The Coral Coast

Arrived in Exmouth about lunch time on Wednesday after free camping the night before and having travelled via Tom Price and Paraburdo.

After booking into a caravan park we began to suss out camping at the Cape Range National Park. A sign in town said no camp sites available today so we drove out to have a look. The park entry point is about 50km out of Exmouth and when we got there the ranger seemed quite off hand telling us that to get in we need to get out there about 6:30am and queue up with everybody else to find out at 8am whether any sites will be available. We agreed that this is a pox set up and although we were looking forward to a few days here decided that Coral Bay would be a better proposition to snorkel over the Ningaloo reef.

We drove down to the first couple of camping areas which look pretty good - right on the beach but since consoled ourselves hearing good things about Coral Bay.

Had a look around Exmouth - when Mum and Dad were here in the early 80s they were able to look over the Harold E Holt Naval Centre. However it is now "top secret" and off limits.

There is a big Novotel Marina partly finished so it looks as though this little place will be on the luxury tourist trail.

The lookout at the lighthouse was worth seeing (see the waves breaking over the Ningaloo reef) - could see several off shore gas platforms

After buying some grub at the supermarket we settled in for the night and left early next morning.

Arrived in Coral Bay (population 190) - (note the wind generators in the background)about 11am and immediately had a good feeling about the place. It consists of 1 road, 2 caravan parks right across from the beach, a pub with accommodation, a backpackers, a few shops and houses and exists purely for tourists. We booked in for 5 days.

The reef is only metres from the shore with fish (big snapper) swimming at the waters edge almost beaching themselves. They must be used to being fed - there is a daily fish feeding where they explain about the fish life and request that people don't feed or touch them.

So far I have snorkelled a couple of days with the multitudes of fish varieties and heaps of coral. Tomorrow plan to walk a fair way to the south and drift along the reef back to town.

About 2km north of the "town" along the beach is a shark nursery where they come to breed at this time of year. Went for a stroll down there yesterday afternoon and saw about 20 (each about 2.5 metres long) swimming up and down 5 metres from shore.

Put the trailer together and took the tinnie down to one of the best boat ramps I have seen. It was only built a couple of years ago and has 2 lanes with non slip surfaces, facilities for tying up while parking trailers, shelter from the prevailing winds and a small breakwater.

Have been fishing twice - have to motor about 2km south of ramp to get out of the sanctuary - first day no good - but today got plenty of bites, lost plenty of bait but landed enough for a couple of meals - whiting (one largish one) and some emperor.

Cooked up the emperor (some type of snapper) on the Cobb using a modified recipe (using whatever ingredients I could scrounge) and it was very tasty even if I say so myself.

Walked about a kilometre south along the beach this morning and jumped in the water, swam out to the reef and drifted back to the bay. Heaps of fish to rival the Barrier reef, swimming in large diverse corals. Just great!

Had a call from the McCormacks (filling up with fuel in Port Hedland) who had heard that Coral Bay would be booked out during the school holidays (starting this weekend). Sure enough the park reception confirmed that from Sat 26th to Oct 9th the place is chocka. They asked me to book them in from tonight till Sat - having decided to detour from the current plan to head to Karajini - they will probably back track to there on the weekend.

Tried an experiment today - snorkelled out from the beach fishing zone this arvo with a handline to see if I could hook a big one. It would have worked a treat except the only bait I had left was a 2 week old pilchard which just about disintegrated when put on the hook. Managed to get some on and swam out. A fish bit at it, the bait fell apart so no cigar - but with some good bait it might just work - too bad we are leaving for Carnarvon tomorrow.