YoungNomads: July 2014

Sunday, 27 July 2014

Coral Bay to Cape Range National Park

We left Warroora today (via a shockingly rough road!!!) on route to Coral Bay, this was our second visit but it looked like it was going to be a gorgeous day! Bree, Gary, Tori and Ella joined us in Coral Bay which was great, wow it looked special! We put on our snorkelling gear and headed for the water. We had loads of fun snorkelling and managed to get a few shots but unfortunately it wasn't that clear! Fish were cool, Coral was not all that colourful but quite unusual rose shape type of coral and it was fun all the same! Coral Bay has a lovely bakery which we indulged in for lunch and a shop that allowed us to expand on our ever growing tackle collection! :-) We said our goodbyes to the Daytrippers again.... It has been fantastic to hang out with them!

Coral Bay

Coral Bay

Coral Bay

Coral Bay

Ella at Coral Bay

Tori and Bree at Coral Bay

Our next stop was Bullara Station... A bit of a quirky spot! First things first, after 10 days of water rationing Geoff and I indulged in long hot showers!! This shower was an out door shower that was heated by the "Donkey" a wood heated system.... Aaaahhhh fantastic!!

Outdoor Shower at Bullara Station

We decided to take the sunset walk up to the red sand dunes... This was special! When we got back they'd lit the camp fires so we got our spuds organised and chucked them in, yum!

Red Sand Dunes - Bullara Station

Sunset - Bullara Station

We again cooked our dinner on the fire and chatted to other travellers!!

Sunset - Bullara Station

Next morning we got up earlish and commenced our journey to Exmouth and Cape Range, we decided to do this as a day trip, it was school holidays so we probably wouldn’t get into a van park or national park camp plus they cost a fortune! Cape Range had been hit by a cyclone in April and we'd heard that there were many camp grounds destroyed and road wash outs that still hadn’t been repaired! We were interested in snorkelling unfortunately the low tide meant we couldn’t snorkel at Oyster Stacks but we were able to snorkel at Turquoise Bay! We actually struggled to get a car park there were so many people there... The beach was absolutely stunning but it seemed funny that most people were on the sand rather than snorkelling in the water! We'd heard about the famous Drift Snorkel and we were keen to try it.... We had to work hard to start with against the tide to get where we wanted to commence our drift. This was actually amazing, the current was quite strong so we just had to float over the coral and fish, a bit difficult if we wanted to look at something for a while but quite a different experience! Again the coral wasn’t that vibrant and the water was a little murkey but the fish were great and we had a great time!

Turquoise Bay - Cape Range NP

Turquoise Bay - Cape Range NP

Turquoise Bay - Cape Range NP

Turquoise Bay - Cape Range NP

Our drive through Cape Range certainly showed the cyclone damage but there were some awesome spots and some amazing wildlife along the road side! We finished off the day by having a fish off of the Learmonth Jetty unfortunately no "keepers" then a dusk drive back to Bullara.... We were centimetres away from colliding with a kangaroo!

Cape Range NP

Cape Range NP

Cape Range NP

Cape Range NP

Friday, 11 July 2014

Warroora - Ridge and Beach Sites

Geoff and I decided that we'd brave the rough road into Warroora Station Beach Camp, its about 20kms south of Coral Bay and apparently the fishing was meant to be amazing! After travelling the 12kms of rough road we arrived at the Ridge of 14 Mile, we were lucky enough to find a brilliant spot over looking the ocean and Ningaloo Reef, wow!

Staying here required us to be totally self sufficient, which meant that our 190 litres of fresh water and 20 litres of drinking water became very precious, we had to use it sparingly, ie don't wash your hair for a week!

Once set up we went for a walk exploring the rocky edges, of the southern beach area, lots of shells, sea sponges and other interesting things. We ran into people who were looking for octopus to use for bait, poor things, I felt a bit sorry for them....

We woke up to the most breathtaking panoramic view of the coast and ocean right from our bed, made a cuppa and just sat there marvelling at how lucky we were to be there!

We eventually got up and went for a walk in the other direction and ran into many other travellers, all telling us their various stories, great! We also managed to pick a good tip to make our awning stronger and not effected by the wind so much, it worked too!! :-) When we returned from our walk we'd noticed the dam fridge had gone out AGAIN!!! There is an issue with the gas ignition that we are continuously having issues with it, but this time my magic fixit man (Geoff) was able to get it going again, yay!!

Telstra Hill - where we went to phone home!

Sunset on the Ridge - stunning!

Sunset on the Ridge - how lucky were we?

Sunset - view from inside our van!

Sunset on the Ridge!

Even when we are on the road in a remove location, Geoff can still make his egg and bacon pie, yum!!

Egg and Bacon Pie

After a few days of being there we were joined by Bree, Gary, Tori and Ella - it was so awesome to have some company and what a catchup we had!!

Garry and Bree decided to move down to the beach - much better for boat access and luckily for us after spending 5 days up on the Ridge we were also able to get a spot on the beach!

We spent 5 amazing days down on the beach and having so much fun doing all sorts of things like fishing, whale watching, walking, swimming and awesome catchups with the Daytrippers...