Advertisement
Published: October 14th 2007
Edit Blog Post
Coral Bay during the school holidays, not the ideal time for a visit
and we probably got one of the last camping spots in the first of the
two campsites there. Just as well we had phoned ahead. Disappointing
place really, not much to do except head to the beach or pay a fortune
for a boat trip. A lot of the kids were snorkelling just off shore,
but when we tryed it it wasn't up to much. In one section there were
a lot sandy coloured stingrays in the shallows, but they were
impossible to see until they moved and mindful of Steve Irwin's
fate we soon tired of that activity too. We cooked in the pitiful
camp kitchen and stayed a while talking with some Dutch who had driven
that far from Darwin in a 4 wheel drive, having completed the Gibb
River Road without a hitch. We hit the road early next day to do the
short 120 km up to Exmouth and pulled in at another crowded, but
much improved campsite. After settling in and getting some lunch
we headed out the road to Ningaloo national park - this was another
70 km from Exmouth! The
famous Turquoise Bay was eventually reached
in the late afternoon and a chilly breeze swept along the pristine
beach, encouraging the 30 or so people to start packing up before
the sun faded. After reading all the warning signs about the
dangerous currents and previous fatalities along the beach we
waded our way into the icy shallows and took turns using our one
snorkel mask. Lots of people claim that the reef here is better
than the Great Barrier Reef on the east coast. The fact that you
can just start out straight from the beach is a big difference,
but whether the reef is more pristine or not we never got the
chance to find out as one our party was particularly affected
by the cold waters and preferred to abandon the whole excursion
until the following day. No problem, we had observed lots of
silver fishes below! The next day we headed out to the park again
in the late morning. The wind was blowing and the sea choppy, so
we called into the visitor centre to get the official word. It was
there that we read the newspaper clipping about a 30+ English
snorkeller who had drowned
in Turquoise Bay just 25 metres from
the shore, that April. At the inquest, his girlfriend explained that
he just suddenly panicked and his poor father described him as a
non-swimmer. Given my aquatic talents that was it for me and
Ningaloo reef was scratched off the list of must-do things in Oz.
We left early the next day with torrential rain pelting the camper
as we pointed it towards the long road to Tom Price and Karijini
National Park.
Tom Price was the president of an American steel company a good
few years back and he must have brought a lot of money to this
area to have them name the town after him. There is a huge open
cast iron ore mine here, which you can even pay $20 to do a tour
of - they give you a hard hat and take you around in a
big tourist bus. Anyway, the affluence of the town was quite apparent
from the manicured green lawns and the US suburban style houses
with their identical mailboxs and driveways giving a surreal 1960s
effect to the streets. We took advantage of the wealthy atmosphere
by slowly cruising the streets with the
Coopers pale ale - a great beer at any time.
Bought a whole carton of this (24 stubbies) and tis not a beer that you'd sit down and drink a load of in one go. laptop on and searching
for non-secured wi-fi connections. This is something which we had
been doing all the time since we rented the van and we always cruised
the better off looking parts of town. I don't know if its illegal, but
if people are stupid enough not to have a password on the their
wireless internet connection then what do they expect? All we were
ever doing was checking our mail and replying sometimes, but it was
always very suspicious looking as no one parks on the streets in these
small towns because they all have their own driveways. So that 600km
stretch completed we camped in the grounds just below Mount Nameless. The next
day we headed to Karijini and our first stop was park headquarters
where we were allocated a bush camping site for a nominal $6 a night
(normal campsite is $25). It turned out to be a great little spot with a
bush toilet (no flush) beside us and nice family on the other side.
All the slots were formed like the spokes of a wheel and in the
centre was barbeque equipment. Unlike a regular campsite there was
lots of distance between slots and
Antennae on the continents edge ...
The Americans "used" to use Exmouth as a listening station .... lots of trees and brush around.
On our first evening the family beside us excitedly rapped on our van
to tell us that a dingo was just behind us in the bush. They had
thrown out the grease from their pan and the dingo had suddenly
appeared to lick it up. After that we saw plenty of dingos around the
place, always scavenging for what they could get.
We were camped near Dales Gorge, so we took a walk along that, but
didn't brave the milky green Fern Pool where a few hardy souls
were splashing about. The next day we drove off to Kalamina Gorge along
a dirt road and therein lies the main problem with Karijini. If you
don't have a four wheel drive then forget about seeing the main
attractions. If I was to do Western Australia again then I would
definitely cough up double the money for a four wheel drive vehicle -
otherwise you miss so many great places. As was the case with us.
After 25 bone rattling kilometres I was afraid that we would suffer
some broken beer bottle casualties in the fridge so we called a halt
to it at Kalamina and
realised that Weano was not an option. Kalamina
wasn't as pretty as Dales and the rain that fell did not improve our
overall impression. We shook and rattled our way back to our site for
another homecooked dinner and an early night before the long trip
up to Port Hedland the following day.
Advertisement
Tot: 0.096s; Tpl: 0.013s; cc: 13; qc: 61; dbt: 0.0603s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.2mb