Lakeside (Exmouth to Karratha, WA)

The day dawned as Saturday. This was probably no surprise to most people dear reader, but occasionally we are unaware. We drove down to the Exmouth shopping centre to be absolutely amazed by the number of people and cars. Parking spaces were at a premium. The markets were on opposite the shopping centre. OK, that makes sense. We wandered the area to see what was there and to locate the bottle shop, supermarket and bakery for future use.

The queue, almost out of the bakery door, ensured we went without breakfast and instead, headed for our first snorkel of the day.

We had identified a number of areas for snorkelling through Jayne’s research. This was supplemented by chats on board the Utopia yesterday. Cape Range National Park was the destination, first stop Lakeside.

That made the choice of song title too easy. Lakeside by Australian Crawl from their 1981 album Sirocco.

Amazing coral.

The road was sealed all the way to Lakeside despite the regular dirt tracks off either side of the road on which we were travelling. The jury is still out about the naming of Lakeside. There was a pond behind the dunes but to reference it as a lake was a bridge too far. The snorkelling here is about a 500m walk south from the carpark toward the marine sanctuary.

A colourful clam

Once again, the snorkelling did not disappoint. We braved the 23° water without wetsuits. The coral had more colour and the diversity of marine life was still there. My GoPro captured the underwater action. I’d be happy to return there time and again.

After 30 minutes or so in the water, we returned to the car to check out the Oyster Stack. This was highly recommended by David from the Ningaloo Tour yesterday. He and his family had recently spent some time there. It is a tide specific place and can only be enjoyed a couple of hours either side of high tide. 

After finding a car spot, not easy, we followed the track to the ‘beach’. It was an absolutely stunning spot. Sorry, no photos. The sea was several shades of blue and the major bommies were still above water level. It was postcard perfect. Except the only immediate way into the water was from the rock shelf that lined the beach for about 500 metres. This was neither a viable entrance or exit point for Jayne. Well it could have been. At first it would have been amusing until an injury occurred. This one is listed for a return visit where we will walk to the edge of the shelf and use the beach for access and egress.

Nemo lives here.

Back to the car, next stop was Turquoise Bay. Unsurprisingly the snorkelling is highly rated here as well, however, there are concerns around the strength of the current. If you start at the Loop the current takes you to the Point where you leave the water and walk the beach back to your starting point. We applied the sunscreen and hit the water. The current was much stronger than expected and after 5 minutes or so of fighting it we decided to call it quits.

We drove back into town and straight to the bottle shop and supermarket for supplies to see us through to Broome. We weren’t really sure what would be available between here and Broome.

Back at the resort, post showers, it was time for champagne on the verandah before our final dinner in Exmouth.

Everything about the Mantarays Ningaloo Reef Resort is smooth and on point. I am seriously keen to return and explore the area further, as well as returning to places like Lakeside and the Oyster Stack. When I do, our choice of accommodation is obvious, it will just be outside of school holidays.

Tomorrow we drive to Karratha.

Until then.