To Cape Range National Park

Tuesday 6^th May 2008

Let’s get out of here! The weather was decidedly overcast so the drive up to Exmouth was easy – I drove because I wanted to be able to say I’d done a share but I also knew that this would be a short trip!

In Exmouth we found that there were a couple things we couldn’t do – the road into Shothole Canyon is closed until it is fixed by the Main Roads department (which may not be all that soon, since I’m sure there are far more important ones to tidy up first) and Yardie Creek is impassable.

We filled up our water tanks at the Visitors’ Centre and stocked up our food in the town. They have two supermarkets almost next to each other and both are IGA s, WHAT?! They also had a Brumbys so hot sausage rolls and a couple of custard tarts were ordered up and eaten very quickly. Paul bumped into one of his customers and his wife – Hugh and Elina – Munich Motorcycles has feelers everywhere!

We then ventured into the National Park and checked what sites were available. The very friendly ranger offered us a place at Osprey Bay which sounded lovely but was the furthest away from everything – we didn’t have much option but Paul wasn’t too impressed.

It was definitely proper camping... no water, no power, long drop toilets and best of all, huge spaces between the sites with a great view over the ocean. No shade or shelter from the howling gale but you can’t have everything!

Tempers were a bit frayed by the end of setting up – the wind definitely didn’t help so we decided to go out and try something else. We drove down to Yardie Creek which was way smaller than I’d expected – another long drop toilet, a couple of cars in the car park and a couple of boats moored in the river mouth.

We got out the fly nets because there were plenty of the little buggers around. Katie had left behind her shoes so had to walk (mostly uncomplainingly) on a sharp gravel path that wound gently along the creek to a small lookout point. Holly even handed over her thongs to Katie for some of the short walk.

I was eyeing up the more tricky climb to the bend in the river above the canyon and luckily the girls were keen to do a bit of mild rock-climbing and Paul said he didn’t mind so we set off. It was fun and not too strenuous, until Holly stumbled, grabbed onto one of the marker poles and fell into a pile of rocks that weren’t doing a good job of holding the pole up! She suffered multiple scratches, some of which bled slightly (eliciting more sympathy than might otherwise have been forthcoming), and several exhortations to take more care when skipping down cliffs like a mountain goat.

The scrambling was worthwhile and we were all very grateful for the fly nets even if we did look a bit daft. There were good echoes from the canyon wall and a great view towards the beach and the sun low in the sky. The girls took it in turns to wear Holly’s thongs (great climbing shoes!) and we made it without event back to the car where first aid was administered to Holly (an antiseptic wipe followed by a good dose of listening to a story on the Ipod).

The rest of us walked down to the crossing to see if it really was impassable – HUH – while we were there a Prado waltzed through! It was a very nice stroll out to the low tide level with some excellent reflection on the creek water heading out towards the sunset.

Back at the camper we cooked for ourselves (yes, again!) on the outdoor stove and were feeling very pleased with ourselves – a great spot, a fantastic sunset, hardly a soul around, the wind had died down... but we were besieged by bugs – thousands of them – UGHHH! We sat out to try and eat – big mistake – Katie had an enormous bug land in her tomato ketchup and both girls immediately claimed it had put them off their food (they had just got to the point where they had eaten enough to stave off hunger pangs but not far enough that they would last til breakfast). As soon as dinner was eaten we beat a hasty retreat to the camper where we all got very crabby with each other until the girls were dispatched to bed (not that they went to sleep, of course, some sort of game that involved a lot of squealing had to happen first).