More Turquoise Bay

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Day 43 – Saturday 11^th August – Cape Range National Park – Yardie Creek campground

At 6am the sky was just lightening and turning pretty colours when Mark and I went for a morning walk along Tulki Beach. The night time temperature on the Cape has been a good few degrees warmer than at Karijini and the car was telling us it was 14 degrees when we set off for the walk. It was a beautifully still morning, the water was just marked by gentle ripples when we saw a couple of dolphins swim past. What is it about dolphins that make seeing them in the wild so special (except if you are fish that is about to be gobbled up for dinner or breakfast)? On the way back we were watching shadowy movements in the shallow water, wondering what they were. Then we saw a shiny white-tipped fin appear in the water. Then more fins… It was a pack of white-tipped reef sharks out on their morning hunt. From the size of their fins (or the tip of their fins) we guessed they were quite small, but without going into the water ourselves, which Mark was keen to do (really!), we couldn’t see their size. After a spot of breakfast we decided to take our life in our hands and get in the water at Tulki Beach where we had seen the sharks circling in the water just an hour earlier. It wasn’t really dangerous at all but swimming in “shark infested water” sounds like a dangerous thing to do. Tulki has no coral reef and we didn’t see a huge variety of fish but it was nice to have a morning dip. And no, we didn’t see the sharks!

After our one night at Tulki Beach campground it was time to move on to Yardie Creek for two nights. So we packed up, hitched up and drove the 30kms south to Yardie Creek. Yardie Creek is the most southerly of the bookable campsites in the Cape Range National Park. It has the advantage of a mostly sandy and fishable beach and the creek to explore too, with walking tracks into the gorge. After setting up we had a quick bite to eat then strolled over to the boat ramp at Yardie Creek ready for our hour-long boat trip at 12.30pm. The boat was full of other tourists and our ranger boat driver/ tour guide Peter was on good form telling us about the creek and all the wildlife living in it and the in the rocks in the gorge. We spotted a few families of black-footed rock wallabies, observing us from their little rock ledges. It looked like watching the funny humans on their boat trip was one of the highlights of their day! There are only a few places in Australia left where these wallabies live in the wild so they are very special, and also very cute with their little grey faces and long tail which helps them balance as they hop around the gorge. We saw a pair of egrets, a sea-eagle nest, an osprey nest (both empty), rock figs with their long roots dangling from the gorge walls. It was a very informative and relaxing pootle up and down the gorge.

Yardie Creek currently does not flow into the sea and there is a soft sandy crossing in the creek bed joining the road to Coral Bay with the sealed road along the Cape. We asked Peter if the unsealed road to Coral Bay was particularly rough and he reckoned that it would be fine to do with a 4WD and off-road camper trailer, so we made the decision to take the cross-country scenic route when we move on from Cape Range.

It was another beautiful afternoon with hardly a puff of wind, and dare I say it, no clouds! So we decided to head back up to Turquoise Bay for an afternoon of snorkelling. This time we decided to try the bay snorkel. We made ourselves at home on the white sand along with quite a few other people. Being a Saturday there were more people around due to the inhabitants of Exmouth making a weekend outing to the Cape. However we would still not say the place was crowded. The sea was crystal clear again and visibility was excellent. Luke had put his contact lenses in so he could see properly underwater and what a great plan that was! He turned out to be chief spotter in the water. First he found the holy grail (for us at least) of snorkelling – a green sea turtle. The very cute chap (or it might have been a chap-ess) was happy to let us follow it around and take underwater photos like the paparazzi. We got some great still and movie shots of this gorgeous creature. Not content with the turtle, Luke then went on to spot a couple of rays. Just as we were busy taking loads of photos of the rays, he turned around and gesticulated wildly in the other direction. He had sighted the very strange-looking shovel-headed ray. It was the colour of the sand, had a triangular head and three fins down its back. It didn’t seem that bothered to be the centre of the attention as it moseyed along the sea bed, probably looking for tastier things to eat than little boys. We took photos and a great video (if I may say so myself) of it doing its thing then burying its body in the sand, camouflaging itself in wait for its prey. Fascinating stuff. And we weren’t the slightest bit scared!

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Photos

The shovel-nosed ray
Great spot, Luke!