Ningaloo Reef & Bullara Homestead

Ningaloo reef

Entry by Miss E

The first destination on our coast adventure was a free stop called ‘termites nest’- about as exciting as it sounds. Its facilities were 2 bins and a bullet blasted sign. The next day we drove into Exmouth, a small town right along the coast. We stopped for a bakery morning tea (first in 2 months) before heading to a lighthouse caravan park where we stopped for a night. We met a friend’s sister & family from Melbourne and had a great social night enjoying their company. 

beach games with new friends!

The next day we moved to Tulki Beach at Cape Range National Park which is a 2 minute drive from Turquoise Bay. Turquoise Bay was magic. You could step right off the beach into a vast coral reef. We had so much fun snorkelling around or just splashing in the shallows. While snorkelling I saw a unicorn fish and a large octopus. There were HEAPS of little blue fish, zebra fish and even the odd trumpet fish (no prizes for guessing what they look like)! Even though the fish life was amazing, I have to say the coral was less than impressive. This is because earlier this year there were 2 cyclones that hit the Ningaloo area. Oh well. It was a beautiful day, and we spent 90% of our day relaxing in the white sand or snorkelling in the well… Turquoise water! We experienced rain and cold for the first time in ages that night at Tulki beach, and we all agreed that we should have stayed north longer!

We stayed at Tulki beach for 3 nights, and loved every single moment of it, except when the winds came! It turned from a light breeze to gale-force! At least we managed to fit in another snorkel into the afternoon when the winds dropped down; we nearly had the whole beach to ourselves!!

Sand dune Fun

Turquoise Beach Bay Loop

Lobster Nose

Stuck!

No worries - got 3 sisters to help!

Warroora station; our first beach stay! After a failed attempt to park in the sand, almost getting bogged and breaking the gear stick (clutch), we set up camp on the beautiful beach where we stayed for the next 3 nights. Here we met a lovely family of 4 and made fast friends, taking walks down the beach and playing in the water. Then there were the sharks. While someone swam, another person (usually Mum) had to keep ‘shark watch duty’; sharks were regular visitors to the beach in front of us. It was a bit disconcerting and put us off swimming!

At night we joined Maya and Marcus for a fish and crab hunting/racing. I was night fishing on the second night of our stay when I landed a small but edible Spanish Flag; my first fish!! I was so proud! We had another go-see if we could land another one, but we had no such luck.

The next day we visited Turtle Rock, a rocky bay filled with shells-I think we brought half of the beach back with us! At low tide you could walk across the reef seeing sea cucumbers, clams and spiny purple sea urchins. We had so much fun watching whales breach from the lookout.

Turtle Rock

Can you see the Sea Slug??

The next stop was a day trip to Coral Bay. We couldn’t get into the caravan parks as they were full. We went on a glass bottom boat tour (so that Jesse could see and do something – read down further for our Bullara Station interruption to the Ningaloo Coast story). We went to “Turtle Sanctuary” which was a seagrass plain. We saw dozens of turtles and 8 even swimming under the glass for all to see. Some of them were as large as your outstretched arms! Next we stopped at our first snorkelling point. The water was really cold but we did see plenty of fish. They were swarming under the boat hoping for a feed. The hard coral here was enormous but not very colourful. The second snorkel point called “The Maze” was better. It had sandy passages through the coral which we explored. Mum and I saw a turtle and kept up with it for a few minutes. IT WAS AMAZING!! He was very big and reminded us of Crush from ‘Nemo’ letting us cruise beside him. Then we saw a whole school of different fish all heading fast in the same direction. We cleared out quickly as we weren’t sure if something was chasing them! Dad saw a 2m reef shark and tried to chase him!

All in all a beautiful experience….except we found out the lovely white sand of Coral Bay was actually Parrot fish poop! Charming :P

 

Bullara Homestead

In between Tulki Beach and Warroora Station, we waited out the gale force winds at a cattle station stay just inland from Exmouth. We were only going to stay a night but the station stay was so entertaining we stayed a little longer. We enjoyed John’s damper each evening around the communal campfire and the kids got to experience a bit of farm life with horses, lambs, farm dogs and cattle. They also had wonderfully creative facilities including the ‘Lava-trees’!

Ted & Abbey 

The fateful ride!

John's scrummy damper

Getting to stoke the fire.

The 'Lava-trees' (Lavatory)

It was all going so well with the girls having a bareback ride on Ted the pony. However Mister J missed out so had a go the next morning. Ted was a bit skittish and a slamming door spooked him and Master J, not having a good grip on his mane, came off. Even though he was half caught by the person leading the pony, his elbow bore the brunt of the fall and sustained a small fracture. So off K and he went to Exmouth Hospital where they had to wait all afternoon as the x-ray machine was broken too! Back the next morning for the x-rays again and a full arm half-cast. L Whilst the boys were at the hospital us girls enjoyed cooking cakes and slices as the camp kitchen had an OVEN! A novelty when we’ve not had one for 3.5 months!

In hindsight maybe we should have only stayed one night!!