From Big Lagoon back to Cape Range National Park.

We leave Big Lagoon on Oct 15 as I have a doctors appointment in Carnarvon in a few days.

After stopping in Denham and using the National parks washer to wash car and caravan we head out stopping the night at Eagle Bluff just in case something went swimming past.

The next night was in Gladston again for the same reason , you do not know what you will see. This is also why we went past Carnarvon to Quobba again and only saw a baby shark in the shallows and a baby perentie just outside the caravan.

Can not waste more time appointments await so its back to Carnarvon. Doctor, car service , lots stock up shopping in Woolworths again. Exmouth where we will be for 4 months has only 2 small IGA's

We did have time to go to the 1 mile jetty and Rocky Pool and the Space Museum.

Rocky pool is 55km east of Carnarvon on the Gascoyne river. It holds water most of the year, long after the river has dried up. I found a black headed monitor lizard at Rocky pool,i had not seen one before so it was worth the hot drive and walk.

We went to Pelican point which is a beach for kite surfers and is supposed to have crabs that will crawl on your hand , we did not find any but the tide was out so maybe they come out to feed when the tide comes in.

The Space museum has a simulator of a space capsule so of course we went in it.

You have to dress up in mock space suits then lay on your back feet up as if you were in a real capsule.

You get locked in and then it gets loud and shaky ,like the rocket take off with a count down and pictures of space and the earth. Then it simulates the separation of the capsule from the rocket. And orbit around earth before leaving for the moon.

Carnarvon took part in tracking the Apollo space ship in 1966.

The tracking station also supported NASA in the Gemini and Skylab programs 1964 to 1975. It helped with communications with space capsules leaving Earths orbit and on their return.

We find the museum is run by volunteers like us selling tickets, keeping things clean and operating the Apollo experience. Two sets volunteers so work few days then same amount off . We will think about it.

We buy fruit and veg from local growers but most are closed for the summer. Still working on farms but not much is ready at the moment.

The bananas grown here are sweeter because of the climate and growing conditions. Dry and arid they are grown closer together to protect from the summer sun and sea breeze. Not much treatment of plants with chemicals as most bugs can not survive hot conditions , most are chemical free.

After all appointments we must head north to be there ready for turtle monitoring training.

It put back a few days so we stop just north of Coral bay at Bruboodjoo point.. This is in the Ningaloo reef Marine park , it is sanctuary zone but allows line fishing from the shore and snorkelling but no shell or coral collection. You have to go down sand road through a cattle station . Like all stations up here they have 100 year leases and part of the lease is to allow access to some areas. The station allows camping in one place at point and collects fees which are used for the upkeep of the track and camping area. There are no facilities here just hole for rubbish and a toilet dump point for your own portable toilet. This is Carbaba station.

We find a juvenile Perentie on the rocks on the beach , about half grown . It must be eating bird eggs and maybe crabs on the beach. It looks well fed.

Then we find an even younger one, in good condition but not as fat as the larger one.

Exmouth

We get to Exmouth and stay in town at the Ningaloo caravan and holiday resort because we have meetings and theory training in town at the Parks and wildlife office, just at the back of the van park.

The van park is offering stay4 pay for 3 nights which means its a lot cheaper as its off season now.

One of the ladies in the office also crochets so we swap a few cottons of colours each has spare.

The park has a very nice big deep swimming pool so I can swim laps when there are not many people around.

We move out of town around to the Lighthouse caravan park which is closer to the beaches used for our practical training. Which we have to be ready for at 5.30 am for 3 mornings. We have different trainers each morning and different beaches and then a few days latter a morning to be assessed to see if we can be turned loose for monitoring.

We both pass.

During this time we have seen lots of Green turtles mating and a lot of lady turtles resting on the beach away from the males. They can have 4-6 males swimming around her waiting for their chance to mate. It looks traumatic for the ladies as they are underneath and have to fight to get to the surface to breath. We are reliable informed by the marine ranger that the ladies do have a bit of a choice in who she mates with even though it does not look like it from the beach. The lady comes and lays on the sand away from them and sleeps safely as the males do not come ashore. The only time a male is out of the water is when he is still on top of female when she gets herself out of the water. Sometimes the male gets washed upside down by a wave at this time . He is fine if the tide is coming in ,it will help him get right way up but if the tide is going out he faces a long hot 6 hour wait for the waves and water to help him . So we can help him very carefully get the right way up so he can get himself back to the water.

We see some early attempts at nesting and some that contain eggs in the nests.

We saw 2 Hawksbill turtle tracks -no nests or turtles , but at least we know what to look for. When we start monitoring on our own .

Nesting starts in earnest in December through January. We start monitoring on our own the last weekend of November and its getting busy on the beaches.

We also put ourselves in for helping the Rangers do a count of the endangered Black Flanked Rock Wallabies. This is 3 mornings in a row in different gorges in the National Park again early morning start to be there to start count when the sun is up and they are out sitting in it before retiring to caves in the heat of the day.

We had taken photos of two radio collared from here that had been released in Kalbarri NP. The rangers there had contacted us to get permission to use our photos in the Summer addition of the Parks and Wildlife magazine.

We have a few days before we start our volunteer stint so move into south of the NP to snorkel and walk some gorges in the south.

Exmouth 1270km north of Perth with a population of 2250 residents. With lots of tourists mainly in winter season, but its still busy with tourists in Nov and Dec this year..

Cape range NP is 36 km from Exmouth to the gate at the start of the park.

With Ningaloo Marine park stretching 300km along the coast. The Ningaloo coast world heritage area covers 6045km. No real monsoon season but hot dry days with sea mists overnight making things feel damp most mornings. Up to 48 deg during summer days but most days afternoon sea breezes on this side of the peninsular but not in Exmouth.

The reef is one of only two coral reefs in the world that have formed on the western side of a continent .

Ningaloo reef is one of the closests reefs to land in the world and Australias longest fringing reefs.

During WW11 a joint operation between Aust and USA Navy and Air forces established an airfield and submarine base here for re-fuelling and submarine communication. Thats why there is an airport here- RAAf Learmonth which is now part used for public flights in and out.

E Holt Communications station uses very low frequency transmitter has the second tallest structure in southern hemisphere. 387.6 metres high with 12 other towers around it. All can stand winds up to 500km an hour so are ok in cyclones.

In 1992 the air and navy forces handed over running of communications to civilian contractors leaving the town with out the money of both forces so eco tourism started . Money now comes from tourists , off shore iol and gas ,commercial prawn fishing and a few defence force personnel.

Tourists are here for

Humpback whales -June to nov as they migrate north for calving and return south to feeding grounds.

Whalesharks—mid March to August

Manta rays march to August with permanent ones in Coral bay.

Turtles-November to March

Snorkelling over coral reef all year.

Black flanked rock wallabies.

We do two early morning Turtle monitoring 5 am start then move caravan from Osprey camp to Mesa and do 3 early morning rock wallaby counts .

You get to your set GPS location in the gorge and then after synchronising times on radio with others you sart your count.

You scan the designated rock wall in front of you with binoculars , starting from left to right you have 5 mins . No going back over an area you have scanned counting as you go

and sexing, writing down what you see , male, female tagged or not, with pouch young or at foot, and where you see them sun, shade, ledge vegetation etc. Its a lot to do in 5 minutes then you stop for 5 mins and then start again same thing 3 times on same area.

Then stop and move to next area and do all over again. Different gorges each morning. It was hard the first time you look to make sure you do not miss any or take to long or go to quick and get all information right. After 3 days of this for a couple of hours each morning it gets easier to see them.

We will help again in February 2019 before we leave the park.

The turtle monitoring is a lot more walking the beaches and sand dunes early morning following turtle tracks , making decisions on which species and whether it has nested or not, all without disturbing the nests.

We have a backpack with a GPS monitor. A radio, and a tablet to enter all details. As well as paperwork for recording other things like predators , nest disturbance and notes for next person the following day. All facts are entered on the tablets to be up loaded to Perth for collation.

Some mornings are busier than others some are longer beaches some have more sand dunes so more walking. The program on the tablets are good you fill out each bit and it leads you to the next depending on your answers, takes GPS on nests and photos of anything you are not sure of.

It can be hard walking some times but its good doing it and seeing all the things.

Mesa Camp Hosting.

As well as turtles and wallabies we are here to camp host. December is Mesa camp again , we did this in August, but now we have to look after Neds camp as well. So we have a kobodo buggy to carry stuff and drive the track to both camps.

We have a lot of tourists still here but as soon as the school holidays start we have a lot of west australians including some of the Exmouth business people who close for the christmas new year period.

A few of the camp grounds are closed in summer as this is classed as off season as too hot for most tourits and its cyclone season. Which we are calling turtle season not cyclone season. Some of the rangers and Marine rangers go on holidays at this time.

Mesa campground was only renewed late 2017 after a big storm with lots of rain washed away and flooded most of the campground.

It only has 23 sites and Neds has 9 . both have day use areas with sand beach small boat launching not beach driving areas. Mesa is used by wind surfers and Kite surfers from around the world as it gets some windy days this time of the year..

Mesa also has a good area for snorkelling but its on a point so the current can get fast some days and tides. Low tide is best and you get all the normal tropical fish on the coral plus just past the main coral the reef drops deeper so you get schools of bigger fish .

We did see a giant grouper about 2 metres long and about a metre wide, and a 2 metre guitar fish.

We new about the giant grouper at snorkelling site a couple of klms away so we do not know if its the same one or not.

We went out to the outer reef again on the glass bottom boat and snorkelled again.

Larry did a micro light flight for christmas and birthday . I was going to go when we thought it was just ½ hour flights but these do not come over this side over the reef.

To fly over the reef its an hour or longer and I did not think my stomach would allow me to be in this little thing being tossed round for an hour , plus it was over $300 each.

The pictures he took show lots of turtles in the sea at the beaches we do the monitooring a very large Tiger shark at Mesa beach. He lives here and eats the turtles so is not interested in humans as he is very well fed. The rangers call him Terry the Tiger shark.

We spent a night camping with Rangers and marine rangers and other turtle monitors in a area where Loggerhead turtles nest. We went out on the beach at night as well as monitoring early morning so we could learn about this turtle. We slept in our tent on stretchers we had bought, dinner and breakfast was supplied and we all got to know one another. I did fall over some rocks on the beach in the dark and bruised and scratched both my knees that took a couple of weeks to heal .

These are the places in the park we visit a lot.

Mangrove bay has a bird hide that looks over the mangrove lagoon. With a walk around the mangroves. On the other side a track leads down to a beach with a rocky mud flat that gets uncovered when the tide is out. Here in the shallows is a nursery for reef sharks and rays that come into the shallow water as the tide comes in . You walk across the flat to a sand bar on the reef to the channel where the water enters from deeper parts of the reef. Its here the reef sharks and rays wait to enter the flats with the tide. So we lay or sit in the water with snorkels on and cameras and take pictures. As they swim past.

We found these in August when we were here and they are a lot bigger now. Photo Larry with camera under water and I got photo of sharks swimming towards him and past him . Fun we spend a couple of hours out there when we visit.

Lakeside sanctuary zone.

You have to walk 500metres from the old campsite that got washed away in either the storm or last cyclone. There are markers on the beach and in the water showing the sanctuary zone. Here a series of large coral bommies attrack larger fish as well as turtles, reef sharks and the resident giant groper that lives in a coral cave. We also got some dolphines one day chasing a school of tiny bait fish. They had got them into a bait ball and as they were eating the bait ball broke into smaller balls of tiny fish. We could not keep up with the dolphins only got pictures of the smaller bait balls after the feeding frenzie.

Oyster Stakes.

Named because of the rocks in the area are covered with oysters, its also protected area.

You can only snorkel here at high tide which is more than 1.2 metres so no damage is done to the coral in the shallow water of the area. Plenty of fish in and around the oyster covered rocks and the coral.

Turquoise Bay

Has two parts to it a calmer bay side and a southern side called drift snorkel. This is he most popular snorkel site for those that are experienced . Strong currents occur here that are caused by a build up of water in the lagoon behind the reef . Large waves and high tides add water to the lagoon so it rushes to escape through gaps in the outer reef to back to the ocean. The gaps in the outer reef are caused over thousands of years of water following down the usually dry creeks. Each gap is opposite a gorge in the hilly range down the centre of the peninsular .

It is the best place to snorkel, you walk south along the beach get in and drift over the amazing coral and fish. At times I had trouble trying to stay above the coral to take pictures. There is one good bit we found hawksbill turtles but it is close to where you get out before the current takes you out over the reef and to sea, so I had trouble against the current so only went out there a couple of times.

Yardie Creek

This is the only creek and gorge with permanent water as it is fed by the ocean.

There are boat trips down the gorge which we did last time we were here. We walked the 2 walk trials and I found Spiny tailed monitor lizard here-varanus acanthurus. Along with the rock wallabies and lots of ospreys.

Mandu Mandu gorge.

This is one of the gorges we did the Black Flanked rock wallaby count in . The trail goes along the dry creek bed and then goes up the side of the gorge to the north ridge and back to the car park. There are small narrow steep gully crossings and it is not for the unfit. I'm glad when we did the wallaby counts I only had to walk the dry creek bed. We have walked the whole gorge a few times but it has to be early morning before the heat of the day.

In December I was eating nuts which is nothing out of the ordinary but part of one of my tooth fillings came out bringing with it part of the tooth. I had to go into Exmouth and we found along with the private dentist the WA govt run a dentist at the hospital . I had my tooth removed as it could not be repaired and the young dentist is fixing both Larry's and my teeth while we are in the area. Its a lot quicker than in Victoria where you have to wait a year. You get appointments when he is here as he rotates weekly to a couple of other towns in the area , so my appointments are 3 weekly. It does cost a bit more but my tooth being pulled out was only $70 as I am age pensioner.

He does a good job as he has not got up to date equipment.

We have Dingos in the park and in Exmouth. The ones in Exmouth can be a problem as they have learnt to scavenge food from rubbish bins and over the years people have fed them.

Out in the Nation park they are not fed but occasionally do come through the campgrounds. We have some living close to Mesa camp and Neds camp which we see sometimes. A couple of them started coming into camp and I had one walk past me at night. Young ones are seen and look at you like they are saying come play with me. They play and chase the small crabs on the beaches. As long as people do not fed them or leave food scraps where they can find them then its good to see the dingos. Most people when you explain to them do the right thing and just take photos.

After the New Year we move from Neds to Osprey camp further south in the park. This will be in the next blog. As it starts a new year. We will be here until March, still turtle monitoring and helping with next rock wallaby count.