Ningaloo Station (Nyinggulu Coastal Reserve) and Carnarvon - 4 to 16 September

Ningaloo Station - South Lefroy Bay

Ningaloo has always been very special for us. This is our 7th visit to Ningaloo Station. Every time it's been amazing and a totally different experience.

The road in is 47kms of what's often described as the worst road around. It takes us 1.75 hours to travel this 47kms with our van connected. It's a bit faster without the van, just shy of 1 hour. The corrugations are relentless and unforgiving. The road is in better condition than before, but it's only marginally better!

Our first 2.5 days, the wind was really blowing, but not as hard as what we've experienced here in the past. On previous visits it's been windy enough to blow a dog off its chain! So at least all the dogs were safe, but it was certainly strong enough to limit our activities.

The National Parks in their wisdom have stopped camping on the beach or even behind the first row of small dunes. All the campsites are now behind substantial dunes, except for the actual beach camping sites 1-12 which are really exposed to the elements. And we wonder how long it'll be before they totally stop people from camping on the beach.

Our site from atop of "our dune"

So we were a little disappointed when we first got to our site. It wasn't what we were expecting or what we have had in the past. But after 2.5 days of wind we were quite grateful that we were behind a dune. Shame we couldn't see the beach and ocean when sitting outside our van though. We had to scurry up the sand dune and we could sit up there and enjoy the vista.

Sunsets were a short relocation of chairs and table to the beach, which wasn't too inconvenient.

View from our dune

But after 9 nights here we were more than happy with our site behind the dune. It was certainly more protected than being on the beach, and the exercise we got trudging up our sand dune to see the water also kept us fit.

Chuck and Sue's dune! We had one each :)

Our days were filled with long lazy walks alone the beach and lots of swimming.

Jayne and Chuck's younger brother Rod and his wife Robyn flew from Sydney (via Perth) to Exmouth to join us for 5 nights. They hired camping equipment from Exmouth - tent, bedding, table, toilet etc etc. Chuck picked them up from the airport, and the wind was still blowing when they arrived at Ningaloo at sunset. It was all hands on deck to get the tent set up in the dark with the wind blowing. Car headlights were switched on, and the 6 of us turned into a well oiled machine setting up their camp.

The next morning was cool, but hallelujah, the wind had stopped blowing, and we had magical calm warm days.  Living on the sand is a different experience, and the Dyson vacuum cleaner came in very handy keeping the sand down to a reasonable level, either in a tent or caravan.  Rod and Robyn quickly got used to living on the sand, and with the sand. Our time together was lots of fun and very special, and it was great to be able to show off our special place, and experience the great Australian West Coast.

Early morning coffee - still a bit cool

Yes, sunsets again! :)

Lots of fun times were had, with many laughs and cheers to sunset occurred every night

With the whales moving south towards their home in Antarctica, we enjoyed whale watching again. They were a bit further away on the other side of the reef, but we could still see these majestic monsters powering south in pods of around 5 whales. One morning we saw about 6 of these pods within an hour.  At night you could hear them flapping and breaching on the water. It sort of sounds like a car door shutting, but different.

The top of our dune was ideal for whale watching

We spent our time together snorkelling with the turtles, and coral and fish viewing.  It was amazing to watch the the turtles power away from you with just one small flick of their fins and then they were gone. The coral is close enough to just walk out from the beach, and the water warm enough to spend ages swimming around.

Swimming with Turtles involved a 4WD excursion or a 3 km walk up the beach, we did both!

Great fun driving up and down the dunes

A turtle head looking up at us

We did a 4WD excursion to the 100 year old whaling station. You can read its history on one or our previous blogs here. Scroll down to the section titled Norwegian Bay Whaling Station.

Getting there involves driving up and over sand dunes which is lots of fun. 

After being decimated in years gone by, the whale numbers have recovered to what they are today.

Old whaling equipment

After their 5 special days with us, it was time for Rod and Robyn to leave. We piled all the camping gear into our car, drove that terrible road once again, and dropped them off at the airport. We continued on into Exmouth and returned the camping gear, filled up 3 water bladders, had lunch, did some shopping and drove 2.5 hours back to our beach camp via Yardie Creek just for a change.  The road is still bad, but at least there was a nice view of the water on one side, and escarpment on the other.  Unfortunately we can't take the caravan along this route as the road is too narrow and windy. 

And we had the bonus of seeing 2 French backpackers bogged in the sand trying to work out how to get out of the mess they'd got themselves into.  We couldn't help them, but somebody would have towed them out. 

Chuck's car

Coral Bay

After 9 beautiful days at Ningaloo it was time to leave for more adventures. 

Coral Bay is just south of Ningaloo, so we stopped in for mornos, lunch and a walk along the beach and through the village.

If you wanted to experience the Ningaloo Coast with an easy drive in and accommodation either camping with facilities or cabins, then Coral Bay is your place. There's a small group of shops with a great bakery and plenty of activities to get involved in - swimming with whale sharks, quad biking, snorkelling etc.  We've stayed here before as it's very nice and comfortable, and a lot easier than the drive into Ningaloo Station. We looked at staying here heading south, but at $78 per night for a back caravan site with no view of the water, and have to unhook the van, we decided to move on to the free camp at Minilya. 

Leaving Coral Bay we crossed south over the Tropic of Capricorn. We've been in the tropics for over 3.5 months now. It's going to be cooler from here on, but hopefully down south will warm up for us!

We spent the night at the Minilya free camp and walked across the road to the roadhouse for dinner.  We got there at 6:17 pm, and the kitchen closed at 6:15 pm.  Luckily the cook felt sorry for us, and as long as we wanted something deep fried he'd cook it for us.  We happily settled on chicken parmi with chips and salad.  We walked back to our vans for an early night after a hard day packing up and driving out of Ningaloo Station on that terrible road for the last time (for a while anyway).

Our free camp at Minilya River rest area

Carnarvon

Carnarvon was for restocking supplies and washing. So many dirty clothes, Jayne spent a whole day washing - hanging washing out, bringing washing in, and folding washing!!  Even the car and caravan got a wash, although this was probably a bad idea as we decided to head into the outback on more dirt roads.

This is where we planned to leave Chuck and Sue after 80 days (nearly 3 months) together.  The 4 of us have been un-zippered and are now going our separate ways. We're taking the inland route to south WA then heading east for home.  Chuck and Sue are taking the coast road and enjoying more of WA before heading home.

It was a sad occasion with big hugs and lots of well wishes and reminiscing over the last 11 weeks of adventures.  The time has gone so quickly from when we first met them in Darwin.

Carnarvon is an important fruit and vegetable growing area with bananas and mango trees everywhere.  It's also the windiest place around.  The wind is relentless from sun up to sundown, and we were glad to be leaving.

Leaning trees due to the wind

Our last night together was celebrated with a meal at the Carnarvon Hotel and of course another sunset!

And sunset cheers!

Old and new vehicles

Old stuff near the old jetty

Playing trams

So far, we've travelled 12,100kms. Half way?