Ningaloo Reef and Shark Bay Christmas Experience

[wallywombat]

G’day!

 

Just thought I would put up a post about our recent road trip North over the Christmas holidays . The company I worked for decided rather at the last minute that the market was slow so as a cost saving measure closed the office for an additional week over the holidays....so with 3 weeks off, we weren’t going to hang around Perth all that time (although I could think of many worse places to HAVE to hang out during the summer months!!)

 

So off we went in Mitsubishi Magna and camper 12 trailer tent with a vague plan to be in Exmouth for Christmas and be back in Perth for 13^th!! The drive up was pretty cool (not literally). Of course a long drive with nothing in between and I did find myself getting excited when a road sign was coming up. But we truly gained a sense of the vastness of WA. I think the whole drive really confirmed that we made it to AUSTRALIA and we spent much of our time grinning to ourselves.

 

Anyhow, we ended up staying our first week at the Yardie Creek Homestead campsite which was absolutely brilliant. It is the last electric site before entering the Ningaloo Park. Basically every day we drove to a different beach for a snorkel or swim...the snorkel conditions weren’t great so wasn’t overly impressed with that side of things but the whole experience of just hanging out up there is fantastic. The campsite wasn’t that busy so it was perfect over the holidays. It did get hot but there was always a wind when we were there. I won’t say breeze as most time there were gale force winds. Crazy. But I think that saved us from the heat. It was hot but because of the winds, you didn’t completely collapse. At night we would sit out (no flies), drink wine and star gaze. We thought we would be having early nights but because it was hot at night, it was wonderful just to sit out late at night. The site had loads of roos and emus too and when you got up in the middle of the night to walk to the look, there were roos all around the campsite. It was bliss. The flies only got bad for about an hour between 5:30-6:30pm and they were dreadful when we went far inland too.

 

Anyhow, we ended up driving to Tom Price and Paraburdoo for 2 nights as we wanted to experience real heat...and we did...hence only staying 2 nights. The drive from Exmouth to Tom Price was BEAUTIFUL though. Can’t wait to go back up there in winter months. It was incredible to feel the heat there – the ground was hot too and you couldn’t hold a rock for long either as it was so hot. It was neat for us to experience as we hadn’t experienced heat like that before. And the flies.......but the red rock was worth it. I can't get enough of those colours.

 

On the way down, we spent 5 days in Shark Bay. Gale force winds again at Denham but that area was lovely too. We were limited where we could go though as we don’t have a 4WD. Oh! And we also stopped in Coral Bay for 2 nights when we were waiting for the roads to open to Tom Price after the cyclone; we couldn’t wait to get out of there as the campsites were booked solid and it was a shock after coming down from Ningaloo. Monkey Mia was ok but couldn't bare to listen to the rangers telling you what you couldn't and could do. We waited until after "the feeding" and the dolphins hang around anyway so that was pretty neat. We were pleasantly surprised to find that it wasn't as commercialised up there as we had expected it to be. Refreshing.

 

All in all, we loved the atmosphere up there over Christmas and would highly recommend it. So many people advised us not to go as they said it would be too hot and uncomfortable but to be honest, if you just want to relax and hang out and enjoy the outback and coastline, I would highly recommend it. Santa even came to the campsite on Christmas Eve....well, he flew over in a Cessna and threw bags of sweets into the field (seriously!!!) It’s funny as over the ‘Straya Day weekend, we went down to Albany and felt claustrophobic on the campsite – and found it bloody freezing.

 

Oh... and something else we have learned living in WA....when someone gives you an opinion on a city or town....be sure to ask when the last time they visited....as we have often found that they haven’t even been to the place in question and just advising on what they have heard from other people!!!

 

Anyhow, just wanted to share in case anyone is interested in exploring north of Perth but not sure what to expect because of all the stories from people!! That was our first long road trip with our camper trailer and learned a lot about what to bring and not to bring so happy to answer any questions anyone has about that too.

 

Feeling hot now so against professional advice, heading to the beach at prime sun time J

 

Have a great day,

 

Rosie

[nikkiwd]

sounds fantastic, can't wait to do similar things when we are there!

[beandownunder]

thanks for sharing, as nikkiwd says it sounds fantastic -keeps the dream alive whilst watching the rain lash against the windows!"...

[lozzachino]

Sounds brilliant, thanks for sharing

[flatpack]

Sounds like you has a great time! When you mention what peoples opinions about places are , it reminds us of when we were going to drive across the Nullarbor. We were warned by more than one person not to drive with our windows down because if we ran over a snake it could flip right over and come through the window.

 

When you drive over the Nullarbor it's that hot that there is no way you could have your window down and if you did you would have been eaten alive by a million and one flying creatures! We had a white car that was splattered that much you could barely tell it was white when we reached Ceduna