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Published: April 20th 2007
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Our kayaking group
Just getting a pep talk from our guide before heading out to the reef. From Denham we enbarked on another 5 hour road trip up to Coral Bay. This included a quick stop off at a place called Shell Bay. As the name suggests, Shell Bay is not made of sand but is made up of millions and millions of little cockle shells which are a brilliant white in colour. The bay was stunning, the whiteness of the shells together with the blue water and sky was amazing.
As we drove to coral Bay we noticed more and more dead kangaroos on the side of the road, we think there must have been a roo massacar each night. Kangaroos are not exactly small and if we had hit one it would have made a real mess of the car so we think most of the killings would have come from the hugh trucks that have about 3 trailers attached (alot bigger than the ones at home). As we were into the final leg of our road trip we had a couple of weird encounters with emus! After being stuck in the car for the last 4ish hours you start to get a bit tired and when you see what looks like an Osterige
standing in the road ahead, you start to doubt your own mind! But there he was, we slowed down to try and get a picture but by the time Jo had grabbed her camera he was gone. A little further up the road we started to notice large mounds which we think were ant hills and we noticed something running quite fast on the right hand side. It was another bloody emu! However this one was heading straight for us. Luckily we missed and he ran straight behind the car. Well i guess it makes a change from deer and rabbits! We made it to Coral Bay in one piece and stayed in one of only two backpackers there was.
Coral Bay is where the Ningaloo Reef (Western Australias answer to the great Barrier Reef) starts. We were travelling over the easter holidays so the place was packed and we could only stay at the hostle for one night. We had taken camping stuff so we camped for the other two nights we were there. Unlike the Great Barrier Reef you can reach the Ningaloo Reef just off shore. So we hired some snorkelling gear and headed out to
the reef. We were amazed at all the coral and fish and couldn't believe our luck when we came accross a Green Turtle feeding on the coral. We followed him around for a bit and then headed back to shore for more of our favourite past time, sunbathing.
We had booked a sea kayaking and snorkelling trip which we hadn't been able to go on our first day as the sea had been too rough, but all was ok for the next day. We paddled out to the reef where our guide had taken us to a cleaning station so that we would see turtles and hopefully some reef sharks. The sea was a little choppy and as we got off the kayaks we felt the current was a bit strong, even the fish were having trouble staying in the same place. We all swam off batteling the current and looking at all the different fish and corals. It wasn't long until we found our first turtles and we both dived down and had pictures taken with one of them. As the snorkelling progressed we saw more turtles and other marine life. Unfortunately we only saw the back end
of a reef shark as it swam away. After the first snorkel we got back in the kayaks and paddled to the next spot. We were both feeling a bit tired so our guide tyed us to his kayak to give us a little help. At our next spot we saw mostly Snappers which is the fish that you mostly see on menus over here. Our guide gave them some food and we found ourselves in the middle of a feeding frenzy at which point one of them mistock Sarahs fingers for food! It was pretty cool seeing the reef and all the different fish but what with battelling the current and all the paddelling we were knackered and ended up flacked out for the rest of the day.
We left the following day to head back to Perth. The plan had been to stay somewhere half way down and then do the rest of the journey the next day. The most logical place to stay was Geraldton but as we still had a broken window and we didn't feel safe there we decided to keep going. we made really good time and got back to perth in about
14hours having covered over 1300km. We know we shouldn't have done it but we got back safe and sound and it gave us an extra day to sort out the window. We flew back to Sydney after a few days and spent another week there catching up with mates and getting drunk before we left for the East Coast.
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Denise Fielder
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Turtle Power
Love your Turtle Power blog Girls,the under water pics are amazing,I'm keeping the prints safe at home for you Jo.Take Care,Love to you both.xx