Sunday 19th November – Cape Range National Park

I’m not sure if it was the direct sunlight or my body clock adjusting but I was wide awake by 630am and needed to get out of the warm camper.  I spent some time in the shade by the pool until Simon had stirred and we set off to explore Cape Range National Park. 

There are some mountains and deep gorges that sound beautiful to see, however only for the 4WDers.  Not a problem for us, we were just there to snorkel Ningaloo reef.  The experts yesterday had advised us to head for turquoise bay where you can do a drift snorkel in some amazing turquoise water and also a site called Lakeside where we were guaranteed some turtle action, apparently.  Cape Range is about 50km further on from Exmouth.  We used our park pass for entry (literally, get in!) and drove firstly to turquoise bay as it was the furthest point we were going today.  What a stunning beach and stretch of ocean.  Thankfully, I’d read some instructions about the best method to snorkel the drift so we walked to our left 100m or so before kitting up and swimming out, initially against the current and through some choppy waves that was quite hard work.  But once we were in the current it floated us down parallel with the beach at quite a pace. Simon spotted an octopus, we saw a turtle, a lobster and tons of fish. 

Yay, a turtle!  Below - blue triggerfish

They warned to head out at the sand bar on the end of the beach before the currents got too strong for swimming.  It was quite a wild ride!  I got out and climbed the sand dune, giving me a view of the sheltered bay below.

We were considering heading back for a second ride on the current but a lady approached us to say that they had just had a great time swimming with turtles in the sheltered bay, so we opted to test the water there instead.

Almost the first thing we saw was a large turtle which Simon joined for a swim.  We went off searching for more and got lucky seeing our first reef shark of the trip.  Sadly, I was so excited to see it that I failed to operate the GoPro in time to capture it (more like a GoAmateur I’m afraid).

Spot the blurry shark!

blue=spotted ray

It’s easy to lose track of time and your location when you’re just floating around, swimming between bommies (what they call pillars or rocks of coral out here).  We almost headed out to sea at one point but I started getting cold so it was time to move on.

Off to Lakeside.  We made like reptiles and lay in the sun for a while to warm ourselves through, before hiking almost half a kilometre further up the beach to find the snorkelling point.  There were two marker buoys indicating where the best corals were.  I’m glad we knew that, the rest of the beach was very weedy!  We headed into the waves and saw one of the largest turtles I’ve ever seen.  It was resting on some coral getting cleaned by some Wrasse and its eyes were half closed as if in total bliss!  He seemed totally unaware of our presence as we swam around him and that was where we left him. 

Resting turtle

Onwards and there was some amazing bright yellow coral with some rather large Trevally swimming around.  I was secretly hoping to spot another shark but they were clearly sticking to the deeper water.

One of the locals at the campsite

We must have been in the water for a good couple of hours today and we were shattered.  Driving back towards Exmouth we stopped by the lighthouse to get some late afternoon views of the stunning ocean below us.  We returned to our pitch just before dusk, showered and ate before calling it an early night.