Cape Range National Park is a national park in the Gascoyne region of Western Australia, 1,105 kilometres north of Perth. The park occupies the western side of the North West Cape peninsula over an area of 47,655 hectares. The nearest town is Exmouth. Directly off the coast is the Ningaloo Reef.
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This is one of the beautiful national parks of Western Australia that joins up w the Ningaloo World Heritage coastline to the south and west of Exmouth. The Park is noted for its gorgeous gorges which you can hike and spend time viewing wildlife near the equally beautiful beaches dotting the coastline.
We recently spend a couple days exploring Cape Range and really enjoyed the Charles Knife Canyon which you can drive 11 km into taking in numerous remarkable viewpoints. At the end of this paved 2wd accessible road, we completed the 7km long Badjarrijarri trail to the Shothole Canyon Lookout, another stellar viewpoint.
On the western side of Cape Range, we made numerous stops at beaches in route to Yardie Creek. There we found a nice, fairly easy trails along the creek rim and enjoyed the 1 hour boat tour available, advanced bookings required.
The Mandu Mandu gorge a bit further north was also a good, comfortable 3 km trail which like the trails at Yardie Creek puts you in the area where you can see rare Black-flanked Rock Wallabies and other wildlife if you are lucky and keep your eyes peeled.
Overall, we really enjoyed our time in Cape Range NP and the Ningaloo World Heritage Area. Given the amount of travel time required to drive here, we wished we had allocated a 3rd and perhaps 4th day to allow us to explore the area more thoroughly. Two days just didn't seem...
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We stayed at Kurrajong campsite for 7 nights and overall enjoyed the experience. Our camp host Kerry was so attentive, friendly and helpful. The site we were allocated was spacious and had a good buffer to the neighboring sites. From here, could access easily so many other great beaches but the one out the front was excellent for snorkeling. The only negative for the experience was the wind. We are in a camper trailer with the top half being canvas. The wind at night was howling and blew us around so much it was difficult to sleep. Only 1.5 days out of 7 with low winds to enjoy the beaches. Ground was rock hard so difficult to get the pegs in. Bring screw in pegs with you. Amenities were very good and kept very clean. Only fish here are Charlie Court cod and small trevalley inside the reef. Plenty of mackerel etc outside the reef but you need a boat and have to launch it back at the boat ramp (on the way back to exmouth). I used a kayak to fish and the best rig is a float with bait suspended below at around 1m. This will stop you getting snagged on coral and...
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You have to pay for breathing air in this national park 😅. There’s no question that Ningaloo reef is amazing and full of life and it’s beyond amazing and beautiful but taking advantage of all of these by making people pay for literally everything is another. We have visited 10+ national parks in WA and this was the one where we felt that we are not welcome if you are budget travellers. The shire of Exmouth and the national park together earn thousands by entry fees and camping fees every day but the people whose are maintaining the camping sites are volunteers. You can’t find any free camping sites here nor the entire shire in fact . You have to book in advance and if you can’t find any spot you will be forced to drive back to Exmouth and pay 60$/ night for a piece of...
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