Cape Range NP

Campground: Ned's Camp
Facilities: Toilet, Rubbish bins.
Good stuff: Allocated sites so no messing around, within 100m of the beach. Stunning location in general.
Not so good stuff: It can get windy and it comes off the land??? Few shady spots available.  Price: $10 per adult per night. 

We zig-zaged to Cape Range NP but we made it! From the sweatiness of the walks in Karijini NP it was now time to sit down and relax by the sea. Or at least that was the plan until we unpacked the tent… One of the metal feet attached to the tent frame had snapped. The serenity was shattered for a few hours while we drove back to Exmouth to make a warranty claim. Cable ties will hopefully do the trick for now (they can fix everything).

Sunset at Ned's Camp...

...that then changed to this within the same evening. 

One of main things to do in Cape Range NP is snorkelling around the reef that is only around 100m from the shore. It was beautiful! Although the sea had been churned up quite a bit from the bad weather, the visibility was still good. Turquoise Bay was voted the 2^nd best beach in Australia… For snorkelling, we felt that Oyster Stacks was a lot better! The coral was more colourful and there were lots of brightly coloured schools of fish.

The walks in the park are ok but it warms up quickly, even in the winter.

The view of the sea from the Yardie Creek Gorge Walk. 

Our trip's ultimate splurge was swimming with whale sharks, it was just amazing and was well worth the indulgence. Following a juvenile female whale shark of 4-5m for an hour was an experience that we will not forget any time soon. The best part of it was that it felt like you were just observing their everyday life without a care in the world. The lack of human interaction with the whale shark made it like your own personal Blue Planet take. Are you tired at the end? Yes, but you are with swimming with the biggest fish in the ocean. So don’t feel bad if you can’t keep up. One thing we did wish is that we had an underwater camera to make it a bit more personal. 

Here is the female juvenile whale shark...

... and just as proof that we both actually saw it...

...you can be up to 3m from the whale shark and 4m from the tail...

...we also saw a dugong, dolphin, sea turtle whilst swimming with the whale shark, tiger shark and so much more!