Cape Range National Park, Exmouth.

Black Footed Wallaby at Mandu Mandu Gorge.

After a night of wind and rain, woke to a morning of wind and rain.

Couldn't see sixty metres away so heavy was the misty rain. It was good to wake up in a nice dry bed and to be able to have breakfast without stumbling about in the back of the car trying to get to our things.

We left our dry abode just on nine and drove to the national park entrance to find out about camping spots. The ranger was at the gate and informed us that there was camping at the overflow campsite if we wanted a spot for tonight but she told us that the weather wouldn't be clearing until tomorrow. We decided to give the campsite a miss but went ahead with the sight-seeing in the national park. When we were in Esperance we'd bought a holiday pass for the national parks so didn't have to pay entry into the park. (This pass doesn't pay for camp fees though).

By the time we'd arrived at the visitors' centre in the park, the rain was pelting down but I wasn't going to let the rain stop me – both Andrew and I donned our rain jackets and made a dash for the entry. The centre, besides selling the usual gifts, souvenirs, books etcetera, has a library available for day visitors and displays of flora and fauna found in the area.

During the morning we talked to various people about the weather and found that localities on the west side of the peninsula received from twenty four to forty millimetres while Exmouth, on the east, received around one hundred. Previously, there has been no rain for two years! So I guess we should feel privileged that we should be here for such an occasion.

It wasn't long though before the sun was shining and the sky was a brilliant blue with the ocean an most amazing jade colour...beautiful.

Everything in the west is well spread out, so the distance from the park's entrance to Yardie Creek Gorge is around ninety kilometres and the Gorge would be our destination for the day with lots of stops in between.

Around eleven we arrived at Mandu Mandu Gorge and we decided to do the three kilometre trail, a loop through the creek bed at the bottom of the gorge, up one side of the gorge and back towards the car park.

Along the way we spotted a number of black footed wallabies that live on the rock face of the cliffs and find shelter in small crevices and miniature caves up and down the cliff faces.

The cliff faces are almost perpendicular so both of us couldn't help marvelling at the wallabies agility.

The trail had been graded for difficulty by the national parks as a grade four...after completing about a third of the trail I asked Andrew to remind me never to attempt a grade four again!

Once we were on top of the cliffs we had an uninterrupted view of the ocean, but not for long because down we went again, almost straight down, and almost straight up, two or three times. By this point, it was hot, I was sweating, and holding onto Andrew for most of the time! When we thought we were home and hosed, down and up we'd go again. Eventually got back to the car about one o'clock. Air conditioner went on in the car until we reached Yardie Creek Gorge where we managed to find a nice shady picnic spot for some lunch. A couple from Newcastle kindly shared a picnic table with us and while the four of us ate we shared our thoughts about the allocation of campsites in Cape Range National Park, the cost of real estate in Western Australia and Kevin Rudd's proposed super-profits tax on the mining companies.

After lunch we took a leisurely walk to the Yardie Creek Gorge...what a sight!

Yardie Creek, Cape Range National Park.

Drove back the ninety odd kilometres to the lighthouse to catch some phone signal and the sights. By this time it was five o'clock, how the time flies when you're having fun! Gave our daughter a call...so good to catch up with her...it seems like such a long time since we've had a long conversation with her but in reality probably only a week. Also watched the ospreys soaring below the lighthouse and once more, caught a brilliant sunset with around fifty other tourist from the top of the lookout!

Quick drive back to the Yardie Homestead Caravan Park where we were assigned one of the last unpowered sites...dinner in the camp kitchen...the end of another brilliant day.

Sunset from Vlaming Lighthouse, Exmouth.

Yardie Homestead Caravan Park, Exmouth, Coral Bay

Tonight we find ourselves in a little chalet (in the Cape Grand National Park region), at the Yardie Homestead.

We pulled up at the caravan park at around 4.00 p.m. asking to book a cabin for two nights so that we could spend some time tomorrow doing the rounds of the national park.

It's a long weekend here in Western Australia. We were told in Denham that the public holiday does not have much impact on Coral Bay and Exmouth. How wrong they were.

Coral Bay (yesterday) was packed like Sydney on New Year's Eve! But we didn't have much choice as to where we stayed because we'd driven around three hundred and fifty kilometres and there was no way we were going to drive any further.

Still it wasn't a bad night at the caravan park, had a little bit of rain overnight but there was nothing to show for it in the morning.

All day the clouds have hung low in the sky, grey and sometimes ominous.

Every time you speak of rain to the locals in northern West Australia, they simply say: it never rains here. Or: the clouds hang about with nothing happening.

When we asked at the Exmouth Tourist Information Centre this afternoon they simply said that a storm is predicted for tomorrow night and the clouds have been hanging about for a month.

The woman at the caravan park reception told us that they had no cabins left but she did have a chalet for an enormous amount of money which we weren't prepared to pay so asked for a powered site for our tent instead. She lowered the price of the chalet but we still weren't prepared to fork out that much money, then she dropped it again, it was starting to sound tempting. So we took it. As she drove around with us to open it up and put out the day bed on the verandah, Honey Pie mentioned that it was a shame he'd forgotten the bottle of red...I have just the thing, she said and before we knew it she'd disappeared and reappeared with a beaut bottle of Merlot...my favourite, so if this blog seems garbled...blame the wine!

After checking out the lodgings we headed off to the national park which is only four or five kilometres down the road...stopped at a little spot on the ocean and as we made our way back to the main road we were confronted by wallaby after wallaby. This was enough to convince Honey Pie that we should head back to the caravan park as we might encounter too many roos on our way back if we ventured too far into the national park.

We'd already had a light shower, but by the time we'd returned 'home' the rain was becoming quite steady. Then it got windy, then the rain got heavier, then it was quite a squall. Hey, we are so pleased that we decided to take the offer of the chalet up!

And did I mention, Andrew's cooked a yummy roast chicken and three veg dinner?

And the Merlot is just mmmm.

The only thing missing? The perfect sunset, but here's one from last night at Coral Bay. And we did do some sight seeing on the east side of the national park...I have three words only to describe what I saw: Oh my God!

Coral Bay Sunset. 4th June 2010.

Oh my God!  You must see it to believe it.
Shothole Canyon, Cape Range National Park, Exmouth.