But first we did a 1 1/2 mining tour of Mt Tom Price Iron Ore mine. The opencut mine began in 1965, and now there is little left to see of the mighty mount as they have lowered the water table and are now digging further down, but they say there is still plenty of ore to last for a long time to come, with further expansions. The site was huge and they have the worlds best safety record. They are the worlds leading exporter of iron ore - Pilbara Blend. The town itself, once a purposefully built private town for workers and their family’s is now largely fly in fly out and alive with tourists.
95% of the loading and operation of the trains is automated from Perth, these trains are 3 km long and run 24/7
Before we could take up our booking at Osprey Bay campground on Ningaloo Reef (a protected Marine Park in the Cape Range NP), we did 3 nights bush camping on the way. Distances between towns and fuel are huge over here, and Osprey campground was a further 79km from Exmouth, not just a quick nip into town if you run out of something.
Interesting use of rubbish found in our overnight free camp, it was beside a dry river bed and quiet so we stayed 2 nights, plenty of budgies, parrots, lovely sunsets
A quick drive through Exmouth..not so friendly town to people who don’t have their camp spot prebooked...lots of warning signs and no overnight camps provided. It is a long way to see the National Park and get out of the Shire before dark, hundreds of kilometres to the nearest pullover. It’s hard when there is nothing available to book. We booked Osprey 6 months in advance, the earliest you can book.
We stayed in Osprey Bay for 8 nights for snorkelling, only the wind prevented us from snorkelling everyday. Everyone staying here was very friendly, our (volunteer) camp hosts were great and we met up for sunset drinks most nights at the lookout to meet each other and swap travel tips.
Osprey Bay - our camp site
Some days this calm, others really choppy with low visibility
Most places we did drift snorkelling as the currents were strong, it was hard to stay in one place, so generally drifted for about 100 metres before getting out and walking back along the shore, and then doing it all over again, it felt very safe. The great thing was that the coral reef was all accessible straight off the beach.
The amount of tropical fish and colours blew us away, just spectacular.
We swam watching a turtle for over 20 minutes in the bay, just like this
Turquoise Bay was gorgeous, and a drift snorkel over the darker reef areas
The Oyster Stacks, also turned into a drift swim awesomeness
In between swims we explored the National Park and checked out the other camping grounds
Yardie Creek Gorge hike..it was a spectacular walk close on sunset...1st pic is an aerial view of the gorge and Yardie Ck
Saw the rock wallaby overlooking the gorge
And these 2 fighting for ages whilst the other one (our guess the lady roo) just stood by and watched...we wonder who she was cheering for
The lighthouse, we watched sunset from here, then a 45 minute drive back to camp dodging bunny rabbits on dark
An old grave hidden near the lighthouse 1912,.....see what you find when geocaching
SS Mildura Wreck at low tide off the tip of the Cape. A cattle ship went down in a cyclone in 1907
An overnighter at 9 Mile Burboodjoo Camp ..180 acres provided for camping on a cattle property
We are camped in the background here.......lots of dunes and views to explore
Fields of flowers on the picturesque 9 km drive in
Then on to Coral Bay a little village with 2 caravan parks, a resort, a pub, one shop, and a bakery, 2 restaurant/takeaway food outlets...(yumm snapper and chips for dinner last night), but so popular it was packed out.
We managed to get 4 nights in one of the caravan parks following a cancellation. Just as well we are small, it is a tight squeeze between the camper trailers.
The bay is gorgeous and on the first day we saw a stingray, 2 dolphins came with 10 metres of us, coloured coral and huge coloured fish, (maybe not as bright as the National Park) but again it was like swimming in an aquarium tank.
Literally coral and fish straight off the beach
Awesome snorkelling
We decided to give a quad bike tour over the dunes a try.... a 2 hour tour of narrow rough corrugated sandy tracks, over sandy dunes and onto beaches to Turtle Cliffs (yep saw some turtles). Nerve racking for me on the back, but became more relaxed the longer we were out there. Derek was in his element.
Me just pretending
Still more variety of wild flowers as we travel south
Next stop Quobba Blowholes to try and dodge School Holidays
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