Shark Bay (by Miss A)

                                                  

Hey I’m at Monkey Mia! We had to get up at 6:oo in the morning to get to Monkey Mia for the first feeding! When we got there it was cold and we waited on the beach for the dolphins. The area that we fed the dolphins in was marked with yellow buoys. Finally we saw a dolphin and were invited in the cold water. The dolphin cruised past us and stopped and looked at me! When the fish buckets were brought down a pelican flew down and followed the buckets! When the people were picked the dolphins instantly came for their fish. The second feeding was even better than the first, there was 5 dolphins Surprise, Spark, Shock, Fin and Static. I nearly got picked but unfortunately it was a lady in front of me. For the third feeding only surprise was there so 1 person got picked so I was a bit sad.

Gooday! We are in François Peron National park where we have been going to places on a 4WD track and have got a photo at the most western point (Cape Peron) we are going on this trip! 

Oh no! We got bogged on the sandy beach which used to be an old pearl farm and clams littered the beach! So we got the shovel out and started to dig the car (whose name is Yeti) out. The sand was up to the wheels so it took about 15 minutes to get out but we were ok so we hurried home. In the afternoon we took a walk around the main town and saw a house that was completely made out of cockle shells!  

Shark spotting with these crazies!

Most Western point of our trip! Cape Peron

We also visited Shell beach which is entirely made from cockle shells. It was raining though and wasn’t much fun. Eagle Point Bluff was better – we stood on the cliffs and watched the sharks and manta rays cruising in the water below. 

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!! 

Karajini National Park

Wow! This park has to be on your bucket list. The gorges are amazing (even after being gorged out!), the wildflowers are sensational and the walks are fantastic. After a very difficult check in (in-experienced campground hosts tried to get us to park our caravan in a site too small on a difficult curve = a little car damage L) we finally got set up and headed out to Mt Bruce (2^nd largest peak in WA). 

Mt Bruce

Class 5 billy goat iron ore section!

Marandoo Iron Ore Mine

The wildflowers were in full force due to bushfires regenerating the area late last year. I thought you could drive a car up to a lookout or something….which is rather different to the actual 3-4 hr walk we were faced with when we got there IN THONGS. So we all trekked through the wildflowers for as far as we could like billy goats up the mountainside. We are proud (or stupid) to say that we did all of the class 4 walk and even half of the class 5 walk in inappropriate footwear. We also got to see the Marandoo Iron Ore Mine from the lookout and watched a 2.7km train pull out heading to Port Headland. We watched the beautiful sunset again over the Pilbara mountain range.

The next day we headed out early to Dales Gorge – to complete a loop of 3 waterholes – Fern Pool, Fortescue Falls & Circular pool. The walk along the bottom of the gorge varied from vertical cliffs to amphitheatre to stepping stones over creeks. Fern pool was our favourite – it was beautifully set and lovely swimming temperature. There were even fish that lovingly nibbled Kieren’s toes (:-P) unfortunately a lady slipped in the waterfall injuring her shoulder. We weren’t sure if she was badly injured or just seeking attention from the 2 male backpackers who swam her to the steps. But 100m further on (of a good few km’s) she was in obvious pain. So Kieren & I had to try and immobilise her shoulder with a disposable sling. Lucky we pack a first aid kit with every walk and remembered some first aid essentials! Lesson learned – it now has Panadol & nurofen in it too. By the time she got back to the vertical ladder, she was in good need of some morphine. The ranger was also helping up the ladder an elderly lady with Parkinsons who had also injured her shoulder. Not really sure why she’d been attempting class 4/5 walks!!!  After we left the injured in the ranger’s capable hands, we headed around to Circular Pool. It was stunning…except for the leeches everywhere! I was pretty happy not to swim here :P

This is how we roll sometimes..

 

Fern Pool

Circular Pool

The next day we went out to Weano Gorge – this walk was a class 5 – down to Handrail Pool. Some of the walk required wading in icy cold water, rockclimbing along the creek and spidering in between rock faces. Heaps of fun! We made it down to the handrail but I made the call that it was too dangerous for Miss T to attempt (she probably would have been fine but I was feeling extra cautious after the previous day’s events). The rock where the water has streamed over for years is practically iron and super slippery. Kieren, Miss E & Master J completed the handrail walk – you have to haul yourself down slippery rock and around to the side of the pool. One of them slipped….can you work out which one?

Handrail Pool

Gorge Lookout

On the way back, we encountered a very large Pilbara Olive Python who looked just as freaked out as we were to be meeting! So proud of our kids who handled the snake incident  with a lot more aptitude than the funny French tourists who screamed beside us then rushed towards it with cameras :-O

On the way back to the campsite we looked at a couple of other gorge lookouts – Knox & Joffre. We were pretty gorged out by then. As we got back into the campsite we realised it was Sunday and there was a travelling church service in the campground. So we gobbled down some toasted sandwiches and joined Rev John from the Uniting Church Frontier Service for a bush church. There was us and another family there in our campchairs and with torches. Rev John  told the kids a bit about what he does – he serves a parish as big as Victoria – from Kununurra to Fitzroy Crossing down to below Tom Price. Music was via the car stereo (and was from the 80/90’s as far as I could tell!) and his service had to be adapted for the 7 kids 12 yrs & under (as opposed to the grey nomads he was probably expecting). Not every day you get to go to church in the middle of the Pilbara.

Some of the cheeky wildlife - a lot cuter than the dingoes!

 The next day we had to leave (read water tanks running really low!) so we filled up on groceries at Tom Price (a mining town where the population revolves nearly every 18 months!) and headed to Parabadoo (another mining town). Parabadoo has a caravan park owned by Rio Tinto where for a whole $25 you not only get to camp there, but you get FREE washing machines, dryers and showers. Needless to say anything that could be washed was and we were all very thankful for Rio Tinto’s generosity after 6 days of free camps/national parks ;) We also loved their public library where we did “school” one afternoon. (Yay they even had learner readers for Miss T!) We also ran into a couple from the Hunter Valley who we met in Kununurra – they own a coffee van and work the mornings in the caravan parks before sightseeing the rest of the day. Have you guessed I MISS MY COFFEE?! I was pretty happy to see them! 

This truck is a bit big for Miss E to climb into!