Dongara/Port Dension - A Hidden W.A. Coastal Gem

TLWR? (Too long, won’t read?) Watch the video of our Dongara Camping Trip instead!

👨 Ahh, Dongara. It’s my happy place. Located about 4 hours North of Perth, Western Australia, Dongara is a sleepy little crayfishing town that my family has been visiting since I was around 5 years old.

My nephew Dillen, Boomer and I set off with the car loaded and the trailer behind us. Candice would join us in 5 days, as 12 days of camping was more than she could handle! The journey on the inland road (Brand Highway) was generally smooth, except for the trailer tyre going flat, which I noticed when we stopped off at Cataby Roadhouse for a lunchbreak as we do every time. Luckily I keep an air compressor with me and was able to add air as we went!

On arrival in Dongara we went straight to Dongara Tourist Park, where the rest of my family had already arrived. We would be staying for the next 12 days, and unpacked and set up. That night we relaxed, watched the cricket, and planned our activities for the rest of the trip.

The weather was glorious for the morning of day 2, so we headed to South Beach which is only 2 mins drive from the caravan park. We drove up around the first point to get away from everyone else so we had the beach to ourselves. When we found a suitable spot, we let the dogs run wild, played beach cricket, and swam until it was time to go back to camp for lunch.

That afternoon we checked the fishing lunar charts (it was predicted to be excellent fishing) and organised our gear to go tailor fishing at Granny’s Beach. Around sunset Dillen and I headed down to the rock wall at the bay where we found a spot amongst a crowd of other fisherman. Just as the sun hit the horizon the tailor came on the bite and we had a great time catching good-sized tailor, winding up with 9, 5 of which were caught on popper lures, which I’d just taught Dillen to use for the first time. The fish generated about 2kgs of fillets.

On day 3, we woke up to a big brekky of pancakes cooked by my Mum and headed down to the beach again as we do almost every day while up there. On returning to camp, we headed into Dongara townsite to get the wheel repaired and pick up a few things.

That night we played boardgames in my parents caravan and ate fish tacos made with the tailor from the night before with a few glasses of wine.

The next morning the weather was calm and the seas were flat so on low tide we walked out onto the Home Reef, which grows alongside the rock wall forming the marina, taking our spears to catch octopus. We managed to catch 1 good-sized octopus within the first 5 mins and thought we’d catch a heap out there but that wound up being the only one! We did see a bunch of beautiful wildlife and sea critters while we were walking, though.

We returned to camp and prepared for a trip to go night fishing at our favourite spot on South Beach, which requires some 4WDing (with me getting bogged down to the axles along the way) to get to. The fish were biting! My Dad caught a dart half a metre long, but we released it - and everything else that we caught - because we were fishing for fun, since we still had fillets from the tailor of the first fishing trip.

After a sleep in to recover from the adventure the night before, we packed our golf gear into the car and headed out to Dongara Golf Club. It’s run by volunteers and you can hire carts which are organised by a lady who lives in the motel nearby. The 18 hole fully grassed green and fairway course is long with a variety of lofted tee positions, elevated greens and provides a challenge despite the minimal hazards. Thoroughly enjoyed the game! Even though I putted poorly, I still managed to edge out my dad by 2 strokes.

We rose early the next morning to take the dogs to the beach and awaited the arrival of my love. She arrived late in the afternoon, so after settling in we had dinner with the fam then an early night.

👩‍🦰 I wanted to burn this whole camp-site to the ground after being kept awake by the wind on a noisy creaky tent and a raging headache all night. I gave up trying to sleep at 3.30! On the plus side, I didn't need an alarm to get up for sunrise photos 🙃

Aaron had been telling me how amazing the weather had been and so of course the morning that we woke up early, the weather was overcast and super windy! Still, we got some nice photos in and around Port Denison.

Once we realised the rest of our planned sunrise shots weren’t going to cut the mustard, we called it quits and spent a little bit of time at the beach but it was so windy, and the wind continued throughout the day unfortunately, so I wasn't keen to go back to the beach. We stop off at the sheltered beach then just relaxed the rest of the day.

We were back to the beach again the next morning and - again - I was getting battered by sand, so much so that I sat in the car while everyone else hung around outside. I would’ve enjoyed the sheltered beach much more but the doggos needed to be free to run.

The whole fam hit up the Denison Bowling Club in the afternoon for some lawn bowls. It was only $5 to play and everyone there was super lovely and helpful, very friendly. It was a really fun way to spend an arvo, although we weren’t particularly good at it haha!

That night we celebrated Boomer’s 2nd birthday! He had a delicious dinner, looked adorable in his party hat and continued to be the best boi ever. Who needs cake when you can have steak?

The next day we went for a snorkel to try and decide where would be the best spot for a scuba, as we only had one tank each, meaning we only had one shot! Aaron took me miles out to sea in the treacherous deep blue ocean with gigantic waves crashing over me and flooding my snorkel!

...okay, so I'm exaggerating, but I did start panicking when we went off the back of Home Reef and I felt unprotected with open water all around me and waves throwing me about as they crashed on the reef. Aaron was having a great time diving under to check for crays, but I'm not a confident swimmer.

After not too long, I told Aaron that I wanted to try a different spot, so we went over to Leander Reef, where we should’ve started! Right off the beach just a couple metres into the water there were some really great ledges to swim around, it was a bit more protected and I felt safer since it wasn’t so far out from shore, it was a great spot! We hung around for a bit, but Aaron again had no luck with crays, so we decided to return tomorrow for a scuba dive.

👨 On Tuesday morning, we arose and did the usual beach routine while we waited for the wind to drop off in the middle of the day. When it did, we headed back to camp to load up our gear and drove back to Leander Reef to scuba dive at the same spot.

I tried again to snare crayfish but without my contact lenses (which Candice did tell me to put in but I ignored), I had trouble accurately placing the loop of the snare around the cray so only managed to snare 1 but it was undersized so I released it.

The dive was, however, very picturesque. We saw a smooth ray and a plethora of other fish amongst the ledges and caves. Though the loose seaweed piled on the bottom did irritate me a little, it was generally a nice dive.

👩‍🦰 In the late arvo we headed out to shoot the rifle and I absolutely crushed it (just like the first time, which I put down to beginner's luck!). Turns out I'm a bit of a natural, even with the sun in my eyes 😎

The ticks were scaring the heck out of me though - I brushed one off my leg before I realised what it was, then somehow one ended up on my HAT 😰

We were kicking so many away, thankfully none managed to burrow into my skin or I would've freaked out harrrrd!! Anyway, the shooting was heaps of fun, but I definitely prefer in a shooting range where nature doesn't touch me and try to bury itself inside my flesh to suck out my life force…

Also I’m not giving you the finger in this photo, I’m pointing to the bullet holes that are all super close to where I was aiming - the centre of the box just above the photo of the biscuits!

👨 Boomer and I waved farewell to Candice the next morning as she’d had her fill of camping (👩‍🦰 I was SO happy to be heading home haha! ). My old man and I decided to revisit Leander Reef and capture one of these elusive crays! Finally I had some success and the first one that I grabbed happened to be legal size!

Also saw a number of good-sized fish which we could’ve shot with the speargun but decided against it as we were going crabbing the next day and already had fish.

Last full day at camp, we got up and went to the beach. The weather was absolutely perfect, as is always the case at the end of your holidays! We spent a couple of hours there before heading back to camp to partially pack up site in preparation for leaving the next day.

We spent the afternoon watching cricket before going crabbing off of the jetty in the marina. I caught one decent-sized crab which went well with the crayfish for dinner that night. I stayed up with my parents having a few drinks and playing cards before heading to bed and heading off the next day.

On the way home we took the coastal road (Indian Ocean Drive) and stopped off at Jurien Bay Bakery for a pie, as is tradition. The holiday was just what I needed to recharge the batteries after a pressing year working in healthcare during Covid. It was great to spend some time with my family, my love, and to take Boomer for his first adventure holiday.

Looking forward to our next trip, which is a short stay at an Air Bnb near Swan Valley, Western Australia. Love you, bye!