Yardie Creek Homestead Caravan Park – Ningaloo Reef
We have spent a week in the almost empty caravan park, it’s shaded and quiet. Kangaroo and Emu wander through. Thoroughly enjoyed our stay here.
Monday 13th October 2014
We headed off early to go over the Charles Knife Canyon. We spent most of the day over the eastern side – which is Exmouth Gulf. It was a lovely day and hardly any wind, but late in the afternoon when we came past the Lighthouse it was blowing hard there. The good news is that the wind leaves tomorrow.
There are two canyons to explore – Shot hole Canyon which is a road in the base of the canyon. The road is closed due to the April floods. The second canyon is Charles Knife Canyon and the road is along the canyon ridges and you look down in the canyon. We drove up Charles Knife Canyon and then walked across to Shot hole Canyon, so even though it was closed we were able to view the canyon as well.
This is the road up. You have a view either side of the ridge.
The view back to Exmouth Gulf and a cave we spotted.
A panorama of the view at the start of the climb up.
The higher we climbed the better it got.
The other side of the road was just as good.
Glen is in both photos, just so you can see where he is actually standing, yes that’s a long way down. It just looks a lot scarier than it actually was.
This is the view towards the gulf from this canyon.
We then drove to the end of the Charles Knife Canyon Road into the Cape Range National Park and walked to Shot hole Canyon Lookout. This was about 5.2 klms + There were a few gullies involved. It was totally worth it to view Shot hole Canyon.
Spotted a new bird to tick off in our bird book. It’s a Crested Bellbird. That’s not a shadow at the front, it has a black bib and black band through the eyes. It has a black crest which is down.
This is the track across to Shot hole Canyon. We have arrived, the road into the Shot Hole canyon.
Above left, is the ridge path down to Shot hole Canyon car park – the ridge path is also closed. :(
We then headed back to Exmouth to do some top up shopping and a browse of the shops (this took 5 minutes) – ? where do these people shop….
As well as the RAAF base there is the Harold Holt Naval Base and also low frequency transmission towers. One of the towers is the highest construction in the southern hemisphere. I looked at them and they all appeared the same height to me.
This is the wreck of the Mildura which was carrying cattle and the lighthouse that was built after to warn shipping. During WW2, they had a radar station up there as well.
They had several story boards up there telling the sinking of the Mildura, the isolation of the light-keepers and the WW2 story. The sandbags from WW2 still surround the radar base mount.
It was so windy that the wind enthusiasts were having a great time, sailing and kite surfing.
Tuesday 14th October – a lot less wind, clear sunny, fine
The wind as promised was only light today, so we headed off to Turquoise Bay for a snorkel. It was still windy, but calm in the bay around the corner from the drift zone, so we went in there for a snorkel. There were plenty of fish and we saw quite a few star fish as well. The water is crystal clear. It was the most relaxing snorkel as there was no pull in the water. We then drove to Sandy Bay to fish for a couple of hours. It is really annoying have a group of whiting at your feet who are totally disinterested in your bait. Every time I cast I had a garfish fooling around. I only got one bite the entire time. We are going to have to skill up in this activity.
Wednesday 15th October – Whooo Hoooo no wind, sea mist warm sunny with light clouds
We woke to no wind but a sea mist and everything dripping wet. The tides were perfect with a low tide around 9am. We headed off to Turquoise Bay to the drift zone. There was no tidal pull and we spent two hours snorkelling there. The surface was like glass. We went way out to three quarters across the lagoon. The tide was very low and it was only 1 to 1.5 metres across the whole lagoon. It was a perfect day. We got to see our first sea snake. I spotted it on the bottom hunting. It had burrowed into the sand chasing something. After it backed out, it slithered off on the sandy bottom for something else to eat. We spotted a black tip reef shark in the distance, but didn’t get to see it. The word is that today was as close to perfect as you can get. We saw so many beautiful reef fish. There were some great corals as well. It’s interesting that the coral is mainly blue, purple and green. There is very little in the way of yellow and reds. We really wish that we had a waterproof camera to capture the colours. I don’t think I have ever been in water so crystal clear.
Late this afternoon we walked from the caravan park to the beach, we estimate it is about 4.5 klms return. It’s a bit of a hard walk on the soft sand and through the sand dunes. We left just after 5pm and got back at 6.45pm. At least Lawrence of Arabia had a camel :). Good exercise though.
Thursday 16th October – another perfect morning – another 2 hours snorkelling
Turquoise Bay was excellent today, not perfect like yesterday but a great snorkel trip. The current was a lot stronger than yesterday but you could swim against it. By late morning the wind has picked up and will be increasing in the following days. Clouds! we haven’t seen clouds in such a long time.
Every time we have snorkelled the lagoon there has been something exciting to discover. We have been along the length, out in the middle and in various places all over. We found the best coral today and it was closest to shore and so were the sharks. We got to see a black tipped reef shark out in the middle in less than a metre of water and about five or six white tipped reef sharks in very close to shore near the large coral. Some of the sharks were resting on the bottom others were swimming around us. It was a great experience, we loved it. We also saw a very large cod probably about a metre hiding in a coral cave. Today was our last snorkel here. Lots of beautiful fish. Some fish guard their patch and will come out and nip you to move along. Doesn’t hurt but you feel it. Makes you want to have a marine aquarium in your house.
Tomorrow we head down to Yardie Creek after packing up to put the kayak in for a paddle and then head south to Coral Bay.
Foot prints in the sand and the lizard who is living up the tree at the back of our camp site. He runs like a frill neck lizard but doesn’t have a frill.
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