CORAL BAY Friday 21st - Sunday 23rd

Left Exmouth early Friday morning and headed to beautiful Coral Bay. Coral Bay is a small coastal hamlet 150kms south of Exmouth. 

The reef and the stunning clear water of the Ningaloo Lagoon are straight across the road from the People's Park Caravan Park where we are staying for 3 nights. You have to book months in advance to get into this park so luck was on our side again as we didn't book until last week. Lots of greys stay here for months at a time to beat the cold down south. What do you do at Coral Bay? - hit the beach and snorkel in the pristine clear water at you doorstep. So that's exactly what we did.

    I have never seen water as clear and as blue as it was here, just beautiful.

At the beach across the road there is a great drift from one end of it to the other so you swim out a little from the shoreline and just drift effortlessly looking at all the coral of the Ningaloo Reef. The coral here is not that colourful, however, the shape and arrangements are what make it so special. There are interesting walks along the beach around to the reef shark sanctuary where depending on the day you can see up to 20 sharks just off the beach. 

    One with nature out here on our walk, so many vast and open spaces it is quiet unbelievable. I just love it.

     Only our footsteps in the sand.

The day we went around there were no sharks just jumping fish, stingrays and dolphins - just beautiful.

   In the background is the town of Coral Bay, very small not much happening.

     I love coastal and I love remote but I still don't get how people come up here for 3 and 4 months of the year and stay here or any of the other very quite coastal hamlets? This is the Main Street of Coral Bay.

We did fit in a few bike rides and on one memorable one we took ourselves out along a very isolated, hard dirt track off to a place called Maud's Landing. Locals said it was a good ride well worth the effort. Three quarters of the way into the ride, with not a soul in site for miles and miles, alone in the middle of nowhere with no help around, we came across a pack of wild dogs - oh no what to do??? Well not exactly a pack, that was a bit of an exaggeration as there were only two of them. All the same, being the brave souls that we are, especially Mez, we high tailed it out of there into a howling head wind at the rate of knots and never got to see Maud's Landing. 

On Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays there is a small area on the beach near the floating pontoon just off the beach where you can go to feed the fish. On que at 3.30 about 30 large Nor West Snapper come into the shallows and swim amongst your feet and wait to be fed. Seeing we were there on Friday we decided to give it a go and it was lots of fun.

  Heaps of them waiting to be fed.

     They virtually jump out of the water to get the food, couldn't believe how tame and close they were.

     That is my foot at the bottom of the pic. They swim in and around you.

Coral Bay was a picturesque part of the world, remote and well worth the visit.