Snorkel loopy nuts are we!

Day 186 - Cape Range National Park

Another early morning on Cape Range, we’re trying to relish every second we’re here with such a beautiful view to wake up to. I scrambled out of bed early again and wandered down to the ocean, this time with the camera, hoping that the dolphins would return. No such luck unfortunately but it was a glorious morning, albeit breezy, so it was just lovely to sit and watch the day come to life. After about an hour I turned my back on the waves and wandered up to camp passing Simone and Zoe on their way out for a walk, I fancy another morning off so decide to keep my energy for snorkelling!

Everyone was up when I returned and breakfast was on the go. Dar, Bel, Nige and myself pulled our chairs onto the dunes and sat looking out to the ocean having a mini heart to heart. We’re very fond of this lovely family and travelling with them has been great and we can’t quite believe that in a few days time we’ll be going our separate ways again with only a remote possibility of re-uniting for quickly in Perth. It’s really quite sad but we know we need to keep moving on if we are to make the most of our time in Western Australia on this trip.

We’re only just starting to fall behind with our original plan and we’re not the least bit surprised! We knew that we’d fall into the Western Australia trap and even thought that we’d be swallowed whole by Exmouth because we love it here so much. We’ve really looked forward to this part of the tour. Perth will be another big draw card, not least because of the Elliotts but also because we just love the place so much and now we’ve discovered there are three big drag racing meets in the area during November! Guess we’ll just have to see what happens and where fate leads us and when!

Our challenge to snorkel everyday whilst we’ve been here has so far been successful so today we try out the Turquoise Bay drift loop again! We wouldn’t ever get bored of doing this, it’s just not possible! Bel stayed behind with Zali, Beth, Lachie and Chloe - who were a bit over the snorkelling - but that still left 10 of us hitting the beach, awesome! With Nige we snorkelled a long way out this morning and saw plenty more fish, some large shoals and Dar got to see a cruising black tipped ree;f shark as it swam through the water seemingly going back to ‘his hole’ where we found him the other day!

The current was quite strong today so it was an effort not to drift too quickly. The edge of the reef brought us surprisingly shallow water with plenty of stag horn and plate coral. This under water world never ceases to amaze us and one snorkel is never enough so we walked around to the bay area for another go in there! The water was bloody freezing so we weren’t in there for hours today but we did see a turtle having a really good chillax on the bottom of the ocean holding on to some coral with his flipper! The chevron barracuda were out again in a big shoal which is always interesting to watch. Full marks again!

We’re getting to know the Reeves family better each day and their son Kenny is hilarious! He’s only 9 but has a superb and random sense of humour, it’s just awesome and today he has us rolling about with his ‘in the moment’ shouts of “Giant squirrel” while we’re sitting on the beach! He’s quite mad in a beautiful sort of way!

We’ve all worked up a good appetite this morning and when we get back to camp Nige cooks up a mass breakfast on the BBQ for everyone to tuck into. Beautiful, there’s nothing better than bacon and eggs on the BBQ! That pretty much knocked the stuffing out of everyone though and led to many afternoon ‘nana naps’! Carl & Kenny went fishing but the rest of us chilled out reading, relaxing, blogging and just generally lazing around!

All this resting was part of a bigger picture, a game plan to get us through an afternoon of activities! When the clock struck 4pm everyone sprang back into action! We’d already prepared tonight’s dinner, a Spag Bol keeping warm and finishing its final cooking stages in the Reeves ‘Dream Pot’ - a large thermos type cooking pot!

With a four lane drag racing style start from the campsite we convoyed our way down to Vlaming Head Lighthouse, our staging post to watch for whales. The journey there was quite eventful with a huge lace monitor (type of lizard) running out in front of Nige’s car, then there were two Australian Bustards on the side of the road (hope everyone heard me correctly over the UHF, I did say Bustards!) then the wild brumbies (horses) waiting for a pat from Simone! We weren’t disappointed when we got up to the lighthouse either, the whales were right on time and put on a bit of a show for everyone.

From there we wandered down to the Lighthouse Caravan park for tonight’s dinner with new friends Mirella, Marisio and their children. We have a great time and thoroughly enjoy our spag bol from the pot and the Noki cooked up by Mirella, it was divine.

High tide was around 8pm tonight and the final activity for this evening was a walk along the beach in search of marine turtles coming up to lay their eggs. We’d done this same search two years ago and were lucky enough to see a couple of turtles coming out of the water to make their way on to the dunes which was pretty magical. The moon is really bright tonight so we don’t need torches but it might be too bright for the turtles because we don’t see any signs. It’s really early in the season though so maybe they’re just waiting for the right time. It’s nice to just sit on the beach and look out to the ocean and up to the twinkling night sky but it’s getting late and the kids should really be in bed so everyone starts to head back. We’re the last in the queue, dragging our feet not really wanting to leave without see a turtle - Bel is having the same thought! Dar goes back to the car where Nige is waiting with the kids already half asleep and we take the opportunity to walk along the beach in the opposite direction to see what we can see. The beach is lined with rocks here and we realised that it was a really long walk before we hit the sand proper so we stopped for a while, just in case a couple of turtles decided they liked rock climbing! As we looked back along the beach we could see two figures coming towards us, they looked like they were floating and dressed in flowing cloaks! We really had ‘a moment’ there, it was very odd but luckily it was two young ladies with hoodies and long coats - so nothing too scary close up!

Back to camp we went dodging the wallabies that enjoy sleeping on the road warming up on the hot bitumen! By the time we got back everyone else had already turned in for the night so with the kiddies in bed we sat up chatting for a while longer. Darryl announced he was going to the toilet which made us all wince because we’d discovered a hoard of cockroaches outside it the other night - urrghhhh! Anyway, he took a torch with him and when he eventually came back he told us that he’d found a spider, a red-back spider! That’s not good! Darryl went to get the spider exterminating spray from the caravan whilst Bel and myself went to investigate! We find the spider at the back of the toilet base (how on earth Darryl found it initially none of us quite understand!) but now Bel wants to capture the spider to show it to the kids in the morning! We go back to camp looking for some sort of jar to put it in! There’s a whole theatre of discussion now with Darryl wanting to nuke it, Bel wanting to save it, I want to take photos of it and Nige just wants to go to bed! It ends with the four of us in the toilet where Bel tries to coax this potentially lethal spider into her glass jar! The spider moves, Bel jumps, we all scream and when she says “I don’t really know what to do now” Darryl responds with a single squirt from the spider killing spray he’s still holding! A roar of laughter went up and the decision is made to leave the spider in his web until the light of day!

Sleep tight!!

Dar and Sar

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