We arrived in Exmouth on Thursday the 12th April
having driven from Warroora Station. We
had heaps of washing to do (as we’d been in free/cheap camps for the previous 7
nights), so we got to the Exmouth Caravan park, got setup and started the loads
of washing (once the power to the laundry was back on after an unexpected
blackout!). Once we’d got some of the
washing underway, we went for a drive to the visitor centre to see what Exmouth
has to offer. We picked up some maps and brochures which
will be useful for our time on the Peninsula.
After lunch, Mike wanted to pickup some things from the
hardware, so we found the store.
Opposite the hardware was the mechanic, and we wanted to get an oil
change for Bruiser (our Landcruiser) and the mechanic was happy enough to do it on the spot for
us which was perfect. While Bruiser got
an oil change, we browsed the hardware and bought the bits that we needed. When the car was ready, we headed back to the
caravan park for a swim to cool off in the hot afternoon.
After we’d swum and had dinner, the kids and Liz went to
watch a talent show that the caravan park was running (as it is school
holidays). Mike skyped into his
fortnightly Prayer Group (which he tries to do whenever we have Internet
reception and it’s the right Thursday night).
The kids really enjoyed watching the talent show and seeing other kids
performing skits and showing off their talents.
After the talent show, they were showing the movie ‘Kung Fu Panda’, so
the kids watched the movie on the big screen they had setup outside. The kids had lots of fun, and didn’t get back
to the van until about 9pm.
Saturday morning, we packed up the car and the van. As we were packing up, the tailgate on the
car broke which meant that we couldn’t open the boot of the car! Luckily we managed to use the broken door
handle clip to get into the boot and once the door was open we rigged up a
‘pull string’ mechanism to open the boot with a piece of string, so we’ll
probably have to use this to open the boot until we can get it fixed in
Darwin. Anyway, we were out of the van
park just after 10am and started the 75Km drive to our next campsite in the
Cape Range National Park.
As we drove from Exmouth to the National Park, we passed
some huge radio transmitters (which we later found out were radio transmitters
used to communicate with Submarines around the globe). Anyway, we drove into the National Park and
stopped at the visitor information centre to pickup a map and some info on the
park.
We had pre-booked our National Park Accommodation online, and we picked a campsite called "Kurrajong"; we made our way there and setup the van.
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| Liz and the kids with our Kurrajong Campsite in the background |
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| Kurrajong Campsite - Cape Range |
Once we were all setup, we decided to go for
a snorkel at the beach just behind our campsite. The kids rode bikes around the campsite with
a new friend they had met (a 5 year old boy who was from Sydney as well and who’s
family is travelling around Australia too).
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| The beach just behind our Campsite |
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| Josh, Natalie and Sam exploring the Beach |
After we’d had dinner, we joined the camp hosts Dave and
Judy on the beach to watch the sunset.
It was a bit cloudy, so it wasn’t the best sunset we’d seen, but it was still very nice, and was an enjoyable evening chatting to some fellow Christians and watching the
ever-changing ocean in front of us.
On Sunday Morning we had organised to meet up with Lachlan
and Bec Edwards (who are the ministers in the Anglican Community Church in Exmouth), so
we had an early breakfast and were in the car by 8am to get to church by
9am. We really enjoyed going to church in
Exmouth, and met some really lovely people.
After church, Lachlan and Bec invited us back to lunch at
their place, so we went back to their house and had lunch with them and
their kids; Emily and Tim. They
were sooo hospitable to us and we really appreciated their company and their
local knowledge. Our kids loved playing
with their kid’s toys and Emily and Tim were so great with our kids. Thanks Lachlan and Bec.
It was quite late by the time we left Exmouth, but on the
way back to our camp we stopped at the old Exmouth Base (which is now abandoned)
but supported a few thousand people in it’s heyday, and we also stopped at
Bundegi beach and the massive Submarine Radio to have a look.
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Some of the massive Radio Towers near
Exmouth. That building is a 5-storey
building! |
When we got back to the campsite, the kids
did some more riding before we went down to the beach to join all the other
campers at the Kurrajong Campsite to watch the sun go down over the ocean. The sunset was absolutely beautiful and we
had a good chat with Alex and Bel who are from Sydney and are travelling around
Australia too. Once the sun was down it
was time for dinner and then bed.
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One of the MANY beautiful sunsets we watched
while at Cape Range National Park |
On Monday morning, we went to Yardie Creek (at the south end
of the National Park). It was a perfectly cloudless day (like we've had so much lately) and by the time we got to
Yardie creek it was warming up to well over 30 degrees. We went to the Gorge at Yardie Creek and did
both the walks we could do. It was a lovely
gorge and we had a good (but quite hot) walk.
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| Yardie Creek Gorge behind Liz, Josh, Natalie and Sam |
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| Yardie Creek, Cape Range National Park |
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| Looking over the cliff down into the gorge deep below |
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| A view of Yardie Creek Gorge from the top of our walk |
After we left the gorge we had a
brief morning tea before heading to Turquoise Bay to snorkel at the Cape's most famous
bay. It has 2 sides, a drift side and a
bay side. We went to the drift side
which has a current running over the coral and allows you to drift over all the
marine life underneath (and hop out before the current takes you out to
sea!). All the kids got to have a good
snorkel along the drift loop. We saw
heaps of fish, an octopus, lots of coral, a stingray and so much other
life. We stayed a few hours at Turquoise
Bay and we all thoroughly enjoyed it.
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| Snorkeling at Turquoise Bay |
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| Natalie enjoying the crystal clear water at Turquoise Bay |
Once we’d eaten a late lunch, we had a rest-time (particularly for Sam, who was very,
very tired (the heat really seems to make us all more tired than we were expecting we should be!)). Sam slept for
a few hours while the other 2 played games, read books or did beading.
When Sam was awake again, we decided to go fishing at the
beach behind our Caravan. We all went
down as the kids really wanted to have a go.
Mike setup all the kids with a rod or handline, and no longer than 30
seconds after the line hit the water, Sam had hooked up with a nice sized
Silver Dart. There must be a lot of
silver darts around, because Liz, Sam and Mike all caught one. Josh caught a big puffer fish (north western
blowfish). We threw all our fish back,
but we had heaps of fun casting out and having a small fight with a fish –it
was quite a thrill for everyone.
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| Sam caught this Silver Dart |
That evening we
joined a large host of people (I think people from all 10 campsites were there)
to watch an absolutely beautiful sunset over the Indian Ocean on Monday evening. We had a late dinner that night, but once
dinner was done, the stars were well and truly out, so we sat outside in our
camp chairs and stargazed for a while.
Natalie spotted many satellites, and Mike and Liz pointed out some of the
well known constellations. The kids
really enjoyed the stargazing.
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| Another Amazing sunset at Cape Range |
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