s a given now, yet somehow we manage to fit it in.

Carnarvon is a strange town It feels as if your driving through the middle of the desert then all of a sudden your met with a tropical banana plantation. We wondered where the hell the water came from? I have never seen anything like it. As we neared closer to town we passed more and more plantations of all different types of fruit and vegetables, its incredible. Leaving south of Carnarvon there was nothing, just bush once again. It seems the oddest place to have large plantations.

As the sun was dropping quickly towards the horizon we had made it to Shark Bay and wee on route for Monkey Mia when we found a camping spot that only had a couple of caravans parked at it. A track lead around the corner, we followed it and ended up at in a secluded bay. It was stunning. With Steep point sheltering us on the horizon, it made the water in our bay perfectly still. It was magical, it only takes a little bit of adventure and you really can end up in paradise all to yourself. You just have to make the effort to look.

Sunday 16  

I was up early. It was the wife’s birthday. I had bought her a few decorations to hang up around camp for her. The night before there was a fair bit of wind, I did not get the opportunity to get it all ready. I jumped in the ute to block the noise of me blowing up of the balloons from in the RTT. Finally I was ready, I brought her up her birthday pressies and cards for her to open in bed and awaited for her to make her way down. “Wow babe, when did you do this! This is amazing, balloons!”. I smiled knowing I had made her happy. Waking up in paradise on her birthday meant a lot to me. We could of so easily of pulled up in a truck stop somewhere.

As we pulled into Monkey Mia we were surprised to run into a ranger station. “Hi guys, its $24 for a day pass please”. The ranger said.
“Ok, what’s here? What is there to do? Does the four-wheel track lead up to the National Park?” I asked.
“No that is separate. Here you can use all of our facilities and see the dolphins. We have pools you can use and there is even a bar and restaurant. As it is never still here, I highly recommend hiring a kayak and taking full advantage of the calmer waters this morning”.
“Ohh great thanks” we said and parked up. We chatted about why we had to pay. It seemed very peculiar. It was not a NP, as far as we could see it was just a resort. But with it only being $24 we wondered what we would get for it once inside the town.

I had heard a few stories of dolphins getting aggressive when being fed by humans in the wild so I was skeptical about feeding them. They came in three times a day. As we arrived, they were coming in to the shallows for their third feed for the day. Cath could not wait to see them. We ran over and waded into our knees for a closer look. There was a crowd of people on the sand lined up to see them and possibly get a chance to feed these amazing ocean dwellers. The ranger had a microphone and was explaining why they come in and why they feed the dolphins. She explained that they did not feed the male dolphins or the young as they can get aggressive over feeding, so they only fed the females that were of senior age. That would explain why I had rational thoughts on the feeding before we went to watch. She went on to explain that not everyone got a chance to feed them, and that only a small amount of people were selected to get a fish. Funnily enough I was picked. “The guy in the pink shorts please” she said pointing at me. I felt honoured, the pink shorts had definitely helped me out this time! I waded out with Cath behind me filming. As I took the fish from her bucket I asked if it was ok to let my wife feed the dolphin, who was now right next to me, mouth wide open waiting to be fed. She said it was fine but Cath wanted to film. With that I spun around and the dolphin was right at my feet. Laid over onto its side, I noticed it had spots all up its belly. I placed the fish in its mouth and it swallowed it whole. What a trip! I never thought I would ever feed wild dolphins before. “Crazy darl, just crazy. How comes you didn’t want to feed it. It is your birthday?”
“Ohh I never knew you wanted me to?”
“I asked the woman when I got the fish out of the bucket”.
“Ohh I never heard her, ohh well next time. It was still awesome being so close to them. Lets go and see what else we can see on the kayak” Cath said.

With no winds, it was the perfect day. There was not a cloud in the sky. We set out from the beach and headed north hugging the coast. The guy who explained where to go said “Just head towards that red cliff, you’ll see cool shit out there. And then if you get there and want to keep going just keep heading out towards that other red cliff. You’ll see even cooler shit out there!” he pointed. So we were off heading towards the cool shit first. The water was clear and turquoise as far as the eye could see. As we paddled along I noticed a large object over to our side under the water. We turned towards it. “Ohh my good god darl it’s a manta ray” I cried. It swam right up to us. About two meters wide, only a young one, it glided right up to us if to check us out, then dived quickly and swam away. “Ohh my that was so incredible! I honestly thought I would never see one of them in my whole life!” I said. I had bought some cheap polarized sunnies on our honeymoon in New Zealand. They were working a treat as they took the glare from the surface, enabling me to see right down into the water. We spotted a couple of sea turtles and plenty of small reef sharks that took off like a flash when we disturbed them. I could see so far, and was wondering why Cath was not noticing what I kept spotting. It was only when we swapped sunnies that I noticed hers were not polarized. I put them on and was blinded from the sun bouncing off the surface of the water. “Ohh babe you poor bugger” I said. If you ever kayak, it is totally worth getting yourself a set of polarized lenses.

“Ohh sweet Jesus, did you see that? How the hell did you not see that” I said as Cath looked around frantically. We spun the kayak around so I could point it out to her. A huge ray of what ever kind was laying on the bottom motionless. It would have been as big as the manta ray. We bobbed right above it. By now the tide had gone out and it was just beneath us, not more than fifty centre meters. “Wow look at its eyes” Cath cried. “How incredible” she said. We were so close to it, I felt like I could lean down and stroke it. Yet I did not know what it was and didn’t like my chances. I might sound like Steve Erwin on the videos but I sure didn’t want to end up like him.

We paddled along and made it to the ‘Cool shit, second red cliff’. Strangely Cath had phone service and thought with our view that we had it would be a shame not to share it, so she FaceTimed her Mum. We sat and chatted for a while whilst we snacked. Regaining the energy we needed for the return trip. The view was stunning and no other kayaker had adventured so far. We had it all to our own. We really are enjoying getting away from people. It seems to make it that much more special not sharing the landscape with the masses and allowing us to soak up the unspoilt environment.

The journey back was easier than the way out. The wind had picked up and was coming from our six which gave us great pace. We jetted along, hugging close to the shore; we were back in a jiffy. Cath was dying for a swim in the pool, it was her birthday after all. I decided to celebrate it with a beer at the bar. “Babe, they have showers here!” Cath excitedly said. With that, she grabbed her washbag and headed to the huge bathrooms next to the pool. We took it in turns washing the salt and grime off and after finishing some cool beverages, made our way to the car. We’re starting to get used to missing a few showers here and there – but the feeling afterwards never changes, unadulterated bliss!

Monkey Mia is going through a huge upgrade. They have a new pool, restaurant and amenities block along with other building still be under construction. It’s a fascinating place and if you’re ever in the vicinity, make it a place not to missed!

We headed back to the same gorgeous spot we had spent the night before. Fingers crossed that no one had claimed the spot, we raced. We were set up and having dinner as the sun was saying good night. To our luck we had it all to ourselves once again. Not a bad way to spend a birthday if I don’t say so myself.

The Cooks.