Exmouth is an interesting town, claimed over here to be one of Australia’s youngest towns. It was established in only 1969 as a support base for the Naval base here. From Exmouth our plan was to try to get into one of the Cape Range National Park camping grounds. I think we had originally planned to head for Coral Bay, a more touristy (and expensive) centre south of Exmouth to use as a base for exploration of the Ningaloo Reef. We heard about Cape Range from a fellow traveller back in Alice Springs, I think, and the system the Rangers use for allocating sites. Campers have to queue up outside the Rangers Station at the entrance of the National Park where from 7am they start allocating sites based on the number of campers departing that morning. Sites are allocated on a first in best dressed basis and you are given only an hour to get to your site and pay for it before they give it away to someone else. Exmouth is about 40km away from the Cape Range Rangers Station and after booking into the caravan park in town we discovered that there was actually a caravan park closer to Cape Range on a Homestead about 5km away from the park entrance. We decided to get up at the crack of dawn the next day and head on out to the Rangers Station to join the queue as early as we could manage. We didn’t hold up much hope for getting a site on that first morning but we thought we’d give it a go and if we weren’t successful head back to the homestead caravan park for another go the next day. We joined the queue quite late compared to some of the seven cars in front of us in the line. We didn’t get there until 7:30am but some of the other campers had been there since 4am and had missed out on previous days. Our hopes for a site faded even further on hearing this. But as luck would have it we did get in. We did feel slightly guilty in that we got in on our first go while several in front of us were on their second and even third attempts and we turned up so casually.
We didn’t end up in one of the more popular campgrounds but as its turned out we think we got into the best. The campground host is a real character, an amazing man. Joel is a man in his 70s who looks much younger. He and his wife are veritable dynamos. Joel would be one of the fittest men I’ve met. Every day he runs a couple of kilometres along the beach, swims back and then does hill sprint repeats up a steep sand dune. He then runs a boot camp for anyone in our campground interested in joining him (and he does put the hard word on everyone to become interested). He’s also instituted a 5pm get together every day where all of the campers in his campground bring a chair out to the centre of the ground with a drink and we all get to meet and chat with the other campers. Its all very social and we feel like we’re living in a very friendly and supportive community.
The snorkelling over the reef, as you would expect, is just brilliant. I think its much better than the snorkelling I did on the Great Barrier Reef. The coral, and in particular, the fish life is astounding. Add to this the fact that this area boasts world class waves and you’ve got yet another spot I’m going to find very hard to leave. There are several surf breaks up here, most of which are out on the edge of the reef and need a boat to get out to. There is one reef break off one of the beaches though, so that’s where I went and finally got the board wet for the first time since the weekend I bought it way back in Gerringong in July (that feels like several lifetimes ago). The waves were nothing spectacular but they were a bit of fun and it was just good to get the board out again at long last. The waves might have been small, but the break did provide a reasonable adrenalin fix. Not only were there humpback whales breaching and fin slapping just 400 metres or so way, there was also the constant threat of sharks (more on this shortly), the razor sharp coral underneath the fairly shallow water I was surfing in and most dangerous of all, there was the contingent of backpackers on their Malibus who didn’t have a clue what they were doing and the stand-up paddle boarders (the recumbent bike riders of the surfing world – cyclists will not what I mean!).
Now, I mentioned sharks. Sharks have never really spooked me much unless I actually see one in my vicinity while I’m in the water. Out in the surf or whilst snorkelling my headspace usually operates in a “what I can’t see isn’t there and won’t hurt me” kind of way. That mechanism has been seriously tampered with over here in the west. Pretty much in every camping ground throughout the NT and WA, anyone who sees my surfboard instantly feels the need to tell me that if I’m planning on using it in WA I might want to think twice because there are so many “bities”. Its a constant and never ending catch cry. Then, to reinforce this scare mongering, there’s been the very unfortunate fatality down in Bunbury in the last week. A surfer taken by a 4m Great White right in the heart of the region I was expecting to make a start on the serious surfing part of this trip. On top of that, we’ve spotted a number of suspicious fins out in the water while we’ve been swimming, other campers here have snorkelled over reasonable sized reef sharks (which are supposed to be harmless and more afraid of us than we are of them, but if that’s true why are they always grinning at me like that?) and the fishermen in our campground have been regaling us with their stories of two to three metre sharks just metres off the beach at the campground where we’re swimming and snorkelling. And then, this morning’s news just had to include a story from Albany, again a town we’re heading for, about a 5m Great White that’s been lurking about the local shoreline and attacking small boats. I’m all for conservation and saving endangered species but I draw the line at sharks I’m afraid. I am a shark bigot and I will not share my world with them.
Yesterday, it was more searching for surf and sea turtle watching. Its breeding season for the sea turtles at the moment, so a number of the beaches up from our campground are full of turtles breeding themselves silly. We left our campground and temporary community this morning and arrived in Carnarvan this afternoon. Messa Camp in the Cape Range National Park is probably my favourite stop over so far.
Turquoise Bay, Cape Range National Park, Ningaloo Reef