Exploring Cape Range National Park

First stop this morning was our glass bottom boat tour. I was a bit worried when I heard the accent of our tour guide, thinking he might be a backpacker. After all, my camel guide was on his second day. All was put to rest very soon when he explained that he was a “mongrel”, a bit from everywhere. Born in Poland, he had travelled the world chasing surf, but the last 11 years in Australia, the last 8 around Exmouth. He treats the Ningaloo Reef as his back yard, and certainly knew his way around, both the features, and the marine creatures. He spent an hour guiding us around every bommie, knowing his depths, and where particular fish could be found. He loves his job so much that he has no minimum numbers on his tours, and I’d reckon that if nobody showed, he’d still go out, indulging his passion for underwater photography.

Which was just as well really. Photography from a glass-bottomed boat is not hugely successful. To avoid reflections on the glass (and chronic sunburn too I guess), there is a full roof on the boat. That means everything under the boat is in a reasonably full shadow if it is close up. Anything out to the side might be well lit, but the angle on the thick glass on the bottom of the boat gives a strong chromatic aberration (smudged colour fringing on edges) so not so good.

So in our hour, it was good to be content with his knowledgeable commentary, the fish and coral he could point out to us, the life of coral in cyclones, and his perspective on how his little patch changes over time.

Following that, we had the rest of the day to explore the numerous bays and beaches all the way down Cape Range National Park. Along the way we dropped in to the visitor centre now we had a little more time. Chock full of information, it explained well the Leeuwin Current that makes the reef possible, and also how the Cape Range at 300m is dwarfed by the drop-off beyond the reef, which falls to over 1600m deep not too far off shore. It is the growth of the reef that keeps the artificial step on the edge of the continent.

The National Park is bordered at its southern end by Yardie Creek, the only permanent watercourse in the national park, but salty most of the time. With an average annual rainfall of only 300mm, and much of the rain falling in cyclones only every few years, flushouts of the creek are few and far between, with the mouth to the ocean closed most of the time, with only high tides washing over and then draining back out. Beyond the creek crossing, which is a ford on sand to be traversed only at low tide is defence department training area, with the road through open to the public but slow and sandy. We declined.

On the way back we attempted an unmarked road up the escarpment, but it became rather too adventurous, so we had to remain content with the view from the top of the Yardie Creek Gorge.

A sand dune beckoned and was irresistible to small boys back near our camp, where we paused on our way to watching sunset from North West Cape, under the watchful gaze of the defence antenna installation. A shipwreck on the point a reminder of the fury of the ocean at times.