DENHAM TO CORAL BAY

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DENHAM TO CORAL BAY

Sunday 16th May, we left Denham after breakfast and headed the 330 kms to Carnarvon. This included backtracking 130kms back to the highway. Not much to see except for the wild goats and dead kangaroos on the sides of the road. There must be a hell of a lot of kangaroos as there seemed to be a dead one every 100 yards or so. On the road out there is a dog proof fence to keep the feral animals out of the National Park, with a cattle grid on the road with a sensor that activates a dog barking as anything approaches the grid. It apparently works well. We decided to stay for two nights to catch up on out grocery shopping.

Monday 17th May, It was interesting to see so many of the local aborigines in town as a family group, father, mother, kids, and grand parents all together wandering around near the shopping centre and main street. Apparently none of them work. We had a look around town and relaxed in the afternoon.

Tuesday 18th May, we headed off to Coral Bay early. Today was the first day we have had a head wind, and boy, did it affect our fuel consumption. Down to about 175 kms from 50 litres of LPG.
The wind was so strong that it created a dust storm all the way from Highway One to Coral Bay. The sky was yellow with the dust. Because of the strong winds we decided to change our booking at Coral Bay until the 24th and proceeded on to Exmouth. A very long tiring day.

Wednesday 19th May, we booked a snorkelling / viewing trip on a glass bottomed boat over the Ningaloo Reef. It was a fantastic trip, the colours of the coral and the fish and bombas were out of this world, hard to really describe. I would recommend it to anyone to do it. In the afternoon we met up with a couple we had met in Carnarvon. Lovely people.

Thursday 20th May, as the weather forecast looked wasn’t too good for tomorrow we decided to do our full day trip today and went over to the Cape Range National Park for the day. We booked a cruise on Yardie Creek which went for about an hour where we saw many birds and animals including about 10 rock wallabies on the cliffs of the gorge. After lunch I went snorkeling in Turquoise Bay, where a turtle swam underneath me followed by 6 or so large fish that appeared to be tormenting the poor thing. The underwater scenery was not quite as good as the previous day but still quite spectacular. We got back to the van about 5-30.

Friday 21st May, REST DAY. Good except that it started raining heavily after lunch and kept on for most of the day and night. We have broken another drought.

Saturday 22nd May, In the morning we went into town for some more shopping, having to hop over and around the many puddles from the heavy rains overnight. Spent the afternoon reading and relaxing.

Sunday 23rd May, I played bowls (scroungers) in the morning and after lunch we drove down to the Exmouth foreshore and walked along the beach for about an hour to the boat harbor and had a good look around. When we got back we took down the annexe and awning as it had dried after the rain.


Monday 24th May, the weather has fined up again as we left for Coral Bay, only 150 kms up the road.
After setting up and some lunch we went for a log walk along their beautiful beach for and hour or so.
The water is so clear that you can see the fish swimming in the shallows as you walk along.

Tuesday 25th May, I went out snorkeling over the Ningaloo Reef in the glass bottomed boat again, the views here are so much better than at Exmouth. I wouldn’t have thought it possible. Then we went down to the beach to watch the fish feeding frenzy. Good fun.

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Comments

[Gary]

Enjoying your blog
I am enjoying your blog, following your travels around Australia. We are Canadian, and did a 3 month trip anti clock wise in Sep/Oct/Nov of 2008. Not that you will have time, but our blog is www.travelblog.org/bloggers/thepass .