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Published: August 1st 2008
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The 673km drive to Exmouth, our longest so far, went well, with a brief fuel and grocery shop in Tom Price and a gravel road short cut which knocked 53 km off the trip. It was a fairly long drive but we enjoyed finishing off Harry Potter & the Half Blood Prince, which we have been listening to on CD during our travels (read by Stephen Fry).
We arrived in Exmouth by 4pm and immediately checked out the visitor centre. We had pre-booked a night in a cabin at the Lighthouse Caravan Park as we had thought we'd be arriving much later and didn't want to set up in the dark. One night turned into two when we realised we had to do some washing and shopping and would have to make another early morning departure to get a camp spot in Cape Range National Park. It turned out that we could easily have set up the tent before dark, but in the end it was good being in the cabin and we needed to depart early. We also thought we'd be able to get internet access at the caravan park, but unfortunately the park was in a telstra mobile
phone 'black spot', which was a bit frustrating.
On the Sunday morning, we drove out of the caravan park at 8:10am and arrived at the Cape Range entrance station at 8:30am to find that there was only about 3 camp sites left. We were recommended and chose the Mesa camp site, which had a sheltered beach. Mesa camp was nicely located near the visitor centre, which we visited after setting up camp, and near a tap bore, which we hadn't known about but came in handy. We had planned to stay only three nights, but almost immediately decided on four.
The next day we did the Mandu Mandu Gorge walk in the morning where there were lots of different wild flowers, followed by lunch and a swim at Turquoise Bay (after a brief stop at Oyster Stacks). Unfortunately, mid-level cloud and a north-westerly wind had picked up so the snorkelling was not good. Our next door neighbour caught a couple of octopuses from the local rocks at low tide. These he softened up by bashing them on a concrete slab about 80 times, then cooked them in a pressure cooker for about half an hour, and then marinated
Green Turtle
In it's death throes - very sad in vinegar. We all had a taste later and it was very yummy.
The following day we did the Yardie Creek walk and had lunch on the beach near the creek crossing. A light south-easterly and a reasonable swell made for some good surf. We then had a look at a few of the other bays and camp sites and ended up having a swim and snorkel at Sandy Bay, which was nice though still cloudy. That night it rained quite steadily, though only lightly, so the following morning was spent playing games in the tent until the skies cleared, albeit temporarily - it kept showering during the day. That evening, we just got dinner cooked before the skies opened up once again, so we ended up eating it in the tent's vestibule and then playing cards until the rain stopped.
It also rained most of the night, so the following morning we broke camp in the wet, which wasn't much fun.
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