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Published: June 28th 2023
DENHAM
Great sunsets over the caravan parkWell we had an uneventful trip from Kalbarri to Denham, on the way into Denham about 45klms out stopped off at Shell Beach, amazing beach with shells as far as the eye can see and in places are 10metres deep, along the beach! We are staying at the Tasman Park Seaside Caravan Park, a great park, it is huge! It has three-four levels and we are very lucky to have beautiful view over the seaside and the boats out in the bay. Such a nice little seaside place....couple of pubs, restaurants, petrol station and the Shark Bay World Heritage Discovery Centre, well worth a visit! We loved walking around the town. On our second day walked out to Little Lagoon near the start of the Francois Peron National Park, took a couple of streets to get to the bush walk through the sandhills to get out there, magnificent Little Lagoon we loved it but were very careful not to venture too far in as they say there are Stone Fish in here which are very venomous! Saw some emus on the walk, then came across this amazing wagon train of caterpillars in the sand ...up and down round and round, they
DENHAM
Little Lagoon magnificent were all held together with some sort of silk string they made, so they didn't fall over....NEVER seen anything like it in my life, we watched them for half an hour...totally amazing! As we walked back around towards the beach area near Little Lagoon saw a flock of gorgeous birds and watch them for ages as they were in the water they would flutter their wings flat out and then dive down and retrieve small fish....THEN we were a long way from town so John says we will take a shortcut....WELL those of you who know John he is good at everything but direction....we ended up doing probably 3 more kilometres....had to retrack from a water course but finally found a road to take us back to town! Drove out to Monkey Mia, such a beautiful area, you could really stay there for a week or more, gorgeous beaches, a great restaurant and the RAC Caravan Park! After a couple of ordinary pub meals we have been cooking mostly in the van, when I can cook better than some pubs, why would you bother! We had lamb rumps in puff pastry with duxelles tonight which were delicious (thanks Diddles for
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Shells here are from one type of animal, the Fragum cockle the lamb rumps...been have been spinning them out cutting in half to last longer, they are amazing), served with roast veges and greens! Our last day in Denham a lovely meal at The Old Pearler Restaurant, great food and such a unique little place built of blocks of the tiny shells like the ones on Shell Beach...its actually like concrete bricks! Cannot get over the amount of boats coming and going out of Denham, there are three boat ramps just along the little main street! The fish cleaning stations in town seem to be always being used. Monday overnight in Carnarvon and top up on some shopping, they have a Woolworths in town and the prices were pretty good! Tuesday saw us drive about 75klms north of Carnarvon and turn off 45klm into Quobba Blowholes Campground, wow what a lovely spot! On leaving our caravan park in Carnarvon two more vans leaving and followed them all the way to Quobba, we thought OMG we are not going to get a spot but we did! Right out front of our van was The Aquarium a gorgeous little lagoon surrounded by an island and rocks, shallow and lovely for swimming, too cold
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White as, an amazing thing to see for us, and there are thousands of fish and coral in the lagoon! The Coral Coast is very pretty with a pretty rugged coastline with the blowholes putting on a show for us later in the afternoon when the tide had subsided! Also supported the little food van that is parked here, the best chips we have had for ages with a lovely egg and bacon wrap! You meet such nice people along the way and our neighbours here are a couple from down near Nowra who took off on Boxing Day and will get home for Christmas similar to us! Onto Bruboodjoo Camp further along the Coral Coast, a pretty rough 10klm track into the camp, loads of people here lots staying for like 4months, all about fishing, nice beach but a dusty camp. Have cut this part a bit short as meeting up with one of Lara's friends, a nurse from Ballarat, who has been living in Exmouth for over a year now! She just loves it, getting work at the hospital and then surfing, hiking and camping in her spare time. We met up at Whalebone brewery a really cool brewery and packed out on a Thursday
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Shells as far as they eye can see night, great beers and local gin as well as totally delicious pizzas! Had a great night out, meeting one of Kate's friends Sue who is a teacher been working in Exmouth and heads to Southern Cross Saturday for her husband to take up a Principals position for a term or two...they are from Brisbane just working their way around! Left Exmouth town itself and went out towards Cape Range National Park and camping at Yardie Homestead for three nights to see more of the national park. MAGNIFICENT, now we realise why this Ningaloo Coast is world heritage listed, it is stunning and there is so much to see, it covers over 604,500 hectares, it mostly comprises of a pretty much intact and large marine and costal area with lush coral and tropical fish, there are over 500 species of fish, 300 different coral and of course the huge whale shark population. A total of 6 days here in Exmouth it has been magical....been to so many gorgeous coves and beaches the most gorgeous is Torquoise Beach, (which was the busiest lots of beaches with no people on them and had them to ourselves), Jurabi Turtle Centre, the remnants of SS
DENHAM
Lovely little town Mildura close to the shore which sunk in 1907 with a full load of cattle during a cyclone, The Ningaloo Aquarium and Discovery Centre which was worth a look, a boat trip on the Yardie Creek which was fantastic to see all the little rock wallabies in the crevices and the ospreys on their nests in the big towering gorge walls as well as doing the bush walk from the top part of the Yardie Creek Gorge. Was great to see both aspects of the gorge. Our guide for the Yardie Creek tour was Boxy, been here since he was 5 years old, of German decent! He was fantastic in giving us a bit of history as well as wildlife info. Boxy actually worked as a firefighter out on the Learmonth RAAF Base before he took on this job as a tour guide. Then Mandu Mandu Gorge hike it was pretty but nothing like a Kings Canyon and we were totally exhausted after these two hikes back to back. A totally amazing experience here and to think Exmouth only came in existence in 1963 so a very new town for Australia! 1963 marked when the town was built for US
DENHAM
Emus and all up the main drag and Aussie soldiers and families to live here to support the Harold Holt transmitter towers which are just incredible, still in operation as they were back then, one transmitter stands at 387m, and is higher than the Eiffel Tower or Empire State Building, all built to withstand the cyclone winds up to 500klm/hr. It would have been a sight to see all the American cars, bowling alleys, baseball fields etc and they had duel currency as well. The transmitter facility and the space surveillance telescope is still mainly funded by the US Government. After three great days at Yardie Homestead to explore the west side of Cape Range National Park and then our old friend from Melbourne, Keith, offered his home for us to park the van and spend a couple of nights with him on RAAF Base Learmonth which was very convenient to explore the east side of the park. Some of you will remember Keith from when he lived in Yarraville, he is currently managing three defence facilities in WA but lives full-time in Exmouth. We had a few lovely meals with Keith and his new fiance Jo, and really enjoyed our time with them. The Charles Knife
Canyon and also the Shothole Canyon were absolutely a big surprise and so stunningly beautiful, we thoroughly enjoyed our day at these two canyons. So sadly we are leaving Exmouth and off inland to Tom Price and Karijini National Park.
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