We drove from Dampier to Onslow on the 31st
of July for two nights and stayed at the discovery caravan park. The town caters for people who fly in and fly
out to work on the gas project on Barrow Island or at the gas processing plant
nearby. There is also a discharge point
where the ships are loaded with gas as well as a salt processing plant. The
town is small and consists of a few pubs and living accommodation for FIFO
workers. While we were in Onslow the wind picked up and it was the first time
that we got cold on this trip. The beach was not the best that we had seen and
all in all there is not much to see and do in this small town.
Below is a photo of the beach in front of the
caravan park
Below is a jetty where gas is loaded on ships
at sea.
The time that we spent in Onslow was well
spent as we caught up with the laundry and walking through the little
town, However we were rather pleased to
leave town and we made our way to a farm stay at Bullara Station which was our
base point to visit Exmouth and Coral Bay.
Bullara was nothing to write home about either,
however it was a farm stay and the host was very friendly. The happy hour was very enjoyable and there
was always a good damper to be had.
Our set up in the dirt
Our friendly neighbours in the paddock next
door.
We drove to Exmouth from Bullara which was
roughly 80km away on Tuesday and did some much needed grocery shopping and went
to explore the small town and surrounding.
.
Here are some facts on Exmouth. As you will
see Exmouth was involved as a submarine base during the Second World War and
still has large antennas which to this day still communicate with submarines
worldwide using an ULF (ultra-low frequency) signal which is sent via a series
of tall masts on the northern side of town.
The Encoded ULF signal is picked up by submarined using a tether line as
antennae. This was revealed to us by an ex radio officer which we met in Pardoo
and again in Port Hedland who is now retired from the services in Exmouth
Exmouth is a town on the tip of the North West Cape in Western Australia.
The town is located 1,270 kilometres (789 mi) north of the state capital Perth and 3,366 kilometres (2,092 mi) southwest of Darwin.
The town was established in
1967 to support the nearby United
States Naval Communication Station Harold E. Holt. Beginning in the late 1970s, the town began hosting U.S. Air Force personnel assigned to Learmonth Solar
Observatory, a defence science facility jointly operated with Australia's Ionospheric Prediction Service.
History
The
location was first used as a military base in World War II. US Admiral James F.
Calvert in his memoir, Silent Running: My Years on a World War II Attack Submarine
and US Vice Admiral Charles A. Lockwood in Sink 'Em All, his narrative
of Allied submarine warfare, describe its history. After the retreat from Java
in March 1942, Allied naval forces had need of a forward base for replenishing
submarines, then the sole form of offensive warfare against the Japanese. Both Darwin,
Northern Territory, and Broome, Western Australia, were too exposed to air
attack, so a 500-ton unmotorized lighter was placed as a refueling barge near
the mouth of Exmouth Gulf, where the Allies were already maintaining a seaplane
tender.
Code-named
Potshot, the spartan base was also developed as an advanced base and
rest camp for submariners using the tender USS Pelias. An airfield (now RAAF
Learmonth) was constructed to provide fighter defense for the base. Z Special
Unit used Potshot as a staging base for Operation Jaywick in September
1943.
Tourism
Nowadays
the town relies more on tourism than the station for its existence. At the 2011
census, Exmouth had a population of 2,207. At the height of the tourist season the
population swells to 6,000.
Exmouth
is one of the few areas in Australia that can boast the "Range to
Reef" experience. The Cape Range National Park which has some spectacular
gorges is an area of 506 square kilometres and its main area is focused on the
west coast of the Cape which provides a large variety of camp sites on the
coastal fringe of the Park.
On 22
March 1999, Tropical Cyclone Vance reached category 5 status as it made
landfall near Exmouth. This resulted in the highest ever wind gust reported on
the Australian mainland of 267 km/h at Learmonth, only 35 km to the
south.
Vance
caused significant flooding and property damage but there were no deaths.
In April
2014, Exmouth was hit by a massive flash flood, nearly destroying the caravan
park and seriously damaging much of the town's infrastructure, causing a severe
blow to tourism in the region.
Climate
Exmouth has a hot semi-arid
climate. Temperatures often reach over 40 °C in summer, however winters are mild
and pleasant with daytime temperatures around 25 °C. There is no specific wet
and dry season in Exmouth, although rain is most likely to fall between January
and July, usually with monsoonal showers and storms from January to April and
from the northern edges of cold fronts in May, June and July. The period from August to December is usually
dry.
The picture below shows the
tall masts that are still used to this day
The tall towers are taller than the empire state building, towering a staggering 400m tall
We
took the opportunity to visit The Vlamingh Head lighthouse and the views from
there was quite spectacular.
After our stop at the lighthouse lookout, we
drove along the coast to have a look at the beaches that Exmouth has to offer,
here again we were not disappointed. We
saw stunning white sandy beaches with beautiful clear waters.
Whilst we were walking on this beautiful
beach, we were spoilt by Mother Nature to see a turtle in the sea.
Whiskey and Brandy waiting patiently as
Bernie scans the surrounds for anything of interest.
Next day we went to visit Coral Bay, see
below for information on yet another beautiful place.
Coral Bay is a small settlement that lies
protected from the Indian Ocean by the Ningaloo reef. It is Australia's only Fringing reef. (Fringing reefs occur adjacent to land with
little or no separation from the shore. A
low input of terrigenous sediment is important, and the best-developed fringing
reefs occur off shorelines where rainfall is low, there is little relief, or
else the hillsides are stabilized by heavy vegetation. In recent years, clear cutting of forests and
poor land management have impacted fringing reefs more than any other type.)
In contrast to other locations the coral
starts right at the water's edge. The fish and the coral are very accessible to
all including small children. Fish and
coral can be experienced either snorkeling or on one of the Coral viewing
boats. It is about 50 km to the North of
the tropic of Capricorn, some 120 km south of Exmouth in Western Australia. The weather is mild, without the humidity that
is often associated with tropical climates.
Photos below of our time spent at Coral Bay
The photos below are of the dogs and Bernie
enjoying the water.
After everyone had enough of the water and
swimming, we were told to go walk in the water to our knees and we would see
fish swimming around us. See the photos
below in the water looking back to shore and the lovely big fish within arm’s
reach near us.
After our lovely day spent at Coral Bay, we
returned home to Bullara Station Stay and took a photo of the entry into
Bullara Station Stay, and next day we made our way to Carnarvon.
Map below of our travels on this trip.
