Travelling Past Time: 14 - 2026 - July - Ningaloo Reef & Cape Range N.P. Western Australia

Entry 14 – 2026 – July – Ningaloo Reef – Cape Range N.P. Western Australia

Enroute to Cape Range National Park.

We were travelling in a region of Western Australia, between Port Hedland and Exmouth, fondly remembered from our previous visit, for seeing some outcrops of the iconic Australia Desert Pea. We had been on the lookout for them over the last few weeks, experiencing a couple of false sightings. It was exciting and heartwarming to finally spot some.

Retirement had been a fantastic period in our lives, now, just past the 13-year mark. We enjoyed many spoils from keeping active, maintaining a level of fitness. The only drawback, our bodies seemed to require, more “tweaking,” than during our younger years.

Mary was experiencing some unwanted issues and we were able to secure a medical appointment down the road, at the township of Exmouth nearby our next target location.

We easily arrived at Exmouth a day and a half earlier than initially planned, allowing time to get Mary back to normal operating condition.

It reiterated the advantage with provision of time to spare between commitments.

There was this unexpected medical issue and just prior, the incurred damage to our tow tugs windscreen. Both causing some anxiety. Both having the potential to wreak our pending planned activities. Thankfully, we had continued with allocated drive time flexibility, with our pending booked time lines.

We propped at the service town of Exmouth to ready ourselves for our next period of time, off grid.

Exmouth is another location with specific controls imposed on travellers like us. There were three caravan parks in the Exmouth region, all at capacity. There was a council-controlled overflow camping area with imposed restrictions. We managed to secure a spot in the overflow area (a rough surfaced paddock) at $40 per night with zero facilities provided.

At another location in town, we gained access to water via a prepaid machine. Dispatching a controlled amount of water, depending on your payment amount.

For us Exmouth had many similarities to Broome. Both relying heavily on tourism for existence. Both trying to extract as much money as possible from those tourists.

Exmouth region has a hub for the Australian Defence Force and the United States Military with joint operations involving space surveillance and low frequency submarine communications. There is a different landscape.

Located nearby Exmouth is a listed World Heritage Area, the pristine waters of the Ningaloo Marine Park. Adjacent is the arid coastal plain of Cape Range National Park.

Cape Range NP and the Ningaloo Marine Park cover an area of 604,500 hectares, or 6,045 km². The marine park stretches for more than 300 km along the coast.

Cape Range NP is dominated by a rugged limestone range, the remains of an ancient sea floor. It has a diverse array of wildlife. There are walking trails, many points of viewing and camp grounds. There are many access points where you can get up close to the Ningaloo Marine Park.

Ningaloo Marine Park or Ningaloo Reef is one of the healthiest and most accessible coral reef systems in the world. You can swim, snorkel, dive, fish, observe marine life or relax on beautiful beaches.

Our 2026 travels had been primarily focused on time, experiencing the Ningaloo Marine Park.

We had secured bookings earlier in the year. All of our bookings were cancelled due to the unexpected arrival of Tropical Cyclone Narelle, leaving a path of destruction throughout the national park.

Fast forward about 4 months and we were on our return drive back down the Western Australia coast line.

It was now peak season with all campgrounds fully booked out. We had been regularly monitoring the Cape Range NP campsites booking system over the last 4 months, for any random suitable cancellations. We had managed to string together 12 days stay at Cape Range NP campsites. Other nearby camp sites were still closed, for re-building after the cyclone impacted damage.

Ideally, we would have preferred to base ourselves at one camp site to explored the NP. Unfortunately, we had no such luck securing a camp site for an extended period. The best we managed at various different campgrounds were stays of nights ranging from 3, 1, 6, 1 and 1. There was a lot of down time moving camp with our caravan in tow, The campgrounds were scattered over around 50 kilometres apart. There was consideration with a requirement to be departed from a campsite by 10am and permitted arrival time from 11am.

On the positive, we got to personally experience a number of the different campgrounds.

We were especially looking forward to snorkelling in the pristine waters of the Ningaloo Marine Park, hopeful to view lots of colourful fish and reefs.

We suspected the below picture was the closest we might get to see the publicized turtle viewings.

There was an elevated view of the Ningaloo coast line from Vlamingh Head light house.

It was exciting to see whales breaching the ocean surface, even if they were many kilometres away. Our binoculars provided vision of the whales, unsighted by the naked eye.

We tried our luck with the camera relocating about 500 metres closer to the ocean in the below ocean side carpark. We were able to see some whale tail slapping, obtaining evidence with our camera.

We commenced our time at Osprey campground. It was windy with good snorkelling where we saw a variety of fish. We did get a little excited when we got to experience turtles swimming alongside of us.

North Mandu campground was small with difficulty to move our rig around, though it had a nice setting. It would have been much nicer if the placement of the loo wasn’t hindering our ocean views. At the time, water access was closed along with the nearby Oyster Stacks snorkelling area due to an increase of predatory shark activity. There was a whale carcass on the nearby reef attracting some unwanted attention. Some people had drones flying above the dead whale and one of them showed us the view, displaying a couple of tiger sharks feeding on the whale. The sharks did look rather large in the water.

Mesa campground felt like we were more cramped up close to other campers. For us we liked Mesa best for its beautiful sandy beaches. It was pleasant swimming in the ocean water with comfortable feeling sand under foot.

Late one afternoon we walked the Yardie Creek Gorge Trail. It was satisfying scenery and we were delighted to spot black flanked rock wallabies.

Cape Range NP is a good location to see the large raptor Osprey birds. It was pleasing viewing and delightful to get close enough to observe them with a bonus, obtaining some wonderful photographs.

At Cape Range NP we spent many evenings watching beautiful ocean sunsets. Each one a little different from the previous one. At times we were woken by the presentation of a magnificent sunrise. Those mornings can be annoying where the glimpse (from barely opened eyes,) of a superb sunrise instantly wakes you and you miss out on that peaceful morning sleep in.

Turquoise Bay’s turquoise-coloured waters were tantalizing. We especially liked snorkelling in Turquoise Bay’s “drift snorkel area.” We walked about 400 metres up the beach and entered the water. We swam out past the picturesque sandy ocean floor to float over a coral covered outer area. A current took us over lots of different colourful fish and coral. We exited before passing a designated spot where the current changes direction, heading out into the vast ocean waters.

It was most pleasurable. We did the route twice, erred on the side of caution not to participate in a 3^rd run with respect for our physical well-being. We spent around two hours swimming about in the water. The following day our bodies did feel weary from the previous day’s exercise.

Snorkelling in more beautiful waters of the Lakeside Sanctuary Zone was extremely satisfying. Our snorkel confidence was improving where we ventured a bit further out. The volume of different types of fish amongst the coral provided fantastic viewing. Our bodies were feeling a bit weary by the time we exited the water. Steve was asleep for the night by 7.30 pm with Mary not far behind. We both thought Lakeside Sanctuary Zone provided the best snorkel experience during our time at Cape Range NP.

Our last two days of bookings were back at the Osprey Campground in a different camp site each night. It is a popular campground with any obtainable time there appreciated. We regularly swam in the tranquil ocean waters with turtles. One turtle followed alongside of us for ages till we were in need for a rest from our jaunt, paddling about in the water.

Each time we saw a turtle, we Felt Good. No other words needed.

We did not have a camera for under water photography. The below pictures we obtained from other sources, best depicting some of our actual vision whilst snorkeling.