Ningaloo

I visited Ningaloo with my daughter who had travelled with me on a quick trip around the Pilbara. She loves swimming and so we made a detour and headed for Ningaloo. What surprised me about Ningaloo and the
Cape Range National Park was its untamed rugged beauty. It is found just out of Exmouth on the Yardie Creek Road. There are no hotels/motels and has little accommodation or shops, catering to the campers with nothing more than a long-drop loo and a bin. This suited us. We were here in early January (the off-peak season) and the weather was perfect (around 33-35 degrees C) and there were few people here at this time of year. National Park entrance and camping fees apply.

I had never snorkeled before as I don't enjoy swimming but at the last minute brought a snorkel and mask. After all this is the largest fringing reef in the world and you only have to step out into the water and paddle around. After choking for awhile I soon got the hang of it and went for a swim inside the reef. A whole new world opened up to me filled with wondrous creatures and coral!! It was truly amazing to see the amount of fish with so many colours and such variety. It was an amazing experience to swim here.

Turquoise Bay

Yardie Creek Road. There is no camping, shops or accommodation here.

These photographs do not do the fish any justice! I just had the one disposable camera and I knew the colours wouldn't come out so I didn't take photographs of the wonderful variety of corals. At Turquoise Bay you could swim off the beach around 10metres from the shore you will start to see coral but the further out you go the better it gets, you can't touch the bottom. You have to be very careful not to stand on the fragile coral as it can snap easily and in some places the currents were strong and pushed you towards the outer reef. There are no whale sharks here at this time of year and the whale sharks and dugongs are found on the outside of the reef.

This fish was huge and came within a metre of me

Here I am underwater

Huge clams

Every time we went out for a swim we saw different fish and corals.

There were sea stars, sea slugs and a huge hermit crab. Please don't feed the fish, I saw one guy feeding the fish and when he had finished the fish didn't know and bit him sending him running from the water. At no time did we feel threatened by any fish or sea creatures.

Osprey Camping area

This is just one of the camping areas along Yardie Creek Road. Unfortunately I didn't get a lot of time to look through this area but it did appear to have a good reptile population. I saw a small brown snake, a grey striped gecko, skinks one trying to catch a moth on sunset, a small monitor and a perentie in our camping area. I also saw many Euro kangaroo's (35 in one night), red kangaroo's, little birds darting around the low bushes and on our car in the morning drinking the moisture, Osprey's, Wedge tail eagles, birds of prey, an emu walked through camp, hopping mice tracks, fox tracks and many feral goats passed through the camp morning and evening. We swam off here but didn't find it to be as good as Turquoise Bay but other more experienced swimmers swam out to the reef and said it was fantastic.

Don't forget to check out our flora of Western Australia pages to see the flowering plants of this area in January.

We had a look at the beaches at the other camping areas and saw star fish, clams, huge turquoise colour fish
in ankle deep water, another brown ray, and coral and sea eggs washed up on the beaches. Some beaches had a lot of pebbles.

Inlet to Yardie creek where there are mangroves and black swans were swimming.

Yardie creek crossing. It changes with the tide also the ramp onto the sand was fairly steep for small 4WD's. I had to help push one out.

You can walk up here along the gorge, it is about a 2 hour return walk.

A female Euro and her joey. The Euros here have adapted to drinking the salt water.

We also saw an Osprey flying off with its prey, skinks and a ray just off shore.

In January the turtles come up the beach to lay their eggs in a burrow that they dig out. We wanted to see this so we went down to the beach at night only to discover the beach was covered in crabs of many different colours and sizes. We tried to ignore them but they come right up to the parking area.

We went again the next night determined not to be scared off by the crabs but they kept coming closer and closer. To protect the turtles you are asked not to use a torch so once again we retreated off the beach but we did see the turtles a metre off shore bobbing in the shallows waiting for the sun to go down before they headed up the beach.

Go here to see our video of the crabs coming up the beach at night.

Minilya Exmouth Road then Coral Bay Road. This is not apart of Cape Range National Park
but it is in the Ningaloo Marine Park.

All the coral in the immediate bay here is apparently dead due to the boats and its unsafe to swim here due to the boating traffic.

I mention Coral Bay here but not as a hotspot but as an example of what happens when commercialism takes over. As soon as you drive down the street into the small area of Coral Bay you are immediately bombarded with signs all trying to get you to spend your money on tours, accommodation, hire equipment etc.

There is no comparison for those who want to enjoy nature between the camps further up the Ningaloo Marine Park on Yardie Creek Rd to this over crowded place. You are not allowed to camp any where but in the tiny camping areas in the caravan parks, you risk being fined if you do even when the caravan parks are fully booked.

This ray was the highlight of coming here. It swam past in the shallow water around the point of Coral bay

You can snorkel around the point in the reef (top right of the photo above). We found the water to be quite deep and the current strong. On the day we visited there was no where near the amount or variety of fish that we saw further up the Ningaloo Marine Park.

We had planned to stay longer here but couldn't stand the crowds, commercialism and strong winds.

We wanted to see the Reef Sharks that come here at this time of year to breed. But no-one could tell us exactly where to find them or when the best time was. (there were no sings along the beach). We were told three different things and one shop wanted to charge us for telling us the tide times. (I felt due to the tour operators wanting bushiness little information was given to help those who didn't want to do a tour). It was approx a 2 kilometer walk both ways and the strong wind whipped stinging sand around our legs. Eventually after three trips we found them. Around 40 sharks came into the shore. Of course you wouldn't swim with them but you could stand ankle deep around 3-5 metres from them. They were around 1/2 metre long. Obviously don't feed them or you may feed them more than you intend too.
Go Here to see our video of the Reef sharks

Coral Bay