March 26, 2013

Exmouth, Turquoise Bay, and Yardi Creek, Western Australia (March, 2013)

We had originally intended on staying most of Tuesday in Coral Bay, but it was raining when we got up, so we decided to take off early and drive to Exmouth to see if the weather was better.  When we got to Exmouth, the sun was shining, and it was hot (but a bit windy).

We stayed 2 nights at the Lighthouse Caravan Park on the Indian Ocean side of the cape.  We decided to go straight to Turquoise Bay, the highlight of the area.  We hung out at Turquoise Bay most of the day, did the drift snorkel a bunch of times.  Ryder is our little snorkeler.  Sawyer was scared, but bravely did it once, and Eliza put her fears aside and did it once.

We broke ranks from the Kemps...they went back up to Exmouth to eat and we ventured further south, eventually making our way down to Yardi Creek.  We stopped at Oyster Stacks, Sandy Bay, and a few other places along the way.  Yardi Creek was beautiful.  We wanted to take a boat trip, but nobody was there to take us (just 3 empty boats).

The next morning, Rick took Cody spearfishing just across the road from the caravan park.  We were out there about 2 hours, and after diving down and poking our heads in and out of small caves, Rick finally shot a Spangled Emperor about 2 feet in length and pinned it to the back of the cave.  He was kind enough to let me pull the spear out of the rock and drag the fish to shore.










We spent the remainder of the day at Sandy Bay, but it was terribly windy and we ended up leaving pretty early.  We had dinner up at the lighthouse and watched the sunset from the top of the hill.

It was now time to make our way back to Perth.  We decided to depart the next morning early and spend an extra day at Coral Bay since the rain cut us off the 1st time through.

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