Exmouth

The decision to leave Karratha a day early in favour of Exmouth was definitely worth it. Exmouth is a small town at the northern tip of the North West Cape, which is one of a few westerly appendages to the Australian continent. To get to Exmouth I had to drive south along the coast for about 400 km and then back north onto the peninsula for about 140 km. The gulf between the peninsula and the mainland is called the Exmouth Gulf and was named long before the town existed. The town only really started in the 1960's when it was established to support a naval communications base. The base is still there and is used to communicate with sub-marines via very low frequency signals. It has several large aerial towers right on the northern tip of the cape, the highest one 387 metres tall, which is higher than the Empire State Building. How do I know? - because it was all explained on the Point Vlamingh Lookout, from where you can see the western, northern and eastern shores of the cape. The lookout is near the lighthouse on a small outcrop that was used as a gun station in World War II to protect a US submarine refuelling station in the Exmouth Gulf. Some of the sandbag walls of the anti aircraft gun position are still visible today.

A WW II gun position on Point Vlamingh

The Vlamingh Lighthouse in the morning and at sunset

The lighthouse was built in 1910 after a couple of years before the cattle transport ship SS Mildura got stranded on a reef during a cyclone. The wreck of the Mildura is still visible at low tide, although there isn't much left, after it was depleted to be used as building material and later used for target practice by the air force in the second world war.

The remains of the SS Mildura at Lighthouse Bay

Once you cut around Point Vlamingh you get to the western side of the North West Cape, where the main tourist attraction is found, the Ningaloo Reef. It is the only fringing reef of mainland Australia and runs for about 300 kilometres along the west coast from Carnarvon in the south to the northern tip of the North West Cape. Fringing means that it is directly attached to the coast, which for us tourists means that we can go snorkelling directly off the beach. This I did on several days. I absolutely love snorkelling; I find the feeling akin to flying, especially if you snorkel over coral reefs that have high mounds and deep crevasses below you. I visited three spots along the western beaches, Lakeside, Turquoise Bay and Oyster Stacks. I could only snorkel on the first two because it was low tide each time and Oyster Stacks was too shallow to swim without damaging the corals. I had Lakeside completely to myself, which meant that I had to be careful not to get into trouble. Turquoise Bay had other people, but was by no means packed. There were rarely more than three or four of us in the water at the same time. It was also my favourite in terms of corals. It has a reef that runs out from near the beach into the middle of the bay for about two or three hundred metres and is save to snorkel along and over it without getting into the dangerous currents, for which there were warning signs everywhere. There were may different types of coral and an abundance of very colourful reef fish (I really need to get one of these underwater cameras...).

The three spots I visited for snorkelling. Basically you have the beach, then the reef and then the ocean (where you can see the breaking waves)

Turquoise Bay, as you can see, not exactly packed either..

The disadvantage of staying in the town of Exmouth is that it is on the eastern side of the cape, so you have to drive about 50 km to get to the best spots for snorkelling Ningaloo Reef. The advantage is that you can also take advantage of some of the other attractions, for example Cape Range National Park. Cape Range runs along the centre of the peninsula and is about 300 metres high, according to my car's sat nav system. It is formed of mainly limestone karst and full of sink holes and caves, as well as spectacular gorges. Early one morning I drove up Charles Knife Road, which, with its daring constructions along canyons and straight up steep inclines, is an attraction in its own right. Up on the range I walked the Badjirrajirra Loop Trail, which is a well marked track along and through some small canyons to a lookout over Shothole Gorge. The surrounds really brought home the karst environment. Not only did it lead via several sink holes, but the rock under foot was full of small holes like an Aero Chocolate bar. There were some excellent views into Shothole Gorge, which itself was closed due to landslip danger, which was obvious when looking into it from the top; there were visible cracks all along the steep cliffs. The track is advertised as a four hour walk, but I did it in under two hours without having to rush.

Limestone Karst

View along the loop walk

Shothole Gorge (note the break-offs in the bottom right corner and all along the far side of the gorge)

The other attraction around the estern coast of the peninsula is fishing. There is an old jetty about 20 km south of Exmouth and several beaches where you can fish from the shore. I caught several small bream from the jetty and a flounder from one of the beaches. It was not large enough to make a dinner, but I took a photo of it because it impressed me with its camouflage skills against the pebbly beach.

Where is the flounder?

Talking of marine life, I spotted lots of turtles when fishing. It is currently their mating season and the sandy beaches along the North West Cape are one of their favourite nesting grounds. One night, after I took the pictures of the sunset at the lighthouse, I drove to one of the sandy beaches on the western side of the cape and hid in the dunes for a couple of hours until it was fully dark and the tide was high, in the hope of seeing a turtle come ashore to lay its eggs in the sand. I didn't have any luck, but it was very pleasant sitting there and watching the stars and some flares out west from the oil platforms. 

I did however have one unique encounter with the wildlife at Turquoise Bay. I was just returning from a round of snorkelling along the reef and got up on the sandy part of the shallow where I could stand and take off my flippers. When I stood up, about hip deep in the water, I looked up to where my towel was and saw an emu heading straight down the beach towards me. I didn't want to spook it, so I crouched down until only my head stuck out of the water and it kept coming towards me, followed a few seconds later by two emu chicks. When the mother reached the edge of the water, about 10 meters in front of me, it waited for the chicks to catch up and then stepped into the water, where it sat down. The chicks followed suite, but it obviously was there first encounter with the cold water, so the screeched and quickly ran back out. The mother waited for them to come back again and then showed them how to take a bath. She rolled onto her side, sticking her legs up in the air, wallowing in the refreshing sea. The chicks followed and they all seemed to enjoy their cool down very much. They were completely unperturbed by the gathering crowd taking pictures of them, finished their bath and calmly walked back out into the dunes. Unfortunately I observed the whole thing from the water, so couldn't take any pictures for you. I did ask one of the other photographers to email me a copy, so that I can share it with you, but I am not sure how seriously she took me. Anyway, there are plenty of emus all over Exmouth, so I took a picture of one in town as a place holder.

Place holder emu

Thanks to Aude I can now show you the real thing