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Published: November 9th 2009
Day 192 - Coral Bay
We have two birthday boys to give a shout out for today! Bernie we hope you have a great day and that Tez brings you all the sausage rolls you desire! Hopefully we'll speak to you soon! Paul (Blair), happy birthday 'Tap Dance', have a great day me old Haven Mate mucker! Lots of love to both of you from both of us! “Just one more day?” It was the question that both sets of friends independently asked and independantly answered when we woke this morning. And the answer? It was a resounding “Yes”!
We’re still waiting to hear back from the Williambury station so staying another day might just swing things in our favour, you never know! At least we will be contactable staying here, we’re pretty sure we’ll loose reception for a while when we do leave Coral Bay.
What a turn around from arriving here saying that we didn’t really want to be in another caravan park and initially being determined to stop for just 2 nights to 5 days later and we don't really want to leave! But tomorrow we WILL get back on the road!
The
Reeves had said they were packing up and leaving around 7am this morning so we had our alarm set for 5.30 to make sure that we were up to say goodbye and had time for an early morning snorkel before we set off too. As it turned out we didn’t need it for either but it was a good thing it went off because at 06.00 WA time the phone actually rang!
“Good morning tourists” the voice on the other end beamed, I could tell he was smiling when he was talking because it was Jeff from Willowbank Raceway and he’s always smiling! We were so chuffed to hear from him. Thanks for thinking of us Jeff and it was great to catch up and to hear that you’ve been reading the blog! Awesome!
We made an early morning visit to the pool with the Reeves family once the kids had done some schoolwork and then spent the rest of the morning catching up on the blog, we’ve got a bit behind again! We’ve had some great messages recently too so we wanted to respond to them and of course catch up with what Kangaroojack have been doing!
We also needed to sort out our ‘little’ camera, the one we use for the underwater stuff. Unfortunately we’ve managed to put a tiny hole in our underwater camera bag so it’s leaked and now the camera won’t work. Darn! We’ve got a back up so we’ll use that until we can replace the other one but it’s just a bit of a nuisance because the backup doesn’t have the connection for a direct download of the photos. We’ve got a card reader with us but the 4GB memory card we use is too big for it! We struck a deal with the Reeves family and swapped for a smaller 2GB card which it will read so hopefully we’re good to go again now. The waterproof bags are awesome and we definitely don’t regret using it, just regret not spotting it had a leak before we put the camera in it!
With all that exciting stuff done it was surely time to go off somewhere for the rest of the day. More mutual travellers have arrived at the park; Sean, Dee, Cody and Bae whom we met in Cable Beach caravan park and Mirella, Marisio, Naki and Dylan who we met at Cape Range. Everyone's coming to Coral Bay!
We’ve heard about a ‘secret’ snorkelling spot which the quad tours go too and we’ve also managed to get our hands on a map to point us in the right direction! In a convoy of four vehicles we head off towards the Bateman Bay sanctuary zone which is slightly north of Coral Bay. The access is via the 4WD coastal track so three out of the four of us stop to let our tyres down shortly after getting on the track. The fourth vehicle in the party motors onwards with Sean at the wheel. Simone has the map and leads us through two sets of gates and onto the Cardabia Station land keeping in touch all the way on the UHF which is a great laugh. We’re now faced with several different sand tracks to take but luckily we pick the right one and over the dunes we go, except for Sean who is now having to admit that letting the tyres down would have been a good idea. We’ve lost sight of Mark & Simone’s Landcruiser with its huge engine making light work of the sand dunes but PIE is hanging on in there and we make it up and over in no time at all. Three cheers for PIE! Marisio did a great driving job too and the three families are soon at the waters edge just waiting for the fourth to catch us up, which they do very shortly! We didn’t give Sean too much ribbing, just in case any of us struggle getting back out and need a tow!
We look at the map to get our bearings and check we’re in the right place. I remember Marco (who gave us the map) saying that the snorkelling area wouldn’t look anything much until we were in the water. He was right about that, it really didn’t but the scenery was lovely nevertheless.
A snorkelling we did go and wow were we in for a surprise. Four Wobbegong sharks of various sizes were practically the first fish we spotted. Some of us saw just a couple, most of us saw the largest which we reckon was just over 5ft in length. We all managed a good look at him because he came out of his hole to check us out - all nine of us - and then once he was happy that we were no threat at all he swam around feeding and the rest of the family came out! We wondered if we’d stumbled upon the nursery for Wobbegongs? We think Zoe was the only one to see all four sharks plus there was a black tipped reef shark around too and quite a few turtles! What a find!
There was a lot of soft coral here too so lots of clown fishes around which are always lovely to gawp at. Blissful, it really was and in such a protected bay it wasn’t at all choppy or churned up.
A beautiful beach stretches around the coast here so we checked that out and found some amazing reef shells but sadly lots of pieces of broken coral too which is a bit of a shame. This is a sanctuary zone so no collecting is allowed, it belongs to the ocean so here it must remain.
The drive back to the camp site was pretty uneventful, the Landcruiser again made short work of the dunes but PIE made it up with no problem at all and with a bit of team work we were back through the gates and on our way really quickly. We followed the Reeves to the service station in Coral Bay to pump our tyres back up, we’ve got the compressor with us but doing all four to the max will only flatten the thing out and the road is really good so there was no harm in waiting.
With four families now camped in a row the easiest thing to do for dinner was to make our own, so we did! Marisio cooked up some Italian custard in a split second and served it as desert - my what a treat that was. Absolutely divine and this was the inspiration behind the idea for us all to get together again with Belinda, Nige and the kids for a big ‘dinner party’ somewhere where the men would be cooking the main course and the women doing starters and deserts! It should be a laugh, but it will never beat doing it in the back of a lorry at a race meeting in the pouring rain! Wink wink!
Another storm is brewing tonight and while the kids are all over at the playground the lightening and thunder starts up so we hear playful screams from across the way! Not too worry, it’s only Mark returning from the toilets - he’s not a big fan of storms either!
The Reeves family are determined that they are finally leaving tomorrow and so are we! That means an early night is in order so we wave our farewells and go to ring Darryl’s Mum and Dad while we’ve got a decent public phone nearby. We had a lovely chat to them, we do miss you so much and it’s great to speak to them even though it’s always so quick!
So that pretty much rounded off this evening. We managed a bit of packing up before we hit the sack but not much!
We spotted a late night message from the Elliotts via the blog, always great to hear from them. They’re having a great experience out on the station at Williambury, the kids are even doing school of the air so when we get to Carnarvon we’ll have to see if we can talk to them via that! How much fun would that be!! It’s looking unlikely that we’ll be going out there though, Bel said the odds were dropping by the day! Nevermind, we’ll get our WWOOF experience somewhere along our travels and just maybe Heinz (who we met in the Bungle Bungles) will get his veggie garden after all! Another message through email was from Carol and Ray that we met on the way to Uluru, great to hear from them and with any luck we'll get together somewhere near Melbourne! Fingers crossed!
Night everyone
Sar and Dar
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kangaroojack
The Ts
Stand Back from the Water
Dear Wallaby Wanderers, I am seriously concerned about you two!!! Just get out of the water and back on the bitumen, we want to see you in Tasmania and are trying to plan our February for that, at this rate you will still be in Coral Bay! Glad to see you are still having fun, we are on Sunshine Coast, having a few repairs done on the trailer/tent, nothing serious but after 50,000k's there is a little bit of wear and tear needing attention. We are catching up with friends while we are here but will head off south soon to get to Wagga Wagga. Life is good, but I don't now what happened to the sun on the sunshine coast, it was here last time, but now it is gone!!! Travel Safe guys, Love to Sydney with a Y from Cairns and the girls, of course to both of you two! Love KJxx