Author: drewandgab

3rd November

On the way south from Red Bluff today we called in at the Carnarvon Space Museum.

 

What a great little museum. It used to be a tracking site for NASA and they now have this great little museum full of interesting information and memorabilia. They also have a replica space capsule. We dressed up and went inside for a simulated launch into space which was pretty cool.

 

The kids loved the interactive room where there was some cool science stuff and physical skills tests for budding astronauts. They both loved playing space invaders and Matt enjoyed landing the space shuttle in a simulated cockpit.

 

We forgot it shuts at 2pm so only had an hour or so, but could easily have spent longer. Definitely a must if passing through Carnarvon.

 

3rd November

We fell in love with this place the moment we came over the hill and saw this view.

 

Just wow!! What a stunningly natural and beautiful place.

 

We got super lucky and scored a campsite right on the beachfront, with great views of the beach and bluff.

 

The boys could do a surf check from camp or pop out the front for a swim.

 

The shore-break was pretty hectic – but they had a ball!!!

 

We even had whales breaching right out the front on a few days.

 

Red Bluff is a very popular surfing destination. It’s a shallow reef break and not an easy entry or exit over the rocks. We were lucky to have a few days for Drew and Cam to get out and surf.

 

Cam was stoked to get a few good waves at the bluff!!

 

We were lucky too, because we happened to arrive just in time for a “big swell” and spent a day watching some amazing surfers get some smoking waves!!

 

But again, just the beauty of the place made it special. It was lovely seeing the boys with their boards walking out the bluff and down the rocks to the beach.

 

And while they surfed, Matt played in the caves with his new friends, at the end of the point. They swam in the shallows while the waves barrelled behind them and found coral, sea urchins, crabs and other marine life in the pretty rock pools around the rocks.

 

During our week at Red Bluff we did a couple of day trips up to Gnaraloo – the next station north.

 

First you come to Three mile Camp, which is the home of the famous “Tombstones” surf break. The coastline here is again very rugged and beautiful.

 

On our first morning at 3-mile we watched some good surfing, but it was the afternoon when the winds kicked in and the kite-surfers and wind-surfers came out that was really impressive.

 

Further north, Gnaraloo Bay is another idyllic white sand, turquoise water bay. Both day trips we snorkelled and enjoyed the reprieve from the westerly winds.

 

Back at camp in the afternoons the colours were lovely.

 

We truly found a little piece of paradise here and it was very hard to leave today.

 

 

27th October

 

We left Coral Bay yesterday, headed south to Red Bluff at Quobba Station. Although it is only 100km or so, there is no direct road along the coast. Instead you have to head down all the way down to Carnavon to get around a big lake that’s in the way, then back up the coast. So, by the time we had stopped at Carnavon to restock on fuel, groceries and water, it was late afternoon by the time we reached Quobba. It was a further 60km on dirt to get to Red Bluff so decided to stay the night with friends at Quobba Station before heading up this morning.

As is written in many places, the first thing you notice when you arrive at Quobba is the “King Waves Kill” sign. When you see the waves crashing over at Blowholes and the rugged coastline in the area, it becomes clear why the need for such a sign.

 

The Blowholes were pretty impressive, with the water surging through holes eroded by years of pounding surf.

 

Quobba Station is one of the few stations we have stayed on that is actually still a working station – in  this case sheep. The station provided spacious bush camping.

The beach in front of the homestead was rugged and very windy!! It had some really cool shells that looked like dinosaur’s feet that the kids had fun playing with.

 

We braved the wind and got a beautiful sunset over the water and later settled down around a lovely fire.

26th October

Coral Bay is a small one street town on the coast between Exmouth and Carnavon. As its name suggests it has a bay full of coral. You can snorkel straight off the sandy white beach or walk around the point and do a gentle drift around into the bay.

The coral near the edge are unusual as they look like huge heads of lettuce. Further out in the bay is one of the prettiest coral gardens I have ever seen. So much colour and diversity of coral. And there is a huge coral bombie they have nicknamed “Ayres Rock” because it’s so big. The rock is home to some big cod and gropers and lots of other pretty little fish. The beach is white and sandy and a nice place just to hang out.

 

 

The north of the bay is a renowned reef shark breeding area. You can walk along the shore and see dozens of black tip reef sharks swimming in the shallows. There were more than 30 the day we went around there. There were dozens of blue spotted rays sitting in the shallows too.

 

We spent a few days exploring the coast to the north and south via some very sandy 4WD tracks behind the dunes. It was a bit of an adventure trying to find our way, but we had fun, saw some nice scenery, helped some people get un-bogged and had a lovely snorkel at “5 finger reef”.

 

 

We also did a day trip to Waroora Station where some friends were camped on the beach. We got there just in time to see one of them get a huge bite on his line and watched him bring in this big reef shark. It fought and jumped and twisted so it was a great spectacle. Lucky the shark got loose just as he pulled him onto the shore so they didn’t have to try and unhook him.

 

On the way back to Coral Bay we saw these two big kangas having a tussle and got a lovely sunset.

 

The kids were loving being in a proper caravan park, playing on the jumping pillow and lots of other kids to play with. We also had a fun afternoon at one of the local pubs where the kids spent most of the afternoon playing footy on the grass and hung out with friends at the beach.

Sunsets were lovely, which we watched from the bay most afternoons.

21st October

We have had a wonderful week at Cape Range National Park, snorkelling every day on Ningaloo Reef. The water here is the most beautiful turquoise and you can snorkel straight off the beach.

 

Our campsite at Kurrajong Camp was nestled in behind the sand dunes.

 

We had a stunning beach and beautiful snorkelling just 50 meters from our doorstep. Just out the front we saw a big white tip reef shark, sting rays, eels, big pelagic fish and beautiful reef fish. My favourite was a lovely old turtle who we saw a few times. He had so much moss growing on his flippers the colourful reef fish swam beside him eating it from him.

 

There were lots of other bays and beaches to explore.

Oyster Stacks just north of us had fabulous snorkelling and it was a nice easy drift just metres from the shore. The highlight here was the massive schools of huge Trevally and other pelagic fish. We also saw a couple of little black tip reef sharks and a lovely Wobbegong.

 

Another couple of kilometres north was Turquoise Bay – a beautiful white sandy beach with water the colour of its name. It was great for swimming and there was sheltered snorkelling in the bay with clown fish and other pretty reef fish. The other side of the bay had a good drift snorkel with lots of pelagic fish and a huge sting ray.

 

Just to the south of us Osprey Bay was very pretty and had a lovely sandy beach on one side. The snorkelling here was on sand rather than reef so not so colourful but the kids liked it because they saw a turtle. We had friends staying here so had a few afternoons with them watching the sunset.

 

The National Park itself is very beautiful, with the ranges virtually meeting the sand dunes. There are also a few gorges and rivers within the park. The colours are pretty, especially in the afternoon light.

 

There are plenty of kangaroos and wallabies around. With not much shade, they use tables, water tanks – or our caravan – to hide from the heat of the day.

 

We got to see our first echidna in the wild which was pretty cool. I actually saw two. The first in the day when I was walking. The other was on the road at night. Much rarer to see than I would have thought!!

 

Sunsets at our place were divine sitting up on top of the dunes, although a little chilly by the seaside, especially after being in the sun all day.

 

We are all sun-kissed and relaxed after our week here.

14th October

We’ve just had a couple of nights in Exmouth. The marine life is amazing!! It’s turtle breeding season and you can watch these beautiful sea turtles in the day swimming just metres from shore and even sometimes up on the beach. We saw two sets of fresh tracks and nests of turtles who had laid eggs the night before. And if you look out to the horizon, there are literally dozens of whales to be seen.

 

 

The beaches up the north are rugged and beautiful.

 

The kids had fun playing on these awesome sand dunes.

 

Exmouth must be one of the few towns in the world where you would see emus having a mud bath on the side of the road – just metres from an “emu” road sign 🙂

 

Plenty of emu visitors in camp too…

 

We initially only stopped here with the intention of catching our breath – washing off the red dust from Karijini, stocking up on groceries and water, and checking emails before heading to Cape Range National Park. But Exmouth has actually been a great little stop and I’m glad we didn’t bypass it!!

11th October

Mining is a huge industry in this part of the country, particularly around the area of Tom Price, which we drove through today.

This is a big mining truck they have on display. It was used in the mines here in the early 1990’s.

 

We drove past this huge mine today just outside of Tom Price.

They mainly mine iron-ore here, as the Pilbara has some of the most extensive deposits of banded iron-ore in the world. We saw evidence of this in Karijini National Park just yesterday.

 

 

 

11th October

This national park, in the Pilbara has the most amazing gorges and some of the most stunning scenery we have seen on the trip so far.

 

The gorges were very all different. We saw awesome rock formations and amazing colours and reflections. The walks were fun and challenging – scrambling along ledges, climbing down ladders, rock hopping and wading through water. And most walks finished with a beautiful pool for swimming.

The first gorge we visited was Dale’s Gorge. We walked along the rim, overlooking the red, stepped gorge walls, circular pool and Fortesque Falls.

 

We then went down into the gorge and walked along the gorge floor and finished up with a swim at Fortesque Falls.

 

The lookouts at each of the gorges are stunning, but really put my fear of edges to the test!! The view of Joffre Gorge from the lookout was gorgeous, with a green pool in the middle leading to a big circular pool at one end, and a river snaking through the gorge in the other direction.  Knox Gorge is very deep, with beautiful red gorge walls. But the lookouts hang right over into the gorges and looking down from that height just makes me feel sick!! I’m surprised I even managed to get photos.

 

Knox Gorge was an extremely steep climb down into.

 

And some narrow ledges to negotiate.

 

It had really high walls, creating beautiful reflections in the water on the gorge floor.

 

 

Weano Gorge, to the west of Knox and Joffre’s was narrow with steep walls.

 

The highlight was Handrail pool at the end. It was so steep they have built a handrail to climb down into it.

 

In the same area as Weano Gorge, Hancock Gorge was our favourite!!

High gorge walls and nice reflections…

 

Wading through water, climbing ladders and negotiating along narrow ledges…

 

The kids loved clambering along the walls in the ‘spider walk’ section…

 

Kermit’s pool at the end was just sublime. The gorge walls came together so the pool was sort in a cave. And we had it to ourselves!!

 

 

Beyond Kermit’s pool, you could look out to the pools in the gorge further below. The colours were just stunning!!

 

Hammersley Gorge, in the north-west of the park had the most amazing colours, both on the gorge wall and in the reflections on the water.

 

The geographical layering, folding and buckling of the rocks was incredible.

 

Up the top, there were pretty waterfalls.

 

There was a cool “spa pool” reached through a hole in the gorge wall. It was only small, but really deep!! Water poured through a donut shaped hole that was heated by the sun, creating a warm waterfall.

 

The two campsites we stayed at – Dale’s wand Karijini Eco Lodge both had a great bush setting. We got beautiful afternoon colours!! Nice places to chill out after a day of hiking.

The birdlife was great too.

And even just driving just driving through the park is breathtaking.

Karijini is definitely one of the most scenic places we have visited!!!

 

 

 

7th October

As we head south and move from the Kimberley to Pilbara region of Western Australia, the scenery is noticeably different. Everything seems redder. Where the Kimberley is mainly sandstone and limestone, the Pilbara is made up mainly of iron-ore.

 

The scenery as we approached Karijini National Park became quite dramatic and we spent the night at a free camp on the edge of the park overlooking this beautiful gorge and valley.

 

We got a beautiful sunset and had a great fire with some fellow campers as we watched the moon rise over the ridge.

 

The camp is actually a lookout. It was built to marvel at the engineering genius that enabled a road (The Great Northern Highway) to be built right through the middle of Munjina Gorge, which is actually park of Karijini National Park. Pretty impressive!!

 

We have seen lots of road trains on our trip so far, but nowhere near the concentration that we saw them in today.

 

We passed more than 100 coming in the opposite direction today, as we made our way south from Port Hedland. These huge trucks tow up to 4 carriages and can be more than 50 metres in length. They carry anything from fuel, to livestock, to general supplies. Most of the ones we saw today were carrying iron-ore from the mines.

 

It can be very daunting as they come toward you and pass so close!!