Friday August 24

After carting my dive gear into gorges, towns, cities and the outback I’ve finally used it. 

Well . . . I have to say that the wait was all forgotten once I got into the water, especially as after our two weeks snorkelling I was well and truly bursting to enjoy the freedom afforded by not having to keep surfacing for air.

On Monday I went on a dive boat out of Tantabiddi to dive on the outer Ningaloo Reef.  Fortunately, the wind decreased the further we went and after an hour and a half we arrived at our first dive site.  As luck would have it, the owner of the dive business was up from Freemantle, where he has another dive shop, to try out a new twin tank setup with one of the staff from Exmouth and I got to dive with them.  This suited me, as many of the other divers were relatively inexperienced.  The advantage of this was that ‘Baz’ from the Exmouth store, knew all the best spots – like where the reef sharks, octopus and nudibranchs (sea slugs)etc were, so Mark and I had our personal guide.

Unfortunately, as Heff explained in our last blog update, my camera flooded whilst we were snorkelling so I can only tell you about most of the things I saw on this dive.  In order of size we got close to White and Black-tipped Reef Sharks, Wobbegongs, olive head sea snakes, Queensland Cod, Coral Cod, Coral Trout, Trevally and literally thousands of smaller fish, including a huge range of spectacular butterfly fish, wrasse, parrot fish and goat fish.

On the second dive that day, I saw the most varied and spectacular number of nudibranchs I had ever seen, something I wasn’t expecting in this part of the world.  It did convince me however, that I need to get some magnifiers for my dive mask!

Last Thursday, I dived the Navy Pier at Exmouth.  The palaver one has to go through to get onto the pier was simply ridiculous, however it was well worth it as the Navy Pier is rated as one of the top 10 shore-based dive sites in the world.  It is within the Ningaloo Marine Reserve and don’t the fish know it!  This is undoubtedly the place to go to see a variety of BIG fish and schools of Trevally and Barracuda as well as large Queensland Groper and White and Black-tipped Reef Sharks.

One of the many highlights was a big Grey Nurse Shark, which was slowly swimming in circles under the pier.  Whilst these sharks look pretty ferocious, they are actually harmless (and yet another threatened species) and to have the opportunity to see a 3 metre one close up was awesome.

Another great plus diving in this part of the world is that the water is warm, so even after an hour one still isn’t cold – a very pleasant and unusual experience for those of us from the south!

Yet another plus - a couple of people on the Navy Pier dive had functioning cameras and they kindly shared some of their photos which give you all a bit of a feel for what it was like down there. 

Blotched Porcupinefish

 

Catfish

Wobbegong Shark

 

Coral Cod

Fringe-eyed Flathead

Grey Nurse Shark

Lionfish

Map Pufferfish

Weedy Scorpionfish

 

 

Monday August 13

spectacular wonderful awe-inspiring

As corny as it sounds, these are the words we need to describe the two weeks we have just spent at Kurrajong camp in Cape Range National Park, which gave us access to the beautiful Ningaloo Reef.  We returned to Exmouth yesterday for a few days so Murray can do some diving so I will try and fill you in without going on too much (ever hopeful!).

Cape Range National Park is about 40 kilometres south of Exmouth and is a relatively narrow park, 50 kilometres in length, bordered on the east by a rugged limestone range with deep gorges, which descends to incredibly arid coastal plains and sand dunes.  The juxtaposition of this arid landscape with the unbelievable turquoise water and white sand of the beaches is astounding and every time we found ourselves up on a sand dune or the rim of a gorge looking at the contrasts, we were incredulous all over again.

Ningaloo Marine Park protects Australia’s largest and most accessible fringing reef system, which extends 300 kilometres down the coast.  The range of habitats in the shallow lagoons between the beaches and the reef and the deeper offshore waters supports some 200 species of hard corals, 50 species of soft corals and 500 fish species.  Add to these the humpback whales we were watching every day and the turtles and dolphins we spotted and you will understand us feeling that we have been allowed to sneak into heaven for just a little while.

Kurrajong is one of 13 camps along the length of the park and I must confess that as we crossed the sand dune on the day we arrived we were a little surprised and maybe even disconcerted!  Like most of the camps, there was no shade and the campsites were spread across an area sparsely vegetated with spinifex, very low shrubs and ground covers.  Cape Range Kurrajongs (the tallest we saw was about 3 metres, but that was in a gorge) were scattered about, but by far the tallest things around were the colourbond dunnies! 

But, as soon as we parked the van and walked the very short distance over the sand dunes to the beach we were just astounded – white sand, turquoise water and waves breaking on the nearby reef! 

Looking south from Kurrajong towards Osprey camp

Looking north towards Bloodwood Creek

 While we were setting up camp the wind was blowing incredibly strongly. The effects of that wind and the unbelievable hardness of the ground - even wielding the camp hosts’ huge mash hammer and stainless steel spike did not let Murray get tent pegs in, led us to abandon all thoughts of putting up the awning and as the weakling trying desperately to stop the afore-mentioned awning being ripped off the side of the van whilst Murray was hammering madly, I was very grateful.

As our allotted two weeks sped by though, we became less troubled by the wind - or simply became more used to it and by the second week we had taken the plunge and put the awning out, as there had been some fairly settled days.  Mind you, there were no more attempts to put in tent pegs – Murray simply tied the ropes to the pine poles edging the site. 

There is no water at the camp sites, so you must bring your own drinking water and can top up with washing water at a bore tap about 25km from Kurrajong.  The local Emus have learnt that there are often small puddles created at the tap as people fill jerry cans and I now know that they go down on their knees (or is it really ankles?) to drink - the things I am learning!

We also learnt very quickly not to leave any water around the van in buckets or basins, as the local Euros and Red Kangaroos very quickly track it down and this causes all sorts of bother amongst animals which have learnt to live in this very arid environment.  At Bloodwood Creek, very close to Kurrajong, the ‘roos dig large holes in the dry creek bed to find water (look carefully in the photo below to see the ‘roos in the holes on the left and right).  They also know where small springs emerge under the rocks on the beach at low tide, so it is not unusual to see them down on the rocks and beach.

We snorkelled almost every day in the warm water of Turquoise Bay and Kurrajong, simply walking in to the clearest water imaginable and swimming short distances to enjoy coral of many different types and colours, amongst which swam tropical fish of every colour, shape and size. Trying to remember them all so we could attempt to track them down on the chart I had bought often became an exercise in futility – there were simply too many.  At least the turtles,rays and clams were easy to identify.

Blue-spotted Fantail Ray

Blue-spot Butterflyfish


  

Clam

                       

Green Turtle

Lemon Damsel and Humbug Dascyllus

Spotted Boxfish

Moorish Idol

Kurrajong beach

Murray also snorkelled at Oyster Stacks, which proved a bit too rocky for me.  Another great experience as lots of larger fish were sheltering around the rock stacks.  Relaxing on the gorgeous beaches afterwards was also pretty special and as all the camp grounds are very small, even with day visitors added in, it did not add up to huge numbers of people with whom we had to share!

Ready for action at Turquoise Bay

Between snorkelling expeditions we walked into Mandu Mandu Gorge, clambering up the side of the gorge to the rim to enjoy the views back across the range to the plains and sea.  We discovered that although the limestone would be deadly to fall over on as it would rip you to shreds, it was great to climb on – the roughness provided terrific grip, especially for those of us who are a bit less fleet of foot!

We also took a boat cruise up Yardie Gorge, which is at the southern end of the park and has its only permanent water.  As this comes in from the sea as well as from the surrounding catchment when it rains (infrequently), it is quite salty. The multi-coloured rocks were beautiful - the result of millions of years of pindan and oxides leaching through the limestone.  The sheer walls of the gorge provide a safe haven for a colony (one of only 4 remaining in WA) of about 40 threatened Black-footed Rock Wallabies and this male very obligingly spent ages washing its face and looking even more gorgeous that they usually do.

Murray also managed to get in some beach fishing with the retirement rod and reel presented to him by his then colleagues at SE Water at ‘our’ beach most days and even though the pickings were slim, he did manage to catch two beautiful Spangled Emperors (which tasted as beautiful as they looked) and a Crocodilian Longtom.  The teeth on this fish were truly horrendous – lucky it was only about 500cm long or swimmers would surely be in fear of their lives!

 

Whilst Murray fished, I tried really hard to get some photos of the magnificent White-winged Fairy Wrens which lived all around.  The breeding males were particularly difficult to catch sitting still, but ever the optimist I kept trying and got a couple which are just OK.  The females and non-breeding males were much more co-operative (there were also lots more to stalk), so I had a bit more success there.  We also just happened upon this gorgeous Red-backed Kingfisher as we were returning to camp one day.

To add to our wildlife experiences, a couple of days ago we had a visit from this amazing snake – very slender and quite long (about 1.5 metres), which was quite obviously on a hunting expedition around our campsite.  We were able to watch it for ages as it moved around and checked out tunnels that we had never noticed – in one hole and out the other.  It did eventually ‘catch’ something we are quite sure, as there was a sudden writhing and then it disappeared down another hole.  Our camp hosts, Graham and Lyn, who we dragged down to have a look, went off to talk to the rangers about what it might have been and the general consensus was that it was probably a Gwarda (Western Brown Snake), which is listed as ‘dangerously venomous’.  More excitement for us!

Over the two weeks, the weather was consistently sunny, with the exception of one cloudy day and hot, although if the wind blew from the south, as it did on a couple of days, the temperature dropped to a barely acceptable 26 degrees.  Apologies to the wet, cold and wretched of Melbourne and environs, but it is very hard not to gloat just a little bit.

Every night most of the Kurrajong campers gathered for Happy Hour, where we were forced to endure sitting on the beach watching the Humpback Whales beyond the reef, the odd reef shark swimming by, kangaroos hopping on the rocks in search of water, sunsets, a moonrise and the company of our camp hosts Graham and Lyn and other travellers.  We also learnt about and saw the phenomena of the green ‘flash’ as the sun slips below the horizon – obviously has some scientific explanation we now have to track down.  Tough times all round!

So here we are back in Exmouth for four more nights.  Murray is out diving as I write, so hopefully I will be able to induce him to write the next update.  Shame the supposedly ‘safe to 3 metres’ camera let moisture in on our first snorkel, so he will not be able to share any photos with you all (luckily the photos included above which he took on the ill-fated snorkelling trip came out alright despite the demise of the camera).   From here we will go the very short distance to Coral Bay – still on Ningaloo Reef, so more snorkelling and from there to Warroora Station which is also on the reef (so yet more underwater adventures), before making our way to Carnarvon.  Do you ever get sick of snorkelling  on coral reefs I wonder – I suspect not!

We are now busy sorting things out so we can catch up with Karina and Peter and the girls, who are going to be travelling from Perth to Broome during the school holidays.  Given our relative lack of forward planning to date, I have had to resurrect my almost forgotten organisational skills this morning to make certain we will meet up at Monkey Mia on September 25^th and 26^th, which will be great fun.  Anyone else like to join us?

So, that’s it until we get Murray’s account of today’s expedition . . .

Kurrajong beach