Ningaloo Reef, Cape Range National Park, Coral Bay

After buying 2 new tyres in Tom Price, we had planned to go north to Millstream/Chichester National Park for a couple of days.  Unfortunately, we had very heavy rain (25+ mm in one night).  The vehicles coming down the road from Millstream had mud up to roofs, and we decided it was not worth the rough trip for 2 days.  Instead, we stayed one night at Nanutarra Roadhouse, and then 2 days in Exmouth.  On our way to Nanutarra, we went through Paraburdoo, which has this lovely sculpture that was designed and built by the community. It is called "Resilience".

 

The time in Exmouth was mostly doing chores, laundry, fixing broken things, and sorting ourselves out for our upcoming 5-day kayak trip.  We did find time to visit the harbour, a couple of small galleries, and the tourist information/aquarium/museum.  This was a large building with a lot of exhibits including huge aquariums with various species of reef fish, a history of settlement of the Exmouth area and exhibits on the natural and aboriginal history.  Very well done and we only wished we had more time to see everything there.

 

We were very excited to be going back to Ningaloo reef, as it has some of the most accessible reef snorkelling anywhere in the world.  The fringing reef comes very close to shore, and you can snorkel from the beach at a least a dozen sites in the park.  There are many sanctuary zones and protected areas in the park so there are huge numbers of fish and marine mammals.

 

Saturday afternoon we met with our guides Neri and Matt from Exmouth Outdoor Adventures, and we were kitted up with everything we needed for our trip -- gloves, pfds, wetsuits or stinger suits, snorkel gear, bags to hold our gear -- we really didn’t have to provide anything.

 

On Sunday morning we folded up our camper and followed the Exmouth Outdoor Adventures bus and kayak trailer to Cape Range National Park and Ningaloo Reef.  We had an early hiccup when the U-bolt holding the axle to the spring on the kayak trailer broke before we had even reached our starting point.  The guides, however, with help from farmer Rob who was also travelling in his own camper trailer, made running repairs and we started only about an hour late.

 

Our fellow kayakers were mainly women (13 of the 15 of us) and all very interesting and friendly.  A number were from the Swan Canoe Club in Perth and so we had some good paddlers.

We started just south of Tantabiddi boat ramp at Mangrove Bay, unloaded the kayaks and after a lot of packing and preparation got underway.  Bill and I had a double and we took turns in the rear.  Both of us had trouble with the rudder, something you don’t need in the whitewater kayaks we are more familiar with .

 

 

The day was hot and sunny and the paddles relatively short (total about 4 kilometres) and easy.  We stopped for lunch on the beach, and were served wraps, cold cuts, salads, cheese, veggie options plus tea, coffee or cordial.  The lunches they made out of what was carried in the kayaks were truly amazing.  We saw lots of wildlife -- rays and small sharks, turtles, dolphins, osprey and a couple of dugongs close to shore while we were having lunch.  Finished at Ned’s camp.

 

At the end of the day we beached the kayaks and chained and locked them together.  We were then picked up and transported back to Exmouth Outdoor Adventures private camp just north of Yardie Creek, which is primitive but comfortable.  Accommodation is tents, the toilets are long drops, and the special luxury is outdoor showers from solar heated shower bags.

 

Every night the guides cooked a huge dinner, starting with an appetizer of cheese, olives, and snacks.  One night the main was Mexican burrito bowls, one night fish parcels, one night a yummy curry.  Always finished with espresso coffee and sweets.  The food was abundant and excellent.

 

Every morning there was a large breakfast with fruit, cereal, toast, oatmeal, coffee and tea.  One morning we had a huge cooked breakfast of scrambled eggs, beans, bacon, and toast.

 

Our days followed a similar pattern, of paddling, snorkelling from the beach or rafted up kayaks, lunch on another beach, more paddling and/or snorkelling, and dinner back at camp.  You could paddle in a double or single kayak and we tried both.  The weather was beautiful and sunny with light winds (mostly behind us) and calm seas.  The water was turquoise blue over fine white sand, with coral patches and bommies at the various beaches.  There was always wildlife to see -- fish, sharks, rays, turtles, ospreys and eagles, dolphins, dugongs and various birds.  The only wildlife we didn’t like were the March flies that were numerous and left very itchy bites.

 

(Sorry if you are not a fan of coral and sea creatures, but I just love them).

The activities also included some optional hikes -- one to Yardie Creek to watch the sunset from the top of the gorge, and one to Pilgramunna Gorge to see the Black Flanked Rock Wallabies. 

 

Our days passed all too quickly and our trip came to an end.  We travelled over 30 kilometres from Mangrove Bay in the north to Osprey Bay in the south.  Nothing was too much trouble for our guides who worked from 5:30 in the morning making breakfast til probably 9:00 at night cleaning up after dinner.  In between they herded all of the kayakers, helped the laggards, lead snorkelling expeditions, fixed broken things, and fed us morning tea and lunch.  It is a good thing we were paddling as with all that food we needed to work it off.

 

After our last day paddling Bill and I moved to Osprey Bay Campground in the National Park.  We reserved a site here for a week and continued our exploration of the reef with daily swims and snorkels.  We did a short hike to some caves near Bloodwood Creek and enjoyed the incredible sunrises over the hills and sunsets over the ocean.

 

We also booked a “Swim with the Whale Sharks” Cruise with Ocean Eco Adventures.  We had 20 people on Latitude 22, a large, converted cray boat crewed all by women, except for one of the in-water guides.  The skipper, the other in-water guide, the marine biologist and photographer were all female.  When we asked why they said most of the men left for better paid jobs in the resource industry.

 

Whale sharks are the largest fish in the sea.  They have beautiful spotted skin and are not usually aggressive.  Although they are big, they are filter feeders that eat zooplankton and small fish.  Juvenile whale sharks, (75% male), congregate off Ningaloo from May to August.

 

We started our cruise with a short snorkel at Mangrove Bommie, an offshore location with clear water and great fish and coral.  This was only to make sure we could all swim sufficiently to keep up with the whale sharks.

 

Shortly after our snorkel, word came that their aerial shark spotter had found a whale shark, and within 20 minutes we were in the water.  It was truly amazing to watch these huge, docile animals cruising along through the ocean, with schools of smaller fish huddled underneath them for safety.  Our whale shark was very co-operative, and we were in the water about 4 times with him as he swam.  We spent a whole hour with him, which is the maximum the tour operators are allowed to stay with one shark.  We also saw one other whale shark that was not so happy to see us and dived away. Later we had another swim with a larger whale shark.  Apparently, we were very lucky to see 3 sharks as the average is 1.8.  (What .8 of a whale shark looks like I have no idea.  No tail?)

 

After lunch and another coral snorkel, we headed back to shore.  A remarkable day and an excellent tour.

 

We left Cape Range National Park and spent the 22^nd - 24^th of May at Bullara Station, a working cattle station and caravan park halfway between Exmouth and Coral Bay.  We could not get into any camping spot in Coral Bay, and we wanted to do a Manta Ray Cruise there.  So we stayed at Bullara and drove into Coral Bay on Sunday to look for Manta Rays with Coral Bay Eco Tours.  This turned out to be a good thing as Bullara was much more spacious and interesting than the overcrowded caravan parks in Coral Bay.

 

The tour was similar to the whale shark tour, with some snorkelling and luckily, swimming with Manta Rays.  The boats smaller and older, but we had a very good day.  We did short snorkels at two different reefs, and then the spotter plane found some Manta Rays and we were off.  According to our guides, once again we were very lucky.  We saw four slow swimming Manta Rays who did not seem to be upset by our presence.  The rays were all circling and returning to one spot, apparently a “cleaning station” where little fish nibble the parasites off the rays.  

 

I have only a couple of photos from the tour website as my underwater camera died while we were in Cape Range, and unlike the whale shark tour they took lots of photos, but you had to pay a lot extra for them, so we settled for the memories.

 

We are heading south tomorrow and meeting up with some former work colleagues of Bill’s in Perth on Sunday.

 

 

 Ningaloo Reef Trip 2021

 

After much delay we finally started our western odyssey on Thursday 22 May.  We had planned a trip kayaking on Ningaloo Reef in Western Australia for May 2020, but the Covid Pandemic and interstate movement restrictions put paid to that.  This year, we rebooked the trip and planned to leave in early April.  The fridge in our camper died, however, and the new one was delayed.  After a nerve-racking wait, Bill got the fridge on the 21st, stayed up late to install it, and we manged to leave about noon on Thursday.

 

This delay curtailed our time to explore on our way to WA, as we have to be in Exmouth (near Ningaloo) on 9 May, so the first part of our trip has been a hard driving race across the continent. Hopefully we can take it slower on the way back.

 

The first day we drove through Ebor and the pretty ranges south and west of Yamba to Tamworth, Australia’s “Home of Country Music”.  There was a cold snap overnight (down to zero) and we remembered how wide the temperature range in the western plains could be.  

 

Friday, we drove through Gunnedah to Cobar, a small town in western NSW.  We started to see a bit more wildlife, with a group of emus, lots of herds of feral goats and many dead kangaroos. I don’t understand how the goats can be smart enough to learn to avoid vehicles, but the kangaroos just don’t seem to get it.  Leaving Cobar Saturday and still pushing hard, we had lunch in Broken Hill.  Broken Hill is known for silver and copper mining and home of BHP (Broken Hill Pty), now a large international mining conglomerate.

 

We left Broken Hill, crossed the Border to South Australia and spent the night in a funky renovated cottage in Peterborough. It was decorated sort of like grandma’s house, (knickknacks everywhere) but with up-to-date kitchen and plumbing.  Heating was by fireplace and we certainly needed it.  

 

Peterborough used to be a big railway centre, and the beautiful old roundhouse with a huge wall of small paned glass windows is now a museum.  We had a quick stroll around town, but we were late arriving and most things were closed.

 

Sunday we continued on through the Horrocks Pass, a beautiful twisty road through the hills west of Peterborough. We passed through the pretty tourist town of Wilmington. It has many fine old stone buildings and a magnificent wide main street with a boulevard of trees down the centre.  We stopped for coffee in a mystery town, which boasted silo art and this interesting statue honouring the Australian Farmer. I can’t tell you the name of the town until next blog as Bill has put this photo in the yacht club newsletter as a “guess where this is” contest.

 

We stayed in Ceduna Sunday night, and on Monday morning took our bikes along the foreshore path, which is an easy ride along the edge of the inlet to the Pinkie Point Light. It was nice to take a littler break from driving and do a bit of tourist stuff.  The inlet was calm and busy with fishermen, waterskiiers, and walkers and bicyclists on the edge.

 

We travelled on across the Nullarbor and spent the night at a free camp called Bunda Cliffs.  This was about 2K off the road and behind the dunes on the cliffs overlooking the Southern Ocean.  Lovely spot, if a bit windy.  Beautiful moon over the sand dunes.

 

Tuesday we headed for the Western Australia border.  The recent cases of Covid in Perth and the snap lockdown had us a bit worried, but our cross-border passes were accepted and we were into WA.  We camped that night at Balladonia Roadhouse, famous as the Skylab Crash Site 1979. We had travelled about 3300 kilometres by this time, and both of us were getting a bit tired of the incessant driving.

 

Wednesday the 28^th we stopped in Kalgoorlie for 2 nights.  Time for a bit of a rest.  We rode around Kalgoorlie’s excellent network of bike paths, and admired the fine old architecture, particularly of the grand hotels.  I nearly did a Rory, however, after we stopped at a sports store.  (Rory is a friend who broke two fingers after he fell off his bike, not realising the front tire was flat.)  I had exactly the same experience, but I managed not to fall.  We had forgotten the notorious “Double Ds”, a nasty seed with two tough, horn-like thorns that are the bane of Western Australian bike rider’s existence.   

 

I had to walk the bike home over 2k as I did not want to change a tire on the main street of Kalgoorlie.  After I had fixed my tube and tire, Bill realized his front tire was also flat.  More repairs.  Then the next morning my rear tire was flat as well.  We had to visit a bike store for tubes, tire liners, patches and slime to survive the rest of the trip.  

 

Friday, we travelled on Leinster, a mining town north of Kalgoorlie.  It is run by BHP and they have a small, inexpensive caravan park ($20 for a powered site and free washers and dryers).  As well, you can have dinner in the Miner’s Mess for $20, which has an enormous buffet of hot and cold food, salad and dessert.  Mains included such unusual dishes as a vegetable biriyani and a polenta and vegetable bake as well as roast dinners and fish and chips.

 

Saturday, we headed up the Great North Highway where you really start to get the feel of the outback.  Three and four trailer road trains with hay, stock, chemicals, ore and mining equipment are very frequent on the roads. We found the drivers very professional and polite, often signalling when it was safe to overtake and even slowing down as we did so. What a change from the Pacific Motorway near us in NSW.  The roads have numerous exits to mining or exploration sites, as well as the occasional outback station. The rate that mining is going on here Australia will be nothing but a huge hole with all the minerals shipped to China.

 

We camped south of Newman (another mining town) at an attractive overnight rest stop on the edge of a small cliff overlooking the desert.  The land is so flat that despite being over 1k from the road we could still hear the traffic.

 

Sunday May 2 we arrived In Karijini National Park for two nights.  Karijini is in the Hammersley Ranges and is famous for its beautiful red rock gorges.  We got in around noon and took a very corrugated road to Kalamina Gorge, where we did a short walk through the gorge along a stream.  Lovely to be out of the truck and walking.  

On the way back to our campsite, however, the road got the better of us and we totally shredded a rear tire.  A pleasant young couple behind us stopped and helped us change it.  We don’t think any major damage was done apart from the tire.  We are heading to Tom Price Tuesday so I guess we will be tire shopping.  Funny, we were here 10 years ago and we ruined a tire and had to buy a new one in Newman.  History repeats itself. These roads in WA do not like us.

Today we hiked through Dales Gorge to Fortescue Falls and Fern Pool.  Very deep, shear, red rock gorge with a trail along a stream at the bottom.  Beautiful light and scenery.  I finally got in short swims at both Fortescue and Fern Pools, the first since Yamba.  

Looking forward to next week when we get to Ningaloo Reef.

 

P.S. We managed to get 2 new identical tyres in Tom Price, and are confidently on our way again. -Bill

 

 

Australian Walkabout October-November 2020 Part 2

 Walkabout, Part 2

The second part of our journey took us to the Coonawarra region of South Australia.  We drove from Clare to Coonawarra and the Bellwether Winery. This is an old woolshed turned into a tasting room and sometime restaurant.  They have accommodation in the homestead, “glamping” in bell tents and a few caravan and camping sites.  There is a Maremma named Mable to look after the chooks, sheep who graze through the campsite, a donkey, and some Highland Cattle with a cute little calf.  We explored by car, as there are no really nice biking trails here, just riding on the edge of a 110km /hr highway.

We started with a tasting of Bellwether wine with nibbles from the garden.  Very pleasant. Cheese, hummus, chutneys, crackers, dips, broad beans and artichokes from the garden.  We bought a Rosé, a Cab Sav and a Malbec, but had so many “nibbles” that we ended up having soup for dinner.

Our next two days were taken up with wandering around the Coonawarra and enjoying tasting wine and accompanying snacks.  Our favourite winery was probably Balnaves, where we had a lovely rosé and enjoyed lunch in their beautiful tasting room overlooking the gardens and a large duck pond.  We also visited two wineries we had enjoyed on previous visits, Rymill and Redman.  By the time we left every spare space was crammed with bottles.  The tasting room employees were so friendly and knowledgeable, and frequently entertaining, that we felt guilty if we didn’t buy at least one bottle.  And there were many tasty bottles to buy.

We also tried to have lunch at a restaurant we had enjoyed some years ago in Coonawarra, called Red Fingers  It was still restaurant, but now called Otelia with new owners and a different style.  We had a wood fired pizza lunch there. It was very good, but I think the previous incarnation had more adventurous food.

 

We had planned to stay longer in South Australia, but Tuesday the 17th was when the Covid crisis in Adelaide was looking very dicey.  After much online hassle, we got a permit to transit Victoria by the Sturt Highway and re-enter NSW without quarantine as we had not been near Adelaide or any hot spot. This made for a very long day’s drive until we finally crossed the border at Mildura and camped at Buronga, just across the Murray River.

 

From Buronga, we took an organised day trip to Mungo National Park.  Very glad we did, as it was a long, boring drive on gravel roads to the visitor area of the park.  We saw the remains of Mungo Station, with the old Woolshed and various outbuildings.  We also took a tour of “The Walls of China”, one of the main features of the park.  This is a huge sand dune and rock ridge on the edge of (dry) Lake Mungo.

The area is very stark and beautiful.  We visited at sunset, when the sand dunes and rocks take on coloured tints from the sunset.  As we were on a guided tour, we were allowed to walk through the dunes and look at the geology and remnants of early aboriginal habitation.  Lake Mungo is famous as the site where the remains of “Mungo Man” and “Mungo Woman” were found.  Their bones are estimated to be 30-40,000 years old, some of the oldest human remains found on the planet.  We got to see some more recent inhabitants, when an eastern brown snake made its way across the dunes in front of our group.

As an aside, Mungo is not an aboriginal name, but comes from Mungo Castle in Dumfries Shire, Scotland.

After leaving Lake Mungo and Buronga, we travelled via Hay and Wagga Wagga to Canberra.  The drive was notable for the massive amounts of irrigation farming, including huge rice paddies along the highway and orchard plantings that stretched for kilometres.  We think they were almonds, but not too sure about this.

Bill had not visited Canberra for some time, so we decided to be tourists for a couple of days.  We camped at Exhibition Park in Canberra (EPIC) the major showground and racecourse that also allows camping when nothing else is going on.  It is on the new light rail line that runs into central Canberra, a clean, quiet and efficient way to get around.  Also cheap.  A senior unlimited, all day ticket was just over $4.00.  You can also take your bicycles on the tram, which we did the first day there.

 Canberra has an extensive network of bike trails and routes.  We took the bikes on the light rail to the city and did two loops around half of Lake Burley Griffin.  We rode out to the Jerrabomberra Wetlands, a nature reserve with bird hides surprisingly close to the city.  We also stopped at the Canberra Glassworks and the outdoor Sculpture Garden of the National Gallery.  Rainy weather for part of the day slowed our progress but gave us an excuse to stop and sample local food and beer for lunch.

 Our second day included a tour of New Parliament House and the War Memorial.  We were a bit disappointed at Parliament House as due to Covid we could not go up to the roof underneath the giant flag.  Bobbie did this in May 2019 with her sister and it was the highlight of the tour.  The War Memorial has a massive museum dedicated to the history of the Australian Armed Forces.  The experience is intense and far too big for the three hours they allow, although more than half a day would be overwhelming.  An excellent presentation, but very sad when you realize that despite the long history of conflict, we still haven’t learned to live in peace.

We have moved on to Wollongong where we are spending a couple of days camping near a beach, something we haven’t seen for weeks.  We plan to visit some friends in Moss Vale, then head back to Yamba.  Looking forward to some warm weather.  It is cool and rainy here at the moment.

Australian Walkabout October-November 2020 Part 1

It has been some time since we put out a travel blog, and I am wondering where to start.  May 2020 was supposed to see us travelling to Western Australia to go sea kayaking and visit Ningaloo Reef again. Covid 19 put paid to that plan.  Many states shut or restricted border access, with Western Australia and Queensland being particularly strict about not allowing people in.  Western Australia's border is still closed and we can only hope it is open by May 2021 when we are going to try travelling there again.

Covid 19 has been fairly well contained here as Australia was able to close all international borders.  Things are opening up a bit, and we are able to travel to some other states, so we decided to do some travel in western NSW and South Australia.

We left on October 19 and headed south.  It had been quite dry for the last month and a half. Because we decided on a camping trip, heavy rain was  predicted.  Our first stop was Wollomombi Falls, a beautiful campsite near the tallest falls in NSW.  The scenery is dramatic, but unfortunately there was only a trickle of water going over the falls.  We did some pleasant hikes along the rim of the canyon that the falls tumble over.

We left off camping due to the predicted rain and travelled to Tuncurry, a seaside town. We rented a cabin for a few days.  Not only was this nice and dry, it also gave us time to finish a few items of business we had left hanging when we started travelling.

Our next stop was with friend Jenny in Newcastle, a large former steel city about 1.5 hours north of Sydney.  It has beautiful beaches, and the wild weather with big seas and horizontal rain while we were there, gave us some spectacular photographs.  We also enjoyed exploring the little suburb around Jenny's with its various shops, old miners' houses and local pubs.

From Newcastle we travelled inland to Dubbo, probably best known in Australia for its remarkable zoo.  It was built with large open spaces, the fences often hidden by berms and ditches, so you almost feel like you are seeing the animals in the wild. And often you are, as animals like kangaroo and ibis have moved into the open areas of the zoo and roam freely. 

The zoo participates in a number of programes to breed and release endangered animals back into the wild.  These include Taki (wild Mongolian horses) and Bongos, a beautiful striped antelope.  There is a bike path (5K) from the city to the zoo, and then you can ride your bikes throughout the whole of the zoo.  We had a beautiful sunny day, and had a picnic lunch that a large group of aggressive Apostle Birds wanted to share.  We were not in a sharing mood. 

 

After Dubbo removed on to a Gundabooka National Park, a small park near Bourke.  On our way there we passed through Nyngan, a small town in the Bogan Shire that decided to build a Big Bogan to draw tourists. (See above).  Gundabooka had some good hiking trails and a small but interesting aboriginal art site, situated in a valley with a near permanent stream that made it a small oasis for the original inhabitants.

From Gundabooka we moved further west in NSW, and spent a long day travelling to the Kinchella National Park around the Menindee Lakes area.  This area originally had a lot of marshes and lakes fed by big rivers coming through Queensland and NSW.  Over time, water use upstream plus the last few years of severe drought have left the lakes very low.  They are famous for an abundance of bird life, and are quite remote.  

We set up camp at Emu Lake.  It is a bit off season for visitors here, as it is heading into summer and is usually quite hot.  We had variable weather most of the trip, and it was often surprisingly cold, especially at night.  Many roads and access to some areas of the park were closed.  But we spent a very interesting day at the Kinchella Wool Shed (see below).  The wool shed is a historic building that is part of the station that was established her in the late 1800s.  They ran a huge operation that raised sheep, but was also almost a small village as the station had to be self support and feed, house, and take care of all the inhabitants.  Over 6 million sheep were sheared at the shed from the late 1800s until 1967 when the holding was passed to National Parks.  The environmental changes from climate and sheep eventually made the station uneconomical, and it is now a reserve and historic site.

Our campground was windy and sandy, with scrubby vegetation, but it felt very much like "real" Australian outback.  Other campsites along the river were under large, shady River Red Gums, and had views of the water. 

Unfortunately, about this time we started having problems with both our camping fridge and camper battery and electric system, and we had to leave Menindee Lakes a bit early. Our trip was forced to take on a more urban aspect as we could not camp without power.  So the remainder of our stays will be in caravan parks.

We stopped in Broken Hill for a few days.  Broken Hill is a mining town, for silver, copper and lead.  It is the home of BHP (Broken Hill Proprietary), a conglomerate otherwise known as "The Big Australian".  The mine site and waste material border the town, and there is a dramatic memorial to over 900 miners who died since mining started in the late 1800s. (see below)

It is also home to many artists and galleries,  people being inspired by the outback landscape and the stunning skies.  On top of that, it is home to the Palace Hotel, one of the main settings of the movie Priscilla, Queen of the Desert.  The hotel lobby is painted in murals, and it has an excellent dining room where we went for dinner one night. In short, Broken Hill had much to entertain us for a few days. 

 

Outside of Broken Hill itself there is a sculpture walk in the desert, the result of an international sculpture symposium in the early1990s. It is part of a "Living Desert" reserve and has some short hikes as well as the sculpture walk. Two of the sculptures below:

Thirty kilometres north of Broken Hill is Silverton, a tiny village that is all that  remains of the town where silver was first discovered and mined in the area.  It is mainly a tourist destination now, with a famous pub, a great bakery, numerous artist studios, and the Mad Max 2 Museum.  Mad Max 2 was filmed around  Silverton and the museum is fascinating.  We spent a whole day in Silverton, wandering from gallery to museum and learning about the history of the town.

Our last leg, at least as far as this post is concerned, was from Broken Hill to Clare in South Australia.  Clare town is the heart of the Clare Valley Wine Region, and of course, the reasons to visit here needs no explanation.  The wineries are quite close together, and there is an excellent bike path called The Riesling Trail that runs from one end of town to the other and passes many wineries.  The trail is wide and smooth, sheltered by large shady trees and the grade is easy as it is a former railway track.  We spent today visiting four winery cellar doors, sampling the produce, buying wine and having lunch at Mr Mick's.  If the weather holds, tomorrow will be more of the same.