Cape Range National Park

Last night we ate the Bald Chin Groper Serge gave us. Russ BBQed him wrapped in foil and he was delicious. Half a fish was enough for us so we picked the other half off the bones and will make a fish pie tomorrow night. For all of you who worry we eat nothing but fish, tonight we are having chicken!

Today we went to the Cape Range National Park which runs along side the Ningaloo Reef. The Cape Ranges are low, rocky, weathered and very old. The gorges through the park have fossilized shells and coral so it was all part of the old sea bed.
Yardie Creek Cape Range NP


It got pretty warm out there, so we wished we’d taken our flippers and snorkels because the reef looked so nice. Before we left this morning, we got some ice, cleaned out the fridge and freezer and put what we could in the esky. The sauces and veggies that wouldn’t fit had to come in our little battery operated car cooler with us to the national park!
Fishermen at Sunset on Ningaloo Reef


Right now as I’m writing this, Russ is down fishing off the beach and I am sitting at the Lighthouse Lookout which is the only place I can come to check my phone and e-mails. I’m a b it sad, aren’t I?

Heading to Exmouth

Our last day at Coral Bay was another perfect one. We went fishing and although we only brought home one cod, it is so lovely out there it doesn’t matter. I made friends with a couple-Serge and Ayoko who brought us a fish they had speared for us whilst diving. He’s a Bald Chin Groper and he’s our dinner tonight in Exmouth. They apologized for him being small, but he is about 55cm, so more than enough for the two of us. James and Beth spent the day swimming and snorkeling (James was thrilled when a dolphin swam right along side him), then we all went out for dinner.

I don’t know if it’s because I don’t eat much of it (my diet seems to revolve around fish), but my steak was one of the best I’ve ever eaten-cooked perfectly rare, with beautiful garlic prawns on top. Yum. The other 3 had bug tails (huge bug tails) with the same garlic prawns over them. The bugs were much nicer and sweeter than any lobster I’ve ever eaten! We shared a couple of nice bottles of wine and had a great night out.

We left Coral Bay this morning and headed to Exmouth (most famous I think for swimming with the whale sharks, especially when you see how many tour operators the town has). As we left town a tourist was stopped-photographing a big kangaroo just lying in the shade of a small tree by the side of the road. About 100metres on, 5 emus strolled across the road in front of us. It all seemed like it had been staged by the local tourism group!

It was quite an interesting drive through fairly flat country at first that was covered with hundreds of thousands of large termite’s nests. That went on for about 100ks, and then we arrived at Learmonth which is a RAAF base but also has a large ultra modern civil airport next door. After Learmonth, we had the Indian Ocean on one side and the Cape Ranges on the other. The ranges look amazing, so we will take a 120k drive through them tomorrow and I am really tempted to take a flight over them. I don’t like flying too much but I can imagine it would be worth it. It all seems fairly lush around here too after the country we’ve been through.

Exmouth has over 3000 people, so has 2 supermarkets and quite a nice shopping mall. Also a few restaurants so we may meet James and Beth again for a night out. It was great to stock up at an (almost) reasonable price again in the supermarket today. We are staying at the Lighthouse caravan park 17kms from town. It’s really quite nice, but I have no phone or internet coverage. I’ll have to take both with me into town to let everybody know that. Travelling out to the park we passed a big Naval Base, so Exmouth must do OK having that and the air force so close by.

Coral Bay

Russ and I are just about to leave Coral Bay Thursday and head for Exmouth for a week. It’s still on the Ningaloo Reef, but I can’t imagine it being as beautiful a place. Any of you who’ve been here will know it’s really special. There have been a couple of attempts to build big resorts here and we were pleased to be told the latest failed on Friday which is great-a hotel the size they had planned would ruin it here.

We were really pressured to move on as bookings are increasing as the school holidays get closer. Over the actual holidays there isn’t a site left in the park. After a week in Exmouth we move to Onslow (and mud crabs off the jetty we’ve been told) for a week, Karratha for a week, Port Headland for 4 nights then we turn round and head back to Perth. That will be the end of the school holidays thank goodness. We are giving ourselves 8 nights to travel through the Pilbara and Mount Tom Price before arriving in Denham on August 1st for a week or so. I had a nice e-mail from Denise (formerly from Warrnambool) and she tells me the wild flowers are starting up North. Hopefully we’ll start and see some soon. It’s very dry though and that affects them. We’ve only had one night of rain in the last month.

On August 15th we are flying via Bangkok to the UK where we’ll catch up with my son Mick before heading on a 3 week tour of Europe. We’ll then have another 12 days in the UK before heading home via Bangkok again but this time we’ll stop over for 5 nights. We’re both looking forward to it a lot, but with the wonderful days we are having up here, we’re certainly not wishing the time away!

Yesterday Russ took our neighbour James out fishing. They seemed to have a great day out fishing and who wouldn't-it’s like fishing in an aquarium when the water is still, with more sizes, colours and species of fish than imaginable. One trigger fish we catch occasionally looks like a kid‘s been asked to paint it. They are beautiful, put up a great fight, and then go back. It's actually fun just to drop a tiny hook and bait out and watch the fish (sometimes maybe more than 50 of various types) follow it up. We've seen a few turtles go by as we fish too.

James and Beth came for tea last night as Russell cooked all the fish that was caught. I made a salad and Beth bought chips at the park’s restaurant, it was great and it’s how we plan to entertain when we get home. Everyone will bring their own knife, fork and plate, chair, glass and wine. It’s so easy.

Russell actually caught a 55cm Spangled Emperor yesterday from our little boat using one of our very light bream rods. I know it’s an amazing feat because I caught one 6cm smaller the day before and could hardly land it! James caught a cod and they threw back heaps of fish undersized stuff. I have made friends with a Japanese woman and her partner. They were out fishing near Russ and James and pulled along side them out on the water to share some sashimi they had prepared. Ayoko flies home to Japan from Perth next week and I think she’ll miss all this so much (even in Japan it would be hard to get sashimi so fresh).

We’ve had a couple of goes at snorkeling which is pretty amazing. We walk over to the beach (about 200 metres, then into the water and there is the Ningaloo Reef. It’s just there! No expensive cruise to take you out. Just walk in! I saw a blue spotted ray the other day being herded by a pink snapper bigger than anything we’ve ever caught. The snapper actually follow the boat out as we leave to go fishing and sometimes we have had up to 40 of them behind us. We have to leave the park before we can fish (that takes us about 15 minutes) so the fish seem as though they are teasing us.

James and Beth will be in Onslow at the same time as us, so Russ has agreed to take Beth out and teach her how to crab.

Sunshine, Snorkeling, Sailing-We're Staying!

It’s Saturday and our last day in Coral Bay, except that we’ve decided to extend that another week! The weather has been perfect (a bit cloudy today though) and we can’t think of a good reason to race off from somewhere so nice. There are still fish to be caught, snorkeling to be done and the lovely warm (and usually pretty empty) salt water pool when the other stuff fails.

Yesterday we did as we’d planned and snorkeled, then went out on the big catamaran for a sunset sail. It was a bit rough snorkeling, but still pretty special-there are so many varieties, colours and sizes of fishes and corals. It’s unbelievable! And it’s all so close handy and free to do again tomorrow! And the water temperature is a hard to take 24c now it's winter here!
The sailing was wonderful too. Although we’ve been out on the same water, it was great in a large boat with a glass of wine in our hands, with someone else at the wheel! It was fun too to talk to the Kiwi deckhand John who came here for a few days and hasn’t left. He works on the boat, does dishes three nights at one of the two restaurants and also works on the quad bike tours. He gets fed at the restaurant, so eats steak on those nights and otherwise, catches fresh fish or crays. He didn’t think he ate seafood until he came here, but realizes he’d just never eaten fresh stuff.

We came home from sailing to find we had new neighbours-a couple of young (21 or 2ish) English girls travelling in a small mobile home. They have some young Scottish boys they’ve palled up with in the camping section so they came over too. We had a great talk about where we should go in the UK whilst we’re there. They have a year in Aus and love it-they love the conversion rate and the fact everything seems so cheap as well! Their motor home cost them $2000 for 43 days which they think is wonderful when the put it into pounds!

Heaven is the Ningaloo Reef

It’s day 4 in Coral Bay and we are about to go fishing again. Yesterday we caught lots of fish, but I caught the only 2 we could bring home and eat for our lunch (a yellow finned emperor and a snub nosed trevally). I can see us staying on an extra day or two as the weather is wonderful and Russ hasn’t actually managed to get time to snorkel over the reef yet. If we travel slowly too, we might manage to meet some friends from Warrnambool in Exmouth if they decide it’s worth the drive (to swim with the whale sharks).

The night before last, a couple of young girls camping near us woke the whole park going for rides with a couple of staff on one of the quad bikes they all ride around here. After we’d fished, I went into the office to make a complaint (it really was very annoying at 2 am) and who should be booking in but Fred and Robyn Hughson (and yes Mick, they remember you shopping with Isaac and Isaac!). They only stayed the night, but came over and spent an hour or so chatting with us last night.

Yesterday we had a quite large gecko by our front door for a few hours. He was catching flies and at one stage ran right over my foot to do it. It was funny but even funnier when he ran full speed about 5 metres and ran up the leg of the 6 y.o next door. He jumped higher and shrieked louder than me!

Today we had a big day out fishing in our little boat. We caught heaps of fish (maybe 50) that we threw back, only a few we kept for dinner tomorrow. As it turns out, we could have kept many Charlie Court Cod we caught to give us another couple of feeds. We thought they were undersized, but there is no size and ours were pretty good.


I feel like I’ve died and gone to heaven here. It’s warm (28 to 30c)with no humidity through the day, the nights are a bit cooler and it is so laid back and relaxed. Tomorrow we are going snorkeling, then on a sunset cruise on a local sail boat.

30c+ in Coral Bay

Monday was a wonderful 30c+ day spent with Cath snorkeling in the morning (well, 11.30-2 pm) and after a quick late lunch, swimming at the pool. Russ and Ron took the boat out and had a lot of fun catching lots of different fish (none big enough to bring home), then joined us back at the pool for a quick swim. They both reckoned boating over the corals was pretty amazing too. We had a quick drink with Cath and Ron then came home and had a yummy garlic prawn pizza for tea. All that fresh air and exercise had me ready for bed very early.

Today is not quite so warm, so after saying goodbye to Rona dn Cath who have headed north, I have done some washing and Russ is under the van doing battle with our leaking foot pump. That is turning out to be a horrible job. I’d say a swim will be looking mighty good in the next hour or so.

Coral Bay

We managed to find a site in Coral Bay for 3 nights, but when we saw the site, booked an extra 2 nights. Now if we go back and book one more, we get 7 for the price of 6-just as well, as it’s pretty pricey.

We are 1131ks North of Perth and crossed the Tropic of Capricorn getting here yesterday. The “town” is tiny, 2 caravan parks, a pub, backpackers and a tiny shopping centre. Luckily we had the good sense to buy up in Carnarvon, because every tin or packet we bought was basically another dollar dearer here and milk $4.20 for 2 litres. This is a remote area though. The only people allowed to live here are those working full time in the local businesses.

They use hot, salty artesian water here, and it’s not recommended to connect the van up to it as it quickly rusts every pipe. Desalinated drinking water is available at taps throughout the park so we go and fill bottles and the kettle from the one nearest us. The showers and toilets are connected to the artesian water. When we leave, we are allowed to fill the van tank-the first 20 litres is free, every 10 after that $1. We had been warned in Carnarvon that drinking water was scarce until we get to Karratha, so had already filled our tank.

Our van is about 100 metres from the supermarket, and about 200 metres from the beach. 50 metres into the water and you are swimming over the Ningaloo coral reef. It is all so beautiful and so easily accessible. The area in front of the resort is a sanctuary, so the fish are very bold and cheeky and swim up and around you. We have flippers and will be able to hire snorkels and masks very cheaply. It was 30c when we arrived yesterday at 1pm and cooled off to about 17c by 9pm. It’s 10am and 25c as I’m writing this, so a day at the beach is looking pretty good (and 5 more after that).

As Russell was directing me to park the van on the site yesterday, someone called out “you’re doing a good job Russell!” It was Ron who’d been camped near us in Denham. He and Kath are from Melbourne and are travelling with their 2 cats. They were moving on today, but I think they are now staying so he can help Russ launch the boat out and work out the allowed fishing zones. Last night we sat and had a few drinks with them which was really nice. It made for a rather late dinner though!

Mile Jetty and Rocky Pool

This morning we went to the growers market and stocked up on more fresh fruit, veg and herbs. Then we took a walk down and back along the Mile Jetty where we saw heaps of huge schools of tiny fish being chased by bigger fish.

After lunch we took a drive about 55ks out to Rocky Pool on the Gascoyne River. It’s very beautiful and very popular with free campers and day trippers (like us). We travelled through a few stations (large ranches for those of you not from Aus), so there were cattle and sheep wandering across the road as we went.


Tonight Russ made some of our crab meat (caught in Denham) and prawns (we bought them here) into his best crab cakes yet.

Tomorrow we head further North either to Coral Bay or Exmouth. Coral Bay is on the Ningaloo Reef and supposed to be very beautiful, but there is only one caravan park, so we may not get in. Exmouth is larger with many more parks, and supposedly good fishing, so we expect more chances of getting a site there!

Haircuts

There was much excitement today as we went and booked ourselves a “holiday”. We are leaving in 2 months for 11 days in the UK, 3 weeks in Europe, 3 more days in London, then 5 days in Bangkok before arriving home in Perth. I am so excited and don’t think I’ll sleep until we go!

Apart from booking our holiday, we both went and got much needed haircuts (from a very chatty NZ hairdresser) then went for a drive out through the market gardens stopping to buy a big pumpkin, a couple of zucchinis and BANANAS! We saw them here in the supermarket for $7; Tomoko (who lived with us) told me she saw them in Melbourne for $20, so I was thrilled to pay $4per kg! It was a great drive along the Gascoyne River which sometimes disappears completely under the sand, forms big pools at other times, but is always bordered by big, beautiful gums.

I’m not so happy here, so we are moving on Sunday rather than staying the whole week.

Carnarvon

We arrived in Carnarvon early this afternoon after leaving Denham at 9.30 this morning. It’s a nice little town in places and incredibly grubby in others. The best thing though is to be able to drive to the outskirts and buy fresh tomatoes, cucumbers, capsicum, avocado, limes etc etc etc and so cheaply. Russell said it reminded him of arriving in Mildura with all the orchards and market gardens.

It’s also great to have a couple of major supermarkets again too (it was very limited in Denham). We had finished shopping and were heading to the car when we ran into Fred and Robyn Hewson.

The caravan park is quite crowded (they only had 5 sites left when we arrived) and I doubt it will be as social as Denham, but I think we can amuse ourselves for a week before heading further north. I did say to Russell that I was homesick though (for Denham Caravan Park where we’ve had so much fun).

We Weakened and Went Fishing Again!

Heading Out

Today was meant to be a day spent packing up, but the weather and water were perfect for fishing-so guess what we did? We went fishing of course and booked yet another night here so we can pack tomorrow. Packing is not too big a deal, but the boat needs to go back on the roof of the car, the trailer folded up and put on the back of the van, the back of the car cleaned out and a bit of washing (yucky smelly fishing clothes especially) done too.

It was absolutely the most beautiful day of all the ones we’ve had out today. The water was what they call “oily”-you know the glassy, still, like a mill-pond sort of look. It was like that out and back and we were able to really move today (doing the boats top speed of 40 nautical miles per hour) which was great fun. Unlike yesterday, we caught 11 huge fish-Russell catching the biggest, a 64cm Black Snapper and a Rankin cod. Even the fisheries and wildlife officer who came down to meet the boat and check our catch said Russ’s blacky was one of the biggest he has seen this year!
Our Neighbour Brice and the Second to Biggest Fish of the Day


The beautiful water made it really easy to spot heaps and heaps of dolphins, dugongs, schools of fish and a big green back turtle. We passed the turtle and it was funny to see him turn his head and look at us as we went on.

Brice, Russell and I ate one side of the cod cooked on the BBQ for dinner tonight and I think he was the best tasting of all our fishes so far. The BBQ’s are a good set up here. They are spread through out the park and you just go and get one and bring it back to your van to cook on. It lives out front your van until someone else needs it and carries it off. I think there are 3 on this level.

No Fish Today

We went fishing with Brice today for the last time along with another couple Dallas and Harold. It was a “black day” according to Brice’s fishing almanac, so should have been the best day there can be for fishing. Obviously fish don’t read because we didn’t catch one we could bring home. Still it was a beautiful day on the water-I saw a couple of lots of dolphins, we saw a manta ray leaping a few times from the water, a salt ship leaving Useless Loop headed for Japan and most exciting to Russ and I, 2 dugongs, then another about 20 minutes later. We went out towards the end of Dirk Hartog Is. and travelled home on the inside of it very close to shore for a long way. It was so beautiful I didn’t mind not catching fish!

Tonight the 5 of us are having dinner together-Dallas is bringing calamari and potatoes, we are doing rissoles and salad and Brice is cooking up some of the fish we caught previously.

Russ was down at the butchers when Fred Hewson from Warrnambool came up and said Hi. He’d seen the car parked by the boat ramp during the day! Glenda, he’s a local retired detective and owns 25 Panorama Avenue where you have sent the occasional birthday and Christmas card. He’s staying a few nights in the park, so we will try and catch up with him before we all leave Wednesday.

I think Russ and I will remember Denham as one of the best times we had on this trip and in fact, we may even head back here if it gets too busy up North and we have trouble getting sites.

More Crabs

The photo I posted shows you our site (van, tinny and car) on the right, and Brice's boat and vehicle to the left. The white gravel around the park is actually tiny shells from a beach near here.

This morning we went crabbing again and managed to catch ourselves 8 nice ones which are now cooked and frozen. We leave here Monday, so hope to get in a days fishing in the cat with Brice and one more days crabbing.

My son Daniel decided at the last moment to fly over for his 21st on Sunday (he’s arriving noon tomorrow). I contacted the bus company-its $340 return and 12 hours each way to Perth, the flight is about $600 return (getting more expensive the later you book!), so unfortunately, it doesn’t look like I will be catching up with him which makes me sad. At least he has his dad and lots of other family members in Perth to help him celebrate. It reminds us how remote Denham is. And that reminds me, we are now drinking de-salinated water as there is no fresh water supply here.

Yesterday we did a bit of cultural stuff rather than fishing or crabbing-we went to the very new big and shiny interpretative centre to learn more about the area past and present. It was good value (and they let us both in cheaper on that Senior’s Card).

Right now, I’m about to go and start cooking lamb shanks for our dinner-we have Brice eating with us tonight and so we’ll eat a little earlier than usual.

It's Crab Season in Denham

This morning Doreen (lady friend of our neighbour Brice) headed home to Bunbury. We got up at 5.45 to say goodbye as we’ve enjoyed her company a real lot. It seemed that they didn’t know each other too well but I think they got on pretty well apart from once when the game between Geelong and West Coast Eagles was getting exciting and she started to scream and yell encouragement to the Eagles. He came and sat with us for the last ¼ of the game saying “he couldn’t cope with that sort of carry-on!!!!!”

Crab season has just started here and a few people have been taking their boats over to Monkey Mia (28ks) to catch them. Russell went fishing the other night and discovered plenty of blue swimmer crabs (or blue mannas as the West Australians call them) in Little Lagoon 3ks away. He caught us 7 on Tuesday, so it was fresh crab sandwiches for lunch and some for the freezer. Today we caught 8 and they will be cooked and picked shortly to go into the freezer too. We have extended our stay here until next Monday to catch a few more and maybe have one more trip out in Brice’s big boat.

Fishing (again)

Yesterday (Sunday 4th) we went fishing (“again”?! I can hear some of you say!) It was a fairly nice day, so we went with Brice and Doreen for a look around at the other end of the waterways near here. We went out past Steep point, the most westerly point on the mainland and Into the Indian Ocean. On Friday we went to the most westerly point which is on an island!

We passed the usual schools of mackerel, tuna, pods of dolphin; we saw a number of huge osprey nests with birds sitting in them, and a shark when we anchored for lunch. We weren’t trying too hard for fish and got nothing out past Steep Point at 65 metres. We came back in to the shallower water (32metres) and straight away Russell caught a sweet lip emperor, then I caught a 61cm pink snapper and a sweet lip emperor. They were the only fish we caught that were worth keeping for the day between the 4 of us, so I was pretty pleased with myself. The four of us shared the 2 sweet lips for a huge feed of fish last night.

Fishing @Denham

We went out fishing with our neighbours Brice and Doreen today. They are an older pair of friends and Brice owns a huge shark cat that we took out 60kms to “The Shoals”. We were aiming for the change of tide, so were able to leave quite late (10am) which was pretty good. All of us packed lunch and snacks then headed off. It took us 2 hours to get to “the spot” as marked on his GPS where we dropped our lines. The boat limit of black snapper is 4 each or 16 in total and we had these by 1.30 when we pulled in our lines, ate our lunch then headed for home. Apparently some say “the Shoals” is fished out but not for us today-we had the best time pulling in our huge fish.

The ride in and out was pretty good-we saw schools of mackerel, tuna, dolphins and I saw a whale. It was as far as Russ and I have ever travelled west in the world too.

When we got home a crab seller going through the park sold Brice his last 15 blue swimmers for $10, so we sat round at their van and ate crab with salt, pepper vinegar and fresh bread. That’s after we finished filleting and packing all our fish for the freezer. A huge day out!

Monkey Mia

Francois Peron National Park

Wednesday 31st, we went out to Francois Peron National Park where we did a bit of serious 4WDing in the deep, deep, red, red sand! We ended up at the Big Lagoon for a bite of lunch and a bit of fishing-lunch was more successful than the fishing, but it was a beautiful spot with no one else out there.

This morning (June 1st and the first day of winter) we got up bright and early (for us at least) and went to see the dolphins fed on the beach at Monkey Mia. It was an expensive early start to see 4 females and 2 calves come in, get their 3 or 4 fish then leave. The National Geographic film on dolphins was the most interesting thing about the whole experience! Even my hot chocolate was expensive, mostly froth and lukewarm at best!

The weather has improved slightly with a drop in the wind so we’ll finally put the boat in the water after an early lunch and see if there are any whiting to be had. It seems the inshore area is pretty fished out, but it’ll be still good to go and try.

Our neighbour Bryce (with the VERY big shark cat) just dropped over and has asked if we would like to go out fishing with him sometime soon when the day is right. Hmmmmm let’s think about that for a milli-second. Of Course we would like to go out fishing with him!!!!