It has been another memorable week filled with diversity – drama (having got well and truly bogged); excitement (having seen dugongs at long last); contrasting landscapes (after travelling through empty plains and looking into deep canyons); and a of mixture of both luxurious and fairly rough campsites.
After spending last week exploring Red Bluff and Gnarloo, our next target was Coral Bay. Plans to spend a night en route at a roadside camp beside a river came to nought but a dry salt river in a barren area. However, a sign indicated the presence of a campsite on Warroora Station 23 kms towards the coast. We took a badly corrugated road for 30km before spotting a scruffy little hand painted sign saying “14 Mile Beach”. The track wound its way down to the edge of the Ningaloo Marine Reserve. There were no facilities of any description at the campsite that spread far & wide with a large number of vans and tents camped cheek by jowl in this remote spot. Being late afternoon we had little option but to take an uneven patch of bush – a pretty spot spoilt by sheer numbers!
Not unexpectedly, we found Coral Bay buzzing with people; caravans; boats; jet-skis & quads but, after taking an un-powered site in at the “People’s Park”, literally right opposite the main beach, realised we had got a prime position .
Campsite at Coral Bay
The park beautifully grassed with plenty of trees & immaculate ablutions. We stayed three days thoroughly enjoying this place in the sun. George bought some snorkelling gear and together with Paula regularly went snorkelling over the coral “bommies” in the area taking great delight in the friendly shoal of snappers that would swim up to them. Chatting to fellow campers, walking the beaches looking for dugongs made for an idyllic time.
On Justy’s recommendation and the guide to free camping spots in WA we headed for Lefroy Bay. We took another corrugated and at times, stony road leading to Ningaloo Station through vast expanses of grasslands dotted with termite mounds that often looked like the mud huts of Africa. We spotted a few sheep and emus now and again. Once beyond the Ningaloo homestead the track narrowed as we bounced slowly along. Eventually reached a sign advising us to deflate ALL our tyres! Having no idea how Getaway would perform on sandy roads and concerned about a dune ridge to be crossed George walked the route as far as the coast while Lea and Paula prepared lunch.
After deciding that we could risk letting the tyres down (on Skiv only) we reached the camp ground without any trouble. Quite a few caravans well spread out so we walked around to find our perfect site right on the edge of the beach. Two dolphins just off shore caused much delight for us… George returned to Skiv & Getaway and drove slowly down the sandy tracks to where Paula & Lea marked the place. Sighed with relief too soon! Getaway was unable to take the bend into the campsite and got stuck on a small hummock, causing Skiv to dig in and sink down to her axles in sand!
Hopelessly stuck at Lefroy Bay - photo by P Baxter
Never turn down an offer of help is an Aussie maxim! A fellow camper came past and seeing Getaway perched across his path offered help. We turned him down thinking we had the situation under control as we began digging Skiv out. That didn’t work. So we began removing the mound in front of the Getaway (imagine it - an environmentalist wilfully destroying dune vegetation!); Second offer of help from the same kindly bloke returning to check on our progress - again turned down. Now we were trying to raise the truck using the high lift jack (itself not working properly because the weak, rusted springs on the locking pins and the difficulty of finding suitable points from which to insert the jack); and, just as we started preparing to winch ourselves out by burying the spare, our saviour Colin, returned a third time to lend a hand. By now Skiv’s winch had jammed when only half of the cable had been unwound! After checking our tyre pressures and finding them still too hard, Colin eventually extracted us using a snatch strap. By then we were exhausted and so hot that we made a cup of tea and had a swim in the sea a few yards from our site. Lea still only managing a knee high paddle!
The waters of Lefroy Bay are just magnificent!
Walking towards North Lefroy Bay - photo by P Baxter
Next day Colin took George fishing in his dinghy. Although both returned empty handed, he enjoyed looking at the masses of coral below the boat as they motored slowly over them searching for the “Blue Hole” which lay just behind the surf breaking on the reef of this the huge lagoon. Meanwhile Lea read in the shade of Getaway and enjoyed looking out on the water- worthwhile as she spotted a turtle and some unknown dark shapes further out while Paula went snorkelling off the point. Whilst having our lunch Paula noticed a dark shape with no fin rise 50m offshore with a humped back periodically surfacing… With the aid of binoculars confirmed it was a pair of dugongs! George promptly grabbed his snorkelling gear and swam out as rapidly as he could – hoping to get a close up view. He found it difficult to keep a bearing on exactly where they were, but got sufficiently close for the dugongs to sense his presence and swim away. Not long after, while gazing out to sea, Lea and Paula spotted a whale spouting (twice)!
After so much excitement we were then faced with inevitable, namely the nerve wracking task of trying to move our rig into a position from which we knew we could safely depart next day- Sunday. On the advice of another camper we deflated the caravan tyres as well but, for half and hour or so, churned back and fore across our patch of sand making very little progress until landing up stuck with both Skiv and Getaway perched on different dune hummocks! Once again our good Samaritan Colin brought his trusty Ute and with one good pull of a snatch strap we got ourselves back on a track that looked negotiable.
When we called at the Ningaloo Station homestead to pay our dues we met the owner, Phil Kendrick, and were amazed to find he and “his girl” (a Lefroy) run the 49 000ha station all on their own. With three generations of Lefroy’s having owned the station it was sad to learn of CALM’s intention to take over all the privately owned land along the Ningaloo coast and even have plans for a 500 bed resort at the homestead!
Many hours later we were back on the main road to Exmouth. We became concerned at the droves of caravans heading for Exmouth and the stories we had heard about accommodation at this time of the year being at a premium. There are simply too many grey nomads around all escaping the Perth winter!
After having had a good scrub up at the Ningaloo Caravan Resort in Exmouth we took the opportunity to explore some of the canyon (karst) country in the Cape Range National Park without Getaway, following the Charles Knife road for 13km into the range.
Canyons of Cape Range National Park
Although late in the afternoon we managed to get some spectacular views of the Exmouth Gulf, mirror calm at the time and the limestone gorges. An internet café is around the corner so tomorrow we will send this off before we disappear into the Cape Range National Park. We have been lucky enough to secure a campsite at the Yardie Creek homestead, on the edge of the Ningaloo Reef.
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