Exmouth Penninsula

We were so excited to get back to Exmouth where R and I used to live 14 years ago. We love Exmouth – one of our favourite places in the world!

We arrived at Exmouth on Halloween and the kids were pretty excited to decorate the van and go trick or treating around the caravan park.

During our 2 months in Exmouth, we spent 3 long weekends at Cape Range National Park and one long weekend at Coral Bay – another town south of the peninsula.

Exmouth Town

The Americans started using the tip of the Exmouth peninsula as a navy base during World War II. The town later developed to support the navy base. The Americans handed the base over to the Australians in the 1970s. There still remains a bit of US presence on the base with the communications towers operations, and Raytheon, as well as some US foods that can be found at the supermarket (e.g. Fluff, Twinkies and AIM toothpaste).

Nowadays, Exmouth is better known for what’s in the water. It is a fisherman’s paradise year-round with some of the big-ticket items (e.g. marlin and tiger prawns) on offer. Between March and August, tourists flock to the town to have interactions with whale sharks, humpback whales and manta rays.

The “downtown” really hasn’t changed much in the last 14 years. Still pretty much the same shops in the same places.

But the town has expanded out further. 14 years ago, they were still building the marina but now it’s completed and full of houses. There are also a few more shops, bars (including 2 breweries) and a couple of “big” statues – the big prawn and the big whaleshark.

There are still resident emus walking around town and our caravan park!

Tip of the Cape

At the tip of the cape is the Mildura shipwreck and the Vlamingh Head Lighthouse. The lighthouse sits on the top of a hill with great views over the Ningaloo coast, Exmouth town, and up the cape.

Cape Range National Park

We spent 3 long weekends in the national park. We stayed at 3 different campgrounds: Osprey, Kurrajong and Mesa (twice). Kurrajong and Mesa were more protected from the constantly blowing wind. But Osprey Bay had the best view.

Campgrounds:

Here are some photos of Osprey Bay:

Here are some photos of Mesa Campground (although the last photo might be from Kurrajong – they both have sand dunes leading to the water):

Turquoise Bay

While in the National Park, we spent most of our time snorkelling and relaxing on the beach. Our favourite place was Turquoise Bay where the water is turquoise (surprise!), the sand is soft and white and there’s decent snorkelling right off the beach. One side of Turquoise bay is the calm, protected bay and the other side of the point is more exposed and where you can do a drift snorkel.

We tried to do two snorkels per day while we were in the park. In the morning in less sheltered locations where there was a current that picked up along with the wind in the afternoon, and then an afternoon snorkel at Turquoise Bay where it’s more protected.

Sunsets

The sunsets over the ocean are just beautiful at the park. The second weekend we went and stayed at Mesa, it rained all day, which gave us a beautiful sunset rainbow and a spectacular sunset as seen in these photos:

Turtle Nesting

It was turtle nesting season while we were there. On our last weekend in the park, we went on two consecutive nights to look for nesting turtles. On the first night, we really didn’t have good luck… We got bogged in the sand (I thought we might have to spend the night in the car!). We always carry the air compressor with us in the car, but for some reason on that night we didn’t have it – so we couldn’t let the tyres down because we wouldn’t be able to pump back up. And, we were on a really remote sand road… The kids were crying and it was a lot of stress. We eventually got un-stuck (thank you Max Trax!) by reversing up a sand dune! We went on to the next road to look for turtles, but no luck.

The second night, we were in luck. We went to a different section of the same beach (Jurabi coast) and saw tons and tons of turtle tracks up to the dunes.

We waited in the dunes and watched the sunset…

After a long wait, we didn’t see any turtles and decided to give up. Then, as we were walking back along the beach towards the car park, our daughter was about to step over a big rock when it moved! So, we jumped back and hid. The turtle was very, very slowly coming up the beach from the water. Luckily for us, she decided to stop just above the high tide mark to dig her nest. We were able to sneak up behind her and watch the whole thing – digging the hole, laying the eggs and covering it back up again. What a once-in-a-lifetime experience!!

Mandu Mandu gorge

Cape Range NP also has several gorges. My son and I decided to do a walk up Mandu Mandu gorge. Unfortunately, we didn’t get that far due to some blisters… But the contrast of the red rocks with the white river bed was ‘gorges’!

Unfortunately, towards the end of our stay in the Exmouth area, the flies started to become really bad. So much of our last weekend at Cape Range was spent like this:

Coral Bay

I absolutely loved Coral Bay!! For me, this is the ideal vacation spot. The coral and snorkelling just off the beach were superb. Apparently, it was even better a couple of short 4WD trips away, but we didn’t have enough time to explore those. (I guess we have to save something for the next trip!)

Our caravan park was right across the street from the bay so we had a nice breeze and a view from our van.

Coral Bay is a really small town and you can walk to all the shops, restaurants, beach and caravan parks within 5 minutes. There is a nice lookout over a sand dune at the end of town to where we watched the sunset.

During my morning walk down the beach one morning, I saw a Spanish Dancer nudibranch washed up on the beach. It was huge – the size of my foot! (excuse the chipped nail polish!)

I woke the kids up to show them, and then we picked it up and put it back into the ocean before it died in the sun. It was very slimy!

Manta Tour

We decided to book a paid tour to swim with the resident manta rays. This trip has certainly become one of the highlights of our whole Australia trip. I was worried that the kids wouldn’t be able to keep up with the mantas, but they swam their hearts out and did! We ended up seeing 3-4 different manta rays including 2 that joined up swimming together. I don’t have an underwater camera, but another guest captured a photo of my son swimming with a manta.

It was great to be back on a boat again, although our daughter was cold!

We were so happy to be back in Exmouth and enjoying it so much that we actually considered staying and living there for a while. We also still have friends there that it was great to catch up with. But in the end, we decided to leave after 2 months when it started to become too hot and cyclone season started. We’ll continue down the west coast towards Carnarvon.