Warroora Station to Exmouth

Right near the entrance to Quobba station lies Point Quobba with one of the best blowholes you’ll ever see. Water spraying many metres into the air with lots of other smaller holes bubbling and boiling away, it’s quite a sight. You can actually free camp at the blowholes. It’s very exposed but there is always lots of activity with people photographing the coastline or fishing off the 5m cliffs. When we arrived on our way out from the station, a fisherman had hooked up a shark but lost the battle with his line snapping like a twig.

Warroora Station is only about 2 hours north of Carnarvon so after a quick re-stock in town we were off. The road into the station off the highway is a little tricky to navigate and the road required us to drop the tyre pressures to travel comfortably. After winding our way along some fun little sand tracks we found the campground at 14 mile Beach. Out of nowhere came a very unexpected site. Beautiful blue water, people camping in the dunes, just heaven. The caretakers Ross and Lesley were extremely friendly and led us to nice little site nestled in amongst the dunes with spectacular water views. Ok, so we could walk out of the camper about 10m and into the water. Now I understand what our mate from Currumbin was talking about. This place certainly has the wow factor. There are many different campsites along the beach area, but the main area at 14 mile certainly best suits families like ours. There are no facilities whatsoever so you need to be completely self-sufficient. To protect the environment they also insist on everyone having they’re own portable toilet (they have their own dump point). If you don’t have one with you (as we didn’t) they’ll hire you one for a $50 deposit if it’s returned back clean and $5 per day. That coupled with the fact that it’s $7.50 per adult and free for kids, it’s the best value camping we’ve had yet next to Sceale Bay!

14 Mile Beach

The water views weren't bad

There were families with kids camping all over. Just quietly, I think ours needed some ‘not to be with mum and dad time’ and quickly ran off to get a game of capture the flag and cricket going. We just relaxed and soaked in the serenity, so much serenity and chatted to some of the other parents about their travels so far and the journey to come. Lesley mentioned that the emperor had gone quiet over the past week but a few were still being landed to keep people interested.

Our camp from the sand dune behind the beach

The wind had died down overnight so early the next morning I slipped out to try my luck. I love fishing at dawn, with no one else around, just the sound of the waves, it’s so incredibly peaceful. I didn’t have to wait too long with my bait being taken by something quite big. After a short but strong fight I’d landed the target species, a 43cm Spangled Emperor! Lachie wandered down to see where I was and to let me know brekky was on. I missed two more fish, one taking the whole squid just below the hook and one taking my whole rig! Triumphantly I returned back to camp showing off my fish to anyone who cared to see it.  The rest of the day was spent relaxing on the beach. It was nice just to do nothing. That night we cooked up the emperor whole on the bbq. It was just beautiful tasty white flesh that fed us all perfectly.

Spangled Emperor

The wind came up overnight again, so the next day was spent hanging out on the beach. Afterwards we went for a drive and a snorkel to Sandy Beach about 6km south with another family we had befriended. We had a nice little snorkel out to a few bommies with some fish and a turtle cruising around. The kids tried chasing it without luck.

We would love to have stayed longer but unfortunately we had to move on. Coral Bay was next which is only about 40min north of the station. We had heard the snorkeling was lovely in a very sheltered and safe beach just in front of the caravan park we were to be staying in. We arrived late morning and went for lunch to the local bakery and picked up some better snorkeling gear for the kids. 3.30pm was fish feeding time. There was a massive crowd but it didn’t really matter as huge Spangled Emperor 50-80cm long swam around and through your legs looking for some food. We then went for a snorkel. Lachie and Caitlin took to it quickly. Grace had a few issues but got the hang of it and is now really competent and can keep up with us all.

More Spangled Emperor at fish feeding

We were only staying a night in Coral Bay as our main destination was Cape Range National Park near Exmouth, however we’d had a call from our friends Paul and Sue saying the camping was full and the only way was to try to book online 48hrs in advance or line up at the park entry early in the morning and hope for the best with no guarantees. That afternoon I spent a couple of hours online trying to get a booking and fortunately or rather miraculously, was able to get a site at one of the nicer campgrounds from the 13^th to the 16^th. This meant we had 2 nights to kill in or around Exmouth. We ended up choosing Yardie Homestead, which is about 26km out of Exmouth, towards the National Park and secured the last available powered site, phew!

We decided to treat ourselves to dinner at the local resort in Coral Bay, which was very casual. We were able to see the end of the Broncos getting flogged by Canberra, then the semi-final of The Voice, which was fun for everyone. Watching television was great but it made me realize just how little we need it in our lives and how much time we spend in front of it normally. I wonder if that will change when we get back? With accommodation booked and a plan (without a plan, there’s no attack, without attack, no victory!) we headed into Exmouth, which is about 150km north of Coral Bay.