A great spot just south of Exmouth is Charles Knife Road , it's an area of the range where erosion has created multicoloured canyons , one side of the road is different to the other . There are caves , limestone capping , spinifex and low shrubbery , also a mobile phone tower and the Bureau of Meteorology weather station . The road snakes uphill , changes to gravel , gets narrower and then goes to single lane where the canyons fall away each side , some stunning scenery !
A shame when we got up top , the wind also came along and joined us - too windy for the drone !!
These are some views from various lookout spots .
Something that surprised us - educated us - in 1953 West Australian Petroleum drilled for oil here high up on the top of the range . They sank an exploration well 4692m deep here , but didn't find anything , so capped off the bore hole and here it is . We shouldn't have been surprised as there's so much natural gas & oil being pumped out of the ground & ocean around here .
This is the canyon on the northern side of the road - much more vegetation than on the southern side .
From here we went to Learmonth Jetty - we were expecting something larger and higher , but were presented with a low rock jetty with a platform at the end , that people were fishing off - didn't even take a photo !
Further down the road back to Exmouth I spotted a small inlet , and thought we'd have a look , white gravel river bed , orange soil , green shrubbery , blue skies - couldn't go wrong .
Another road out to the water took us to Pebble Beach , and there was no shortage of them either .
Due to the wind we decided that would do us for today .
Next day however was completely different , next to no wind - decision made , back to Charles Knife Rd , time for the drone to take to the sky . There were people around , but no-one stopped near us , and we were still outside the national park . Here's some of the results .
After exhausting a couple of batteries in the drone , we headed back toward town , stopping at another location - Exmouth is in the distance .
With lots of photos to sort through , as well as some video , we had some lunch and chilled out for the afternoon .
Next day we headed back out to Cape Range to catch up with John & Julie again , it was windy again . Stopping at the beach that runs from the lighthouse to the SS Mildura Wreck to watch the waves and spray , surfers out enjoying the conditions as well .
From here we went back to the lighthouse to check out the whales again , spotting several out & about . Back down to another surf beach , and a turtle nesting area - and check out the weather conditions - we had only moved about 1.5klms and this - next to no wind , weird weather .
There was a young guy riding a wave in , looked pretty normal to you see he was about 500mm out of the water , it was as if he was floating above it , then , he just turned to go back out again , seemed to just pump the board up & down , and he just sailed right on back out there against the waves - bloody amazing !!
His mother told us he was just testing a few boards for one of the local shops - this is the boards winged keel !! His dad was also out there with a stand up paddle board with a similar set up on it .
After that little revelation , we headed down to Lakeside in Cape Range - another snorkelling spot .
It was a bit of a hike to get around there , but it was in a sanctuary zone and also deeper water , so that means bigger wildlife . I saw many of the fish I'd already seen as well as coral , but there was a group of Long Tom's - 8 in all - looking like sticks on the sea floor .
Managed to find a stingray as well , it's outline , tail and eyes giving it away .
Lots more clams here as well , there was a strong current flowing here as well , so keeping in place near the coral & fish was proving to be difficult , so I went with the current and got out . It was a bonus given the weather we had in town and the huge contrast in the weather here !
We caught up with John & Julie for a bit over an hour before we headed back to town , tomorrow we head further south .
Here's map link :-https://drive.google.com/open?id=10O829i_MOdZVY5FglmwJERZH6ey9wasx&usp=sharing
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