Woods Family Holiday

Friday, 13 September 2013

Coral Bay by Toby

The first thing we did today was go to the bouncy pillow. The we walked down to the beach to go snorkelling. We walked around a big rock and kept on walking. We (Samuel, Mum and I) saw a huge Moray eel that I spotted. It was a dark cream brown colour with black spots. It was swimming into the coral when I saw it. It was at least about 1 point something m. On the way back we walked past some holiday houses. Sitting right in front of the porch, on the grass, next to a palm tree, was an at least 2 m Perentie!!! At camp we had lunch and then went to the fish feeding down on the beach. There were heaps of spangled emperor. They started at one end of the crowd then go to the other. They did it again and again over and over. We got to feed them. There were so many that when they swam through your legs they sometimes brushed against you. The we walked over to the shark nursery. On the way I chased a school of fish. In the back part was a small blue spotted lagoon ray. Further along we started to see heaps of sharks. They were everywhere!

Coral bay

reef sharks

fish feeding

Ningaloo By Samuel

Today we drove to Turquoise bay, met the Scheffers and went snorkelling. I saw a turtle, an octopus and two black tip reef sharks, mum was scared out of her wits but Dad just started clucking around and calling her a chicken. We drove to Sandy Bay, the water was so calm and everyone had a swim except our Mums of course. We drove back to camp and put the boat in, we saw millions of turtles and a big ray out in the clear water. We went for snorkel and saw the biggest ray I have ever seen and lots of other fish. Dad and I went to the info centre to drop off our fins, I found out what a strange fish we’ve been seeing was called, the blue spine unicorn fish. Dad and I went to get the water and saw a group of zebra finches and two kangaroos, we got back and played at the beach for (you guessed it) the rest of the afternoon.

breakfast at the rangers station

ray

nice truck that towed our camper

Father’s day by Samuel

We got up, gave Dad his Father’s Day presents then set off. We got to Yardie creek crossing as it’s father’s day I’m not allowed to tell you that we got bogged and had to get a Landrover D4 to pull our camper trailer out, OK? We got to the other side and drove on a heavily corrugated road all the way to Coral Bay. We got a site at Bayview, there is two playgrounds, a pool and a jumping pillow. We went for a walk to the beach and then came back for a dinner of fish and chips (yuck!) and pizza (yum!).

Ningaloo by Toby

It was a nice morning even though it rained a bit. Then we went to the visitor centre and hired fins for two days. We drove to the drift section of Turquoise Bay. One side is the drift section and the other is the Bay section. In between is a big rip that pulls you out to sea.We walked down the beach a bit and then went in. The reef was amazing! The coral was all sorts of colours, shape and sizes. Samuel spotted a turtle that I went so close to that I could touch it! Later on Dad was naughty and patted one while trying to save some Germans with Mum. The bayside wasn’t as interesting though I did see an anemone fish. We played with the Scheffers all afternoon and had dinner with them.

oyster stacks

our friends at the beach

digging at the beach

snorkeling the bay at turquoise bay

night safari - ghost crab

more digging

Ningaloo by Lachlan

Today we went to Yardie creek gorge and saw rock wallabies, turtles, a stingray and fish. Then we went to Oyster stacks and Turquoise Bay. My favourite thing was snorkelling and I saw fish.

walking on the beach

in Josh's boat

no dogs as pets in coral bay

fish feeding at coral bay

Ningaloo Reef by Sue

From Karratha we headed down the road had a freebie overnight camp and then a quick stop in Exmouth before heading out to Yardie Homestead caravan park just outside Cape Range NP. Now for those who haven’t been clever enough to prebook a campsite (like us) you get to go and line up at the crack of dawn to try and get one in the NP. I was very clever and stayed in bed while Woodsy did this with Samuel, managing to dodge 2 kangaroos on the way……… number 3 wasn’t so lucky! but managed to hop off. Anyway the boys were 2^nd in line at 5.30am and scored a great campsite with shade and a view of the beach. So we stayed for 3 nights then another 3, then another 1 and then just 1 more night. What a fantastic place. Beautiful beaches, amazing snorkelling(Oyster stacks, Turquoise Bay and Lakeside), coral gardens, tropical fish, turtles, rays, gorges, our friends the Scheffers put their boat in a few times off our beach so we even got to out and enjoy the reef from a boat as well. Just to top it all off all the very social people we have met recently were all staying close by so we had lots of great company thanks to the Scheffers, Harveys and McLeans. The kids had a ball playing in the beach out the front of our campsite.

breakfast at the rangers station......2nd in line at 5.30!!! but totally worth it with a beaut camp

snorkeling oysters stack

Harveys and Scheffers and Woods' at Mesa

nice sunsets at Mesa

Yardie creek

black tailed rock wallaby

view from our camp

camp, this is one of very few with shade in the NP

"our" beach

out in the boat on the lagoon

turtles at the sancturary

turtle egg

I borrowed a camera!

turquoise bay bay

loading the boat

nice day's fishing by our neighbors

From Cape Range we headed down to Coral Bay and the poor SSangyong struck out for the first time as we crossed Yardie creek and stayed there half way across, stuck in the sand. Unhooked the trailer and she popped out no worries while a nice bloke in a Landrover cross monster truck came and rescued our trailer………most embarrassing. Kids thought it was a great adventure. We enjoyed Coral bay, (especially a nice long shower after using the shower tent for a week) though the snorkelling was not as specky as Cape range. The kids had some great diary entries for all this so I have popped them below……….enjoy!

stuck in yardie creek

tow vehicle.....did the job

coral bay

fish feeding at coral bay

Monday, 2 September 2013

Karijine to Karratha

The boys have voted Karijini the number one place to visit so far. The gorges, particularly Weano and Hancock where very challenging and the most difficult to get into but a great experience. We were lucky also to meet up again with the Scheffer family who we first met on the road months back on the way to Kalumburu and then again at 80 mile. We arrange to meet at Karijini and had a great time together, 5 kids and 4 adults walking and swimming all the gorges. Had a very cold night there, 3deg! Not prepared for this.

Susan enjoyed the shower tent we purchased in Broome, probably should have bought one earlier!!

Susan in the new shower tent

late afternoon swim in fern pool

always read the signs

our camp on a cold morning

From Karijini we left early for Tom Price as we had booked a mine tour. A massive operation, and certainly still plenty of growth in this area of the Pilbara. Quite a nice town with green parks, new skate park and a massive new sport complex (thanks to the royalties for regions and Rio Tinto) many workers live in town with their families plus a few fifo(fly in fly out) camps. Scheffers, Harveys (camped next to us) and ourselves all headed up to Mt Nameless for sunset and a few drinks, of course the SsangYong led the way up the 4x4 track….just in case it needed a push. The next morning we all headed for Millstream NP via Hamersley Gorge. Another great gorge but not as thrilling as Weano. I stopped later in the day about 40km from camp to collect wood for 2-3 nights and used a 12v recipro saw. It worked brilliantly and we had a huge load of wood loaded on the trailer, problem was no fires were allowed in the National Park! Had a very relaxing day at Millstream doing the sights with the other families, the kids all got on great together which was mentioned by other campers in the park. Had a great couple of nights around the camp kitchen here which was one of the best we have seen.

view from mount nameless at Tom Price

On the way into Karratha we all stopped into Python pool for a swim. The drive in gave us great views of the changing Pilbara landscape with masses of emerging wildflowers after the late rains in May. We said goodbye to the others hoping to see them later in Cape Range NP (we actually saw each other very soon in Karratha). In Karratha we were lucky enough to be able to stay with good friends Janyce and John Crawford who had moved there from Kapunda. Susan got stuck into some washing, the boys did quite a bit of school work and I went for a bike ride. Actually, Janyce got me up early for a spin on the local single track which there is plenty of. Really enjoyed it. We topped up the stores and did the sights of the area including Cossack, Cape Lambert and Point Samson (where we caught up with Tony Neal, friend from Adelaide working up there at the moment) and Dampier. Of course we took a look at the Red Dog Statue. While Karratha is a nice modern town with lots of facilities for families it’s not catering to travelers at $84/night for a powered site