Many West Australian beaches are ‘world famous’ for their sunsets. But there can’t be too many places in this wide country (4000 kms east to west) where you can see the sun rise and set over water from exactly the same spot.
Exmouth is a tourist mecca for many reasons. Its population of 3,500 can soar to 20,000 in high season.
About 15 kilometres north of the town centre, the Vlamingh Head lighthouse sits on a tiny 74 metre-high hillock. At sunset, cars are cheek by jowl all the way up and down its curly driveway, jostling for a space to see the sun go down.
At dawn, as I silently slip EVie – our electric Kona – into place, there are just 3 cars, hoping for a cloudless horizon.
At 6:42, the sun peeps out of the strip of ocean, just visble beyond the east coast of the promontory. For a little time, it seems to glide up the horizon, coppery, like a harvest-moon.
Then, in a flash, a glowing orb leaps out of the waters east of the pointy beachhead, floods the narrow wedge of land, sends a beam of light into the water across the headland, and dazzles everything in its wake. Sun rise at Ningaloo – priceless…
The drive from Karijini to Exmouth went precisely to plan, with three dependable chargers on the way: Tom Price (25 kw), Pardoo (50 kw) and Nanutarra (150 kw). There is a more direct route from Tom Price to Nanutarra, but with a long unsealed stretch, it is a lot slower.
The little town of Exmouth has everything you need to explore Cape Range National Park, including a bank of four fast chargers, convieniently located in the car park at the tourist information centre.
After sunrise, you can slide quietly back down from the lighthouse towards the beach and follow the turn of the only road, heading south, along the line of the Ningaloo reef, into the Cape Range National Park. This is the northernmost section of the Ningaloo World Heritage area.
First stop after day-break, the Observation Bird Hide in Mangrove Bay. To someone whose idea of mangroves are the fearsome Sunderbans in Eastern India, this one looks like a beautiful miniature – almost manicured with a clear lagoon in the middle surrounded by the distinctive mangrove root system.
Bird calls fill the morning air. But mostly, the birds are hiding or darting past at the speed of light, and the jumping fish are just silver flashes in the pond.
There is so much to do along the 88 km stretch of road from the charging station in Exmouth to the Yardie Creek Camp site at the southern end of Cape Range Park.
There seems to be a beach for every watery activity ever imagined. You don’t need to be brave enough to swim with the whale sharks (I wasn’t), or pay some exorbitant amount for an organised activity further out to sea (but plenty available if that is your pleasure).
You can spend the hours of high tide at Oyster Stacks, snorkling amongst the corals with hundreds of magnificently coloured fish; walk around the Mandu Mandu Gorge trail, then cool off riding the current at Turquoise Bay – and, don’t panic when a huge fish or sting ray floats in on the same current right underneath you!
In season, you can see whales breaching from beaches on both sides of the promontory. At Mauritius Beach, at sunset, they might put on a mesmerising show with an ensemble of surfers as corps de ballet – it’s magic if you happen to be there!
When tired, just idle on any beach in the park and marvel at the massive waves crashing on the horizon – breaking against ‘Australia’s largest fringing coral reef’ and ‘the world’s only large reef located so close to a landmass.’
Cape Range Park provides a perfect opportunity for camping with an EV as you are never further than 88 kms from the WA EV fast charging station in Exmouth. Every one of the 500 wilderness camping sites is booked out 6 months ahead, the day the bookings open! We missed out.
Yardie Creek Road is a smooth and scenic drive: with the ocean flashing in and out of view on one side, and on the other, the gentle rise of the Cape Range (just over 300 metres at its highest), closing in and sliding away. It all seems too accessible.
And then suddenly it is not. The sealed road comes to an abrupt end at the Yardie Creek camp. To get further into the Ningaloo National Park you need wings or sails or at the very least, a 4WD.
A final walk takes you up the Yardie River, which like the road, comes to a stop suddenly, without quite reaching its natural destination, the ocean – it just pools there, its journey suspended…
Later, talking to some locals I learn that the river only reaches the ocean during rare major flood events. Perhap this is metaphor, a warning, about longings: the river’s for the ocean and mine for the way ahead, which leaves the sealed road, changes to gravel and a few metres ahead, into sand dunes.
But surely, we are not foolish enough to think we can go wherever we want, whenever we want? We know: every vehicle necessarily has its limits, every road some end.
Hurry Krishna is publishing her electric travel blog on Reading the road. Reproduced with permission.
Hurry Krishna is Indian by birth, Australian by accident and a slow traveller by choice. She is an occasional travel blogger and has recently joined The Driven’s team of writers. She speaks a number of Asian languages, including English, and hopes to walk, cycle or drive her trusty Kona EV far and wide around the world. Under a different name she is a professor and has written many academic books and papers in her areas of specialist research in Media and Cultural Studies.