Heading to Coral Bay

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Day 48 – Thursday 16^th August – South Lefroy Bay, Ningaloo Station

Another sensational morning at Ningaloo – just a shame to be packing up and heading off. We had one last snorkel off the beach then de-sanded everything as well as we could before packing up. It was 11am when we finally pulled away from the beach. At the homestead we returned the (empty and clean ) portaloo and the key and got our deposit back, minus $27.50 for the extra night camping.

From then we drove about 50kms on the unsealed road back out of Ningaloo Station, headed towards the small resort town of Coral Bay. We stopped at the junction of the track and the bitumen road to re-inflate the tyres and who should pull in behind us but Brian, Sandy and Lynne, who had left Yardie Creek that morning! They had booked a campsite in Coral Bay so we agreed to meet them there.

Situated 12kms off the main road, Coral Bay is a tiny place with one “resort” type hotel and two reasonable sized campsites. It is a well-known base for watching whale sharks on their migration northwards, but we have missed the end of the season. It also offers the usual fishing charters and boat tours out on the bay to watch the marine life. Coral Bay is also home to a large number of ‘resident’ manta rays and there are several tour companies that offer snorkelling trips to see the mantas. That sounded like an amazing trip so we decided to treat ourselves. We booked with Coral Eco Tours after checking out all the different options. Very friendly and informative in the office and they reckon they serve the best food of all the tours! We still had nowhere to stay the night and the girl in the info office explained that we would have to check each caravan park individually – one park was pretty much next door to the tour office and the other was “at the other end of town”. In fact we had parked up outside the other caravan park and it was no more than a 3 minute walk to where we were standing. That gives you an indication of how small Coral Bay is!

Unfortunately both the caravan parks were completely full so we had to find a place for free camping that wasn’t too far out of town so we could get to the tour for 9am tomorrow. We found a DEC booth in the car park which was manned by Ken from Wales! He is another volunteer working for the Department of the Environment to help out the tourists. He told us about a gravel pit just off the main road turn off, 12kms away. Officially you’re not supposed to camp there but seeing as both campsites are full and it is only for one night, Ken reckoned it would be OK. So, camping sorted for tonight.

We needed to buy a few stamps and some basic groceries so headed into the little shopping precinct. Guess who we saw there having a coffee? Brian, Sandy and Lynne! So we sat down with them for another chat. It was now late afternoon and the fishing charters were coming back into town, laden with all the fish they had caught. There is a municipal fish cleaning station right by the beach so we hung around there to watch all the action with the fish, blood and guts! Mark and the kids managed to come away with the carcass of a large red emperor – free fish for dinner again! We have been travelling along the same route as our friends with the bad taste in music from Karijini (and bad haircuts – both boys have rats tails with coloured feathers stuck on the end and the Dad has a red feather woven into the tip of his beard. Dodgy). They were in Exmouth at the same time as us and turned up again in Coral Bay today too. Anyway, the dad with the feather in his beard had been on the fishing charter and the family were there too watching the proceedings and taking home a nice big bundle of fish. I spent some time sitting at a bench overlooking the bay posting blog stuff. It was the most scenic “office” I have worked in!

As you will have worked out by now, we can’t pass up a sunset, so we hung around Coral Bay watching the sun set over the water and headed out to our home for the night – the gravel pit – as it was getting dark. Luckily it was very easy to find and nice and flat. We ignored the “No Camping” sign, popped up the tent and proceeded to cook half the fish carcass (wrapped in foil in a dry frying pan). The wind had come up nicely and it was blowing a mini gale while we tried to cook dinner (bangers, wallpaper paste mash and beans), so we had to hover round the gas stove holding plastic chopping boards up as wind breaks. We washed up the dinner things using baby wipes (such a great invention for travellers) and all went to bed together at 8.30pm. We need to be in Coral Bay at 9am tomorrow morning for our manta ray snorkelling trip so need a good night’s sleep!

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