Monday 23 September 2013 - Ned’s Camp, Cape Range NP

Monday 23 September 2013 - Ned’s Camp, Cape Range NP

We’re still here! After being blown to bits on the first night in the national park at a more exposed camp on the southern end, we found a great little site at Ned’s Camp. It’s in a nice little ‘cul-de-sac’ so we don’t get any day visitor traffic and there’s even a little boardwalk through the dunes, giving us our own private beach access! The girls often go and hang out there with their sand toys, especially when it’s too windy on the beach itself. The ‘breeze’ is always present and varies from strong to gusty to howling, but for the most part we’re pretty well protected. Our only complaint is that it gets pretty cool at night, around 13 or 14 degrees lately, but we had a few mornings where the mercury had dropped to 11.

The sun is shining all day though and it gets quite warm, but the water temperature is still a bit cool for us north Queenslanders. Ningaloo Reef is a marine park and is a World Heritage listed site, so the sea-life here is pretty phenomenal. The water is, again, crystal clear and every day we bother to look, we see whales out past the reef, turtles in close and the occasional dolphin cruising through. The fish life is incredible, but we’ve only been snorkelling once each, due to the cool water and even cooler wind when you get out! There’s plenty of coral around too, but it looks like it cops a bit of a flogging due to the constant tourist traffic coming through.

We’ve got some really lovely neighbours, most of whom have been here for a while and aren’t in any hurry to move either. One couple are from Darwin, another family (they have two girls as well, but they’re 7 and 9) are from Phillip Island and some grey nomads who left a few days ago were from Agnes Waters. Yesterday they were replaced by a girl about my age with a nearly 3-year-old daughter from Adelaide, much to Yasmin’s delight. So we’re from all over. The rest of the campground are pretty friendly too – every evening they head to the picnic tables overlooking the beach for sundowner drinks. We tried to do it one afternoon but the girls got a bit overexcited with the chocolates and nuts that people had brought along for nibblies.