Day 42 –Tom Price to Exmouth

A long day in the car today – about 7 hours, 633km. We only stopped briefly at Parabadoo (the other mining town owned by Rio Tinto) for a quick look, and the roadhouse at Nanutarra. There was no where else!  Parabadoo is quite a modern town, composed entirely of mining houses, a hospital, sportsground, a few shops, and landscaped gardens.

We arrived in Exmouth at about 4pm and checked into the Exmouth Cape Holiday Park (Big 4) – which wasn’t even here last time we were here.

Exmouth is a strange little town, well set up for all the tourist ventures it offers. The Ningaloo Reef which stretches for 260km covers a huge area and offers world class diving and snorkelling.
Exmouth itself is a town of 2300 people and is situated 1270 km north of Perth on WA’s west coast. It has many beaches, and as well as the reef, is also home to the Cape Range National Park, a spectacular place of rugged limestone ranges and canyons. As there are no stingers or box jellyfish here, we can’t wait to get in the water and do some snorkelling. The good snorkelling places are all 50km or so south of Exmouth, so we will tackle them tomorrow.

We were amazed at all the development since we were here 12 years ago – lots of new houses set on a new marina development, new shopping centre, new resorts - although the town beach is not that spectacular. I think Coral Bay is a much nicer place (well, at least it was last time!).

Exmouth has no wet season, the region has dry climate summers and winters and enjoys 320 days of sunshine each year. Nice!