Karijini National Park and Tom Price

We had to choose whether to follow the coast from Exmouth to Karratha, or head off inland to see Tom Price, Karijini National Park and Millstream National Park. While it was about 600km inland to Tom Price, we had heard so much about Karijini that we just didn't want to miss this opportunity to see it.
The journey north east (inland) from Exmouth to Tom Price was hot and long, but the countryside was really interesting. Getting into The Pilbara, the soil becomes blood-red, and the land becomes quite mountainous (and quite well treed). Our drive took a bit over 6 hours because there is really nowhere to stop along the way, and temperatures outside were around 40 degrees. We arrived at Tom Price late in the day and found the nice green caravan park with a pool. The girls were really excited.
We woke the next day to a flat tyre on our car, so Justin spent the morning getting that fixed before we travelled the 100km into Karijini NP. Tom Price is quite a big town (purely there for the mine) so it wasn't hard to find a mechanic and a supermarket. We arrived at Karijini late in the afternoon and set up camp, ready to explore the next day.
Karijini was even better than we expected. It is a huge NP, and has a number of gorges which are all quite different from one another. We went to Fortescue Falls and then followed the river or Fern Pool, where the girls sat on the rocks under a waterfall. There were very few other people these, so we had the pool to ourselves. The water was clear, fresh, and reasonably warm ( it gets freezing in winter). In the afternoon we visited Weanu Gorge, where we carefully hiked down to the bottom and waded through the pools to follow the tack from one end to the other. We had our rock shoes on, so it was actually easier than it sounds. We camped in Karijini again that night, but didn't see any dingoes (we had been told we would see them in the campground). The campground was basic it toilets and no running water, but well kept).
The next morning we got our permit to go on the mining railway road that would take us towards Millstream and then on to Karratha. We then went north, stopping at our last gorge on the way out. Hamersley Gorge was spectacular and turned out to be our favorite. We hiked down into it and found a series of beautiful pools at various levels. It was fairly easy to climb between them, and each was clear and deep. Pia climbed with us, and was passed between Justin and Lisa as we hiked, which she didn't seem to mind at all. Probably just best to show you some photos below, but Karijini is certainly one of our favorite stops thus far.
While we could have stayed there forever, it was time to head to Karratha. We had an overnight stop at Millstream National Park, which really seemed like Karijini's poor cousin. The highlight was camping next to the Fortescue River and catching catfish for dinner - surprisingly good eating!
Photos below are:
1: our camp site at Karijini
2-5: Fortescue Falls and Fern Pool
6: making our way through Weanu Gorge
7-10: the amazing pools in Hamersley Gorge

Coral Bay and Exmouth

The next drive north took us to Coral Bay, which is about 150km off the main highway north and approximately 1100 km north of Perth. It's a tiny little holiday town with a couple of caravan parks, and a couple of hotels. Despite this, it is quite commercial as it is the hub for tours out to the Ningaloo Reef to swim with turtles, manta rays and whale sharks. The cost of a swim with the whale sharks was a major disincentive ($1600 per family for an 8 hour cruise!), but we did hope to go out and see the manta rays. Unfortunately it was windy and choppy, so we decided against it. Despite this, we enjoyed Coral Bay - we enjoyed snorkeling in the warm water amongst the stingrays, and particularly enjoyed some 4WD'ing through the sand dunes to explore some of the more remote beaches with another family (sorry, we forgot to take our camera with us on that adventure!).

It was short drive (150km) up the coast from Coral Bay to Exmouth. We passed straight through Exmouth on our way out to Cape Range National Park, about 50km. Caper Range is right on the Ningaloo Reef and is absolutely beautiful. The camping is on the beach, but very basic with pit toilets and no running water. From beaches such as Turquoise Bay and Lakeside, you cam swim 50 meters off shore and be surrounds by coral, fish, turtles, stingrays and sharks. Justin was lucky enough to swim with a turtle, while the girls saw some really large stingrays and a reef shark swimming a few meters off the shore. We spent 3 nights camping out in the national park, and (despite the 38 degree heat) really loved it. There were many other families out there, and the girls particularly loved the daily ritual of 6pm drinks where everyone at our campsite got together to watch the sun go down and compare notes from the day's snorkeling.

After a few days of rough camping we were ready to head into the Big 4 caravan park at Exmouth to clean up, shower, charge batteries and fill water tanks - ready for the next leg of the journey inland to Tom Price and Karijini National Park.
Photos below are-
1-4: Underwater scenes at Coral Bay and Cape Range (Ningaloo Reef)
5: Justin's turtle
6: Playing on the beach at sunset
7-8: Our campsite at Cape Range National Park (no shade, so a bit hot in the middle of the day!)

Monkey Mia and Point Quobba

With much anticipation we moved another few hours north to Denham and Monkey Mia. Monkey Mia is quite a diversion (150km) from the main highway, so were really hoping we'd get to see some dolphins. We arrived to the very busy campground late afternoon and were given a camp site squashed in between backpacker vans - oh well. Fortunately the campground was part of a very nice resort with good facilities including a nice pool on the beach.
The next morning we walked down the beach at 7.30, as the dolphins were expected to arrive on shore about 8.00. Sure enough, about 8 dolphins arrived on time. The ranger gave us lots of information about them before buckets of fish arrived for feeding. The dolphins came back for a couple more feelings that day, so we had plenty of chance to get to know them. Besides that, we enjoyed the pool, turtle and ray spotting, and the beautiful sunsets. Well worth the visit.

Our next stop was a bit of an unknown, but turned out to be quite memorable. Point Quobba is about 80km north of Carnarvon, and is an old fishing haunt for locals. It is also on the lower end of the Ningaloo Reef. We camped amongst the old fishing shacks, which felt like a ghost town (see photos below). It was quite remote, with no sign of fresh water anywhere so we had to be very self contained. We have mastered 6 people showering with only 20 liters of water in the solar shower!

Quobba Beach itself was stunning. Protected by a reef, the sea was calm and snorkeling quite unbelievable. We spent nearly a whole day drifting with the current from one end of the beach to the other. There were fish of every description in huge schools, and plenty of colored coral. I doubt that any of us will ever see snorkeling as good as that again. Just to top it off, we caught a couple of calamari and some large trevally off the beach for dinner.
Photos below are-
1-4: Dolphins at Monkey Mia
5: Turtle at MM
6: Shovel-nosed ray at MM (we thought it was a shark!)
7: Pool at MM
8: Hot spring in Fancois Peron National Park, near Monkey Mia
9-10: Old fishing shacks at
11: Cooking breakfast at Quobba
12-14: The older girls in action
15: Typical view under the water at Quobba

The Pinnacles and Kalbarri

Doing around 200-300km per day of travel, we moved up the west coast to Cervantes (where the Pinnacles are), and then on to Kalbarri.
After being inland at New Norcia, everyone was really pleased to see the ocean at Cervantes. It's a really nice little place, but we really just stopped in there for a night to see The Pinnacles. We were fortunate enough to see The Pinnacles at dusk, when these interesting rock formations are bathed in twilight and casting long shadows. As you drive and walk through them, they stretch for as far as the eye can see and look like some sort of ancient city. Well worth the visit (see photos below).
Our next decent stop was Kalbarri, which is a great spot right on the coast. After staying in some rough camp sites, we really enjoyed being in a caravan park that had plenty of grass, shade, and a pool. Our main sight seeing here was at the Kalbarri National Park, where we saw Nature's Window and some beautiful gorges. While we didn't have to walk more than a couple of kilometers in total, the 38 deg heat really tried everyone out. We were pleased to get back to the shade. We ended up spending 3 nights in Kalbarri - the swimming in the estuary, and beach fishing were all great. The girls particularly liked jumping off the jetty.
Photos below are-
1-3: At The Pinnacles at dusk
4: All of us sitting in Nature's Window at Kalbarri National Park
5: Tilly in Nature's Window
6: Z bend gorge at Kalbarri NP
7: Trying to catch crabs at Kalbarri
8: Jumping off the jetty at Kalbarri

New Norcia

Without any real planning, we headed a couple of hundred kilometers North East from Perth to the monastery town of New Norcia. This was established by the Benadictine Monks in the 1800's and has operated as a monastery ever since. While there were several schools established here (the buildings are all still there), it now just operates as a monastery, tourist destination, bakery, and farm.
While we did a tour of all the old buildings, the real highlight was being there for Easter Sunday. We a few hundred meters away from the church and monastery and really enjoyed the chanting of the Easter Vigil which began at 4.30am. The girls were all up early to search for Easter eggs, and were pleased to see that Easter bunny had found us in this obscure location. With a belly full of chocolate we then walked up to church where we enjoyed mass with the monks and some of the local community. They were all very hospitable, and even invited us to join them for tea and hot cross buns afterwards.
Photos below are at New Norcia-
1: The church
2: Our Easter egg hunt around the camper
3: Dividing up the eggs
4: more eggs from the monks after church
5: the girls in the flour mill