The tide decides the order, not the distance

Oyster Stacks is a high-tide beach

The Oyster Stacks are five islets standing off the reef, and WA Parks is explicit about the access: they can only be snorkelled at high tide. At low water the reef flat between the beach and the islets is exposed, and there is nothing to swim through.

That makes it the one stop on the cape that is scheduled by the water rather than by your plan. If the tide table says high water at 10:00, Oyster Stacks is the first stop of the day and everything else moves behind it.

It also means the window is short. The usable period sits either side of the high, and it narrows on a big tide.

The window is easier to hit from town than from a campground, and campervan hire out of Exmouth is the depot page for the town, which leaves the tide table as the only schedule.

Turquoise Bay is a current beach

Turquoise Bay does not have a tide window in the same way. What it has is a current that runs along the shore, and the way to use it is the drift: walk south along the beach, enter the water, and let it carry you back north to where you started.

Entering at the wrong end puts you swimming against the current rather than with it, and the bay is long enough for that to matter.

The practical version: check which way the water is moving before you get in, walk to the upstream end, and keep the exit point in sight.

Low tide has its own list

Two things on this coast only appear when the water goes out.

The Mildura Wreck sits near the tip of the North West Cape and is visible at low tide. It is a historic maritime wreck rather than a dive site, and the walk out to it is on reef flat, which means the window is the low, not the day.

The reef flat itself. At low water the shallow lagoon between the beach and the reef crest is walkable in places, and that is when you see what the reef actually is: coral, rubble, and a lot of things that live in the gaps. It is also when the coral is most vulnerable, so the rule is to look rather than stand.

What the tide does to a kayak plan

The Bundegi kayak trail is the only one of the four Ningaloo trails on the Exmouth Gulf side of the cape, and the parks service says to plan it around the high tide. The paddle out to the moorings is shallow, and a low tide turns it into a walk.

The other three trails — Tantabiddi, Osprey and Coral Bay — have designated moorings so that paddlers can tie off rather than anchor on coral. The Tantabiddi trail is a 1.4 km paddle from the boat ramp to two moorings inside the sanctuary zone; the Osprey trail is 1.1 km south-west to the first of two.

The tide is not the only clock

Three other things set the day, and they interact with the tide rather than replace it.

The wind. The sea breeze builds through the afternoon on this coast, and the water is at its clearest and calmest in the morning. A high tide at 07:00 and a high tide at 15:00 are not the same beach day.

The swell. Dunes Surf Beach is the park's surf break, and the parks service puts the best swells between July and October. That is a season rather than a tide, but the two decide together whether the beach is worth the drive.

The turtles. The state parks service gives November to March as the turtle nesting window on this coast, and the animals come ashore at nightes north of town. The Jurabi Turtle Centre runs guided walks in season, and the timing follows the tide as well as the dark.

How to build the day

Read the tide table for Exmouth the night before, not in the car park. The Bureau of Meteorology publishes predictions for the port, and the times shift later each day, so a table from last week is a different day.

Then put the fixed thing first. If Oyster Stacks is on the list, it takes the high tide slot and the drift at Turquoise Bay fills the hours either side of it. If the wreck is the point, the low tide sets the morning instead.

Everything else on the cape road is flexible: Lakeside, Sandy Bay, Osprey Bay and the campgrounds all work at most states of the tide, which is what makes them the fill rather than the anchor of a plan.

The driving is the easy part. The park road is sealed from the town to the Yardie Creek crossing, the beaches are minutes apart, and the whole cape is a short day of driving with a long day of stopping in it.