2006/07 Australia trip - Cape Range |
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Eventually we dragged ourselves away, and continued down the Coastal Highway, and took the turnoff for Exmouth and Cape Range park. Cape Range is a peninsula jutting out into the Indian Ocean. The seaward side is a national park, but the side on the bay has the touristy town of Exmouth, an airforce base, and some communications towers.
We drove into the park along Shothole Canyon, passing some feral goats. This road dead-ends in the midst of the mountains but it’s an interesting drive. “Shothole” is a good name as the mountains look like they are shot full of holes, but the name actually dates back to when they were looking for oil in these mountains, and doing seismic profiles. There are caves and holes and great mouths eroded out of the cliff faces. These are all caused by wind erosion, and the wind was still working when we cooked lunch at the end of the road and got sandblasted. Shothole is a weird and desolate spot.
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Shothole Canyon (1.26) |
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We took advantage of the town of Exmouth to stock up on supplies. There seemed to be a lot of new construction there, partly because of the tourism boom and partly because of rebuilding after Category 5 Cyclone Vance back in 1999.
We drove up to Bundegi to see the Indian Ocean up close. This is at the northern tip of the famous Ningaloo Reef, where people snorkel to see the coral and also to swim with the whale sharks. The sharks are enormous, the size of buses, but they are harmless, as they only eat plankton. However, the locals tell the story of the diving group that found an oversize tiger shark and all leapt into the water around it thinking it was a whale shark! The whale sharks are only there for a couple of months ending in June so we had missed them by a few weeks.
Bundegi gave us our first direct view of the Indian Ocean. With the reef’s protection, the water was blue and calm, and the 
beach was white coral sand. The place was also a bit too popular, with people and boats everywhere (but not in this picture!), so we were going to move into Cape Range park as soon as a camping spot opened up – yes, the park was full too, as the school holidays still had one day to go.
Now that we’d reached the Indian Ocean coast, we were going to be moving steadily further south towards Perth and then taking the long drive from Perth to Adelaide and back to Melbourne, so this seems a good spot to end part 2 of the journal. Part 3 will cover our trip down Western Australia’s Indian Ocean coast, across the Nullabor, and along the Great Ocean Road.
Love to you all from Pete and Sandie