Diving, Driving & Drifting Away... Explorations from Exmouth

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May 29th 2014

Published: June 20th 2014

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Backpackermatt

Wicked Wanderers

Linda, Oscar and a bloody big termite mound

With our stay in Shark Bay having come to an end, Linda and I bid a fond farewell to Fowler's Camp and hit the road for the 400km-plus haul to Coral Bay (Thursday 22nd May), first back-tracking 100kms to the Coastal Highway, before proceeding north towards Carnarvon where we stopped for a lazy riverside lunch. After then turning off the Coastal Highway onto the Exmouth-Minilya Road, we couldn't help but marvel at the presence of countless huge termite mounds scattered across the landscape - some of which towered up to two metres high. While I had seen such structures before, they were obviously a new phenomenon for Linda - who found it hard to believe that these giant mounds of earth could have been built by such tiny little creatures!

It was right around dusk when we finally pulled into the small tourist village of Coral Bay, where we were shocked to discover that the caravan park we checked into was close to full! Clearly we had crossed the invisible line between 'the South' (where the main tourist season is summer, and we had therefore been able to avoid the crowds until now) and 'the North' (where the winter months

Sandy Crescent

The beach at Coral Bay

coincide with the dry season, and the warmer temperatures lure travellers north). Despite having witnessed first-hand the same northward migration of holiday-makers at this time of year during my time in Queensland, it nevertheless came as a shock to go from 'off-season' to 'peak season' in just one day's driving! Thank goodness we had managed to avoid travelling during the school holidays...!

The next morning we rented snorkel gear from the caravan park and hit the beach at Bills Bay to get our first taste of the world-renowned Ningaloo Reef. While it may not be anywhere near as large or as famous as it's eastern counterpart - the Great Barrier Reef - Ningaloo is unquestionably the easier to access, with the reef lying just offshore...meaning that instead of having to take an hour-and-a-half boat ride to get there you can simply paddle over to it from the beach. And that's exactly what we did, having to swim no more than a hundred metres out from the beach to find extensive coral gardens, consisting mostly of large grey/green-coloured cabbage coral; and populated by the usual assortment of brightly-coloured tropical fish.

After returning our rental equipment to the caravan park

Gaping Chasm

Charles Knife Canyon in Cape Range NP

- and sneaking in a quick shower while we were at it - we then continued north for another hour-and-a-half to the main tourist centre in the region, Exmouth. While the town of Exmouth itself might not be anything special (when compared to other similarly-sized coastal towns, we preferred Denham or Kalbarri) it is perfectly situated to take advantage of a wealth of nearby natural attractions - with the Gulf of Exmouth separating the North-West Cape from the mainland to the east; the Cape Range National Park protecting a low coastal mountain range cut with numerous spectacular gorges running down the spine of the cape; and the Ningaloo Marine Park protecting the aforementioned reef running parallel to the cape on the ocean side immediately to the west.

Having spent most of Friday afternoon relaxing at our caravan park in the centre of Exmouth, Linda and I went our separate ways on saturday – as she went op-shopping and checked out the annual Ningaloo Whaleshark Festival in the centre of town; while I took the van and headed out of town to explore Cape Range National Park. But with the road to Shothole Canyon being closed, I was limited to

Rugged Grandeur

View from Charles Knife Canyon Road

taking the Charles Knife Canyon Road which snaked it's way up to the top of the range, offering outstanding views of sharply-eroded gorges on both sides of the road... though strangely the view from the 'lookout' at the end of the road (which was by far the roughest, bumpiest dirt road that I had encountered on the trip so far) was an anti-climax after the visual feast on the way there!

Duly satisfied with our respective afternoons apart, Linda and I then met up back in town and finalized our plans for the coming days – which revolved around the sort of underwater adventures for which Exmouth is famous. With Linda having only ever been diving once before in Turkey – but having loved every minute of it - she had decided to sign up for a four-day PADI Open Water dive course with Ningaloo Whaleshark 'n' Dive, which would involve two days of theory in a classroom combined with practice in a pool, followed by two double-dive trips to the renowned Navy Pier within the nearby Harold Holt Naval Communications Base.

Already holding an Advanced diving certification, I opted for three separate certified diving day-trips: the first

Golden Crescent

Bundegi Beach, with the famous Navy Pier in the background

a day/night visit to the Navy Pier on Sunday run by the same company; followed by a boat trip to the Muiron Islands (a pair of islands lying at the entrance to the Gulf of Exmouth) on Monday; and then another boat trip to Lighthouse Bay (at the northern end of Ningaloo Reef) on Tuesday – both offered by the Exmouth Diving Centre. With our plans in place for the next four days – but also ruling out any chance of us finding somewhere outside of town to stay for free during that time – we then decided to switch caravan parks for the remainder of our stay in Exmouth, since the company offering Linda's dive course was based at the nearby Aspen Caravan Park.

And so, with Linda having left early on Sunday morning for the first day of her dive course, I took the van up towards the nearby naval base - where an array of thirteen inter-connected antennas arranged in concentric circles and standing up to three hundred metres high enable the naval base to send extremely low frequency communications to submarines up to a thousand metres below the surface of the Indian Ocean... one of

Scenic Viewpoint

Vlaming Head Lighthouse

only four such antenna arrays in the world!

Stopping off at the nearby Bundegi Beach (where I got my first glimpse of the Navy Pier beyond) I then continued on around the tip of the North-West Cape to the Vlaming Head Lighthouse, which sits atop a rocky bluff overlooking the aptly-named Lighthouse Bay and offers outstanding views of the coastline stretching off into the distance, with the ever-present Ningaloo Reef running parallel to the coast and clearly identifiable by the off-shore surf breaks that are favoured by the local surfing community.

After indulging in a quick swim at a sheltered beach backed by a huge sand dune further down the coast, I returned to Exmouth and checked into the caravan park that would be mine and Linda's home for the next four days - and where Linda had her head buried in a textbook in the dive shop's 'classroom' as I turned up to be outfitted with all of the necessary gear for my dive trip to the Navy Pier. Talk about a convenient location!

With only four divers in our group it didn't take long to get kitted out, and after a comprehensive dive briefing we

What Lies Beneath

The famous Navy Pier

were soon on our way to the Harold Holt Naval Base, where we all had to show ID to pass a checkpoint in order to access the famous Navy Pier. With the sun hanging low in the sky we performed our 'giant stride' entries – which from a height of at least two metres really were just that – and got the show underway... and what a show it was! No sooner had we descended to the bottom (at a depth of around 12 metres) than I found myself marvelling at the sight of two lionfish swimming only a metre or so apart, with a white-tip reef shark resting on the sandy bottom directly behind them – only to realize as I swam between the lionfish towards the reef shark that there was another white-tip directly below me less than two metres away!

The visual feast didn't stop there, with countless more sharks (I lost count somewhere around eight or nine) being sighted as we weaved our way in between the countless wooden pylons of the pier. The biggest shock however came when a giant grouper – living up to his name at a length of around 1.5 metres

Shimmering Blue

Looking out towards the Gulf of Exmouth

– suddenly came into view only a metre or so from my face, before casually swimming past me and continuing on his way!

Returning from our first dive we had just enough time for a sandwich and a coffee during our short surface interval, during which it became apparent that the 'night dive' we were supposed to be undertaking next would actually be more of a day/night 'transition' dive, since the sun still had a fair way to go to reach the horizon - though rather than taking anything away from our experience it simply meant that we were all entitled to a forty dollar refund! And while we might not have seen quite the same profusion of marine life on our second dive – with the exception of both a green turtle and a loggerhead turtle - this was made up for by the surreal experience of having the same giant grouper following us around for the last thirty minutes of our second dive, during which time it casually approached me on several occasions until it's head was only inches from my face, waiting for me to scratch underneath it's chin!

To have a fish so large

Green Hillside; Blue Ocean

View from the road up to Vlaming Head Lighthouse

(it was the same size as a Japanese girl in our group!) lurking ominously in the semi-darkness that enveloped us towards the end of the dive was an experience in itself; but to then find myself staring eyeball-to-eyeball with this creature as I scratched underneath it's chin – and then ran my hand along it's side as it swam past - was something else altogether, and an experience that I would not soon forget. And then just when it seemed that things couldn't possibly get any better, we had no sooner returned to the surface when someone spotted a small pod of dolphins swimming not far from the pier!

My only cause for disappointment was that my dive trip to the Muiron Islands scheduled for the following day had been cancelled due to lack of numbers, but with another trip to the same location already confirmed for Wednesday – which would be the fourth and final day of Linda's dive course, and the only day for which I currently had no plans of my own – I decided to make the most of the situation by hiring a snorkel and fins from the dive shop on Monday and driving

S-Bend

View from the Yardie Creek Gorge trail

around the tip of the North-West Cape and down the other side to where the Cape Range National Park parallels the Ningaloo Marine Park on the ocean side of the cape.

Stopping off at the picturesque (and well-named) Turquoise Bay, I spent half-an-hour or so paddling about in the shallows on one side of the sandy point; before taking my snorkel gear and walking a few hundred metres down the beach on the other side of the point to try the drift snorkel for which the bay is so popular. As waves crash over the outer edge of the reef into a shallow lagoon that separates the reef from the beach, the excess water is then sucked back out to sea through a small gap in the reef, causing a fairly strong current to develop that flows from one end of the beach to the other.

As a result of this all I had to do was walk a few hundred metres along the beach and then swim out towards the reef, before the current took over and sent me gliding effortlessly over the numerous coral outcrops (complete with the usual assortment of marine life that typically call

Spectacular Setting

View from the Yardie Creek Gorge trail

such places home) that lie in waist-deep water only metres from the sandy beach! But as if drifting through an open-air aquarium full of brightly-coloured coral and tropical fish wasn't satisfying enough already, on my second drift snorkel I first passed a white-tip reef shark before following a sea turtle a few minutes later – and all without straying more than fifty metres or so from the shore! For someone who has done the vast majority of my diving and snorkelling on the Great Barrier Reef, this was both a novel and thoroughly enjoyable experience.

From Turquoise Bay I then continued south all the way to the end of the road at Yardie Creek, before tackling a short hiking trail that led from near the mouth of the river to the striking Yardie Creek Gorge, where sheer red cliffs on either side of the gorge funnel the water through a sharp bend in the river. Climbing high up above the river I was treated to some pretty impressive views - not only of the gorge opening out below me, but also the coastline stretching off into the distance, with waves breaking over the outer edge of Ningaloo Reef as

Lighthouse Bay

Quality dive site loaded with olive sea snakes

far as the eye could see.

Returning to the caravan park well satisfied with the day's events, my mood was further lifted when Linda's beaming smile confirmed that her inner ear problems from the previous day's pool diving session had dissipated; leaving us both eagerly anticipating our respective dive trips for the following day.

We weren't to be disappointed. While Linda may have missed out on seeing the resident giant grouper during her first visit to the Navy Pier - which she wasn't certain she really wanted to see anyway – her nerves had calmed as soon as she entered the water, so that she was able to relax and enjoy both of her dives... which is easier said than done for someone with so little diving experience. Meanwhile my trip to Lighthouse Bay (at the northern end of Ningaloo Reef) had been memorable for the profusion of olive sea snakes I had encountered – a couple of which had followed my group for twenty minutes or so during one of our dives. Not having ever seen a sea snake before this was a pretty cool experience for me, and while the snakes were certainly quite inquisitive they

Shimmering Waters

Onboard Observer in the Muiron Islands

were by no means aggressive, allowing us to watch them closely without ever feeling alarmed by their presence.

Adding to the excitement was the appearance of a tawny nurse shark on the first dive as well as a stingray and an octopus (both well hidden) on the second dive; though perhaps the most thrilling experience of the day was the boat ride back to Exmouth Marina, as our boat 'Observer' – a 12-metre semi-inflatable speedboat with three 300-horsepower engines – bounced over wave after wave in the windy and choppy conditions in the Gulf of Exmouth.

With one day left in Exmouth, I was up before dawn for the second day running for my belated trip out to the Muiron Islands. If there had been any cause for disappointment from my two previous dive trips – and I certainly wasn't about to start complaining - it might have been the lack of colourful coral, but this was more than made up for by the abundance and magnificence of coral in the fringing reefs of the Muiron Islands.

With all manner of walls, ledges, overhangs and swim throughs covered in beautiful hard and soft corals to explore, it

Sheltered Waters

Exmouth Marina

genuinely felt as though I was swimming through a scene from Finding Nemo! And with my breathing (and indeed my mindset) more relaxed than ever before, I was able to thoroughly enjoy every moment spent underwater - even mimicking our dive instructor by flipping upside-down on occasion in search of anything interesting that might be lurking underneath the coral, and just generally carrying on like an astronaut on his first space walk!

Another bumpy ride back to Exmouth and I was soon relaxing beside the pool at the caravan park, whilst waiting for Linda to return from her second trip to the Navy Pier - during which she was introduced to the friendly giant grouper who had been conspicuous by his absence the day before. And with that our time on the North-West Cape had come to an end, with Linda now a certified diver and our collective memories filled with visions of aquatic splendour. Another wonderful week on the West Coast of Australia.

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