After an exceptional short drive (nearly 2 hours) we moved to our new hosts. This time it was a married couple around 50 years old with their 3 years old son Kevin. Of course it was a different couchsurfing experience than the once we had before but definitely not worse. They welcomed us very warm and took us with them for fishing in the evening. But before we went fishing there was a bit time to plan the next day in the national park around Exmouth. In addition we finally decided to go to the Karijini national park and cooked a dinner. This sounds like a very unnecessary fact, but during the dinner Kevin realized that he can animate Kerstin to play on the tablet with him. She regretted the question “what do you play” very fast… Kevin was fascinating good in navigating through the games on the tablet, without being able to read even a single word of it. Later when he recognized that Kerstin couldn’t resist him, she became his new best friend and she had to play with him whenever we were there. Since he didn’t want (or couldn’t) remember her name the question “where is my friend” was all around (btw. the last day he remembered her name 😉 )
While fishing, there was not that much action (I mean it’s still fishing you’re sitting there waiting for a catch, you know^^. I’m sure it won’t become one of our favorite “sports”…). Of course Kerstin was busy most of the time, because she had to play with Kevin on the smartphone. However, close to the end of the evening, there was more action! First we could only hear them, but then they came close enough to be seen in the torch light… DOLPHINES!!! Additionally, it wasn’t even close to be the last highlight of this evening. Another fisher (yes, apparently there was more than one…) had something (too) big at the line. We never thought that fishing could be that action filled. However, the fight with the fish became quite funny. Unfortunately, there was nothing at the line when he finally could get it out, but the “experts” said that it most probably was a little shark. The catch of our hosts was actually quite rare, not to say not existing, but we had a bit of not expected fun 😉
The next day was scheduled with the exploration of the Cape Range National park. It is famous due to its nearly endless beaches and bays, but let’s go step by step. We started the day with a hike in the Yardie Creek, which takes its way some km from the sea towards inland. We hoped to see a wallaby, but like their bigger relatives – the kangaroos – they are night active and in addition very shy.
Afterwards we explored the countless beaches and that were the highlights:
Oyster Stack: A quite little piece of stony coast, but flooded with crabs and oysters. Even though they are relatively shy, you can’t miss them because there are so many of them.
Turtle Bay: An almost empty beach (and also not really spectacular). However, every year turtles come here to lay their eggs. Unfortunately, we were one or two weeks too early in order see this in live.
Little Lake: Caused by high water in the previous years, a little lake was formed. This left some really weird formations in the sand, but some animals – especially bird – seem to like this and nested there.
Bird Hide and Mangrove Bay: This location has a little jetty leading through mangroves to an observation area for birds. A really beautiful place and we could observe some pelicans.
Turquoise Bay: Definitely THE highlight of the park. First an endless wide sandy beach, ending in a turquoise bay with white sand and crystal clear water. Both are amazing locations for snorkeling, but like at Coral Bay the corals near the beach were mostly dead. For better observation a boat or diving equipment would have been necessary. However, Turquoise Bay finished second on the ranking of the most beautiful beaches in Australia, according to TripAdvisor 2014.
Close to the end of the day on our way back home we finally saw the kangaroos close to our car. There were so many, that we had to take pictures the whole time and had to drive really slowly.
That’s almost everything we saw from the park. Of course there are a lot of more amazing places there, but they were only accessible with a 4WD or we didn’t have enough time. Remember, we decided to go to Karijini wherefore we had to start driving early in the morning, because Karijini is another 750km away from Exmouth (and to every other “city” around it)