Western Australia Road Trip Part 2

En route to Exmouth we stopped in Coral Bay for some great snorkeling. We weren't able to sit on the beach or walk due to all the flies. 

We stayed two nights at the Mantaray Resort in Exmouth. Low season around here is very quiet. A deserted marina and lots of locked up holiday homes.

We did a day trip through Cape Range National Park with more amazing snorkeling at Oyster Stacks.

Exmouth to Broome is 1400kms and 2 days of driving with a stop in Port Hedland, which has absolutely nothing going for it! 

We spent three nights at the Blue Seas Resort in the Cable Beach area. Broome is small with a mildly interesting downtown you can be done with in 5 minutes. Then you can hang out with locals in a dodgy bar for a drink. To be fair, the season hadn't quite kicked in yet. 

Cable Beach is the more rarified  and touristy part of town. We spent pleasant evenings at the Divers Tavern and the Cable Beach Club.

You can't swim in the sea at this time of year due to stingers so apart from beach walks and bird watching we did a great dolphin sight- seeing boat trip and a hugely entertaining camel ride on the beach.

Working camels were released into the desert in Australia over a hundred years ago, once railways and roads opened up the interior and the camels were no longer needed. The camels in Broome have been rescued from drought and fire stricken areas and are very well looked after.

After another night in Port Hedland, we stayed at the Tom Price Tourist Park to explore Karajini National Park. Some areas were still closed due to the rainy season and it was still very hot. Hiking with flies and in the heat is not much fun. It's a beautiful landscape but without the animals we are used to in African national parks, we found it a little one dimensional. 

We drove the inland route back to Perth, staying in Newman and Mount Magnet. Unless you love being in the car and on the road to nowhere, I'd suggest flying back from Broome.

By this stage, the Corona Virus was spreading world wide ( no cases in Western Australia though ) and we realised borders would be closing and international travel would become more tricky. We had no choice but to cut our Australia trip short by a month and return to South Africa as soon as possible.