Cape Arid National Park!
Accomodation
Thomas River Campground:
This spot is a Department of Parks and Wildlife (DPAW) campground and costs $11 per person/per night. Unlike other DPAW campgrounds this one is first in best dressed and you pay the caretaker on site. The facilities include long-drop toilets and a BBQ area with a gas cooker, BBQ & undercover seating area. The sites are surrounded by trees for privacy and a few have ocean views (Site 1 & 2).
There is limited phone service in the area and only one bar of 3G can be found at the information bay as you first come into the campground. However, we found it was unusable without a cell-fi booster.
The beach in front of the campground is called Thomas River Beach and is a drive on beach which goes for over 30km with so many little bays to explore.
Once you have driven past the 5km mark on the beach you can actually camp along the beach, however, we would not recommend towing down this beach as it starts off hard, but gets extremely soft at the 5km mark. There is also a steep decent to get down on to the beach, which wouldn’t allow you to tow down. It would be the perfect spot to bring the swags along and go camping on the beach for a night or two if the winds are not too strong.
We drove along this beach as far as you could go and it was absolutely amazing! So many nooks that you can get all to yourself. There was an awesome Little Rock-pool up on the rocks maybe 20-30km down the beach. It was so beautiful.
Dolphin Cove
Dolphin Cove is a beautiful little protected bay for swimming. We walked along the rocks and went for a fish & spear-fish, which was lots of fun.
Tagon Beach
This is a drive on beach, however is 4WD only as it can get very soft. We spent the day having a little surf and then drove down to the rocks where we went for a Salmon fish.
The water was so clear that we could see the fish coming from ages away!! Check out the YouTube Video below to see what we mean, it was sooo cool! We also spotted a big 3.5m Great White Shark, who hung around for a good 30-minutes which was cool to see, we included the shark footage in the YouTube video.
Day-trip options from Cape Arid
Duke of Orleans
Duke of Orleans is right in-between Cape Arid & Cape Le Grand National Parks. It is about 1 hour and 20 minutes from Cape Arid National Park. This is definitely a spot that is worth day tripping too. You can even walk across to the island and hike to the top where you get amazing views.
Wharton Beach
This is another beach that you can drive on, but it is super busy!! The beach is pretty hard though, so you shouldn’t get yourself in much trouble if you wanted to visit this one & not be challenged by a soft beach.
Alexander Bay
This is a beautiful little bay!! You can 4WD right around the beach and over some rocks to another beach, however, we opted just to walk and take it all in! It was definitely worth a visit.
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