So Coral Bay! We stayed in a beautiful campsite right on the waters edge, it was so nice to finally see some coast a beach and some coral. While the boys were setting up the van the night before Deb & Laura snuck off to the waters edge to check out the stunning turquoise sea and white sand. If it wasn't for the shallow coral the whole lot would have been a really clear turquoise blue colour.
Day 1 in coral bay was a slow start as we didn't have to pack the van up ready to move on as we are camping here for two days. We had a chilled breakfast and then decided that we HAD to check out the sea before anything else could happen. Laura didn't have the intention of going in above her waist as the wind at this time of year is known as blowvember. So we take the assumption it's not going to get any better. Not letting this deter us we grabbed towels a boogie board and headed down to the sea front. Deb threw herself in within seconds shortly followed by Myles and the boogie board. After 10 minutes of being splashed Myles dragged Laura into the water and we all had a good swim and play until Ian came to the seafront to tell us it was Time to come back. We wondered down to the local shops and bakery to pick up some goodies for the day ahead and have a chat with a few different tour operators about their snorkelling trips. The guy we spoke to was a horrible sales person and the tour we wanted to do wasn't going out until Friday due to 3m swells. Well we went back down to the tour operator at our camp site who called him out as all the trips never leave the main reef so it doesn't get that high. We suspect he had low numbers so tried to put us off. Undeterred we booked with the campsite for the next day. We booked in for a 3 stop snorkelling trip including (if wildlife provides) a chance to swim with manta rays.
Back to today, we made lunch loaded up the car without the caravan for the first time and set off for Exmouth. This is the most northern point we would reach this trip. Lots of cliffs, blue sky and beautiful beaches would follow. We started off by taking a dirt road for the first time and of course Myles was driving. We had good fun adventuring off road. We found a weird beach where the sand changes from yellow/orange to a grey white! It was so strange and we can only imagine it was from the coral out at sea washing up to this point as it was the only beach like it. Once we got back on the main road it was another long drive into Exmouth town centre. We pulled over pretty sharpish as we finally saw our first good bit of Aussie wildlife an emu with 4 babies having a drink under a palm tree. We took a few photos and watched them for a bit before we saw our second big photo opportunity, this wasn't a big banana it was a giant prawn! Selfie done time to move on.
All the drives we have done so far have been pretty similar, long, red dirt, few bushes, no animals and straight.
Not a lot to see so when we finally hit the coast again it was breathtaking to see. We stopped at the turtle centre (which wasn't as good as we first thought it was just a few information boards) but the beach below it was gorgeous. We carried on down a few beaches watched some kite surfers had some lunch and jumped back into the car. Ian had seen a dirt road that lead to the horizon up over a hill and that was that. Myles had his second off roading experience and this time it was hard. It wasn't all dirt there was a LOT of rocks and uphill bits. Eventually we got up over the top and saw the next ridge which we knew the car wouldn't cope with so sadly had to go back. It wasn't all in vein though as we FINALLY after 4 days on the
Road saw our first wallabies! We also saw some beautiful goannas who didn't want to give up their bit of road for a car. When Myles went all David Attenborough with his camera it changed its mind. After this we traveled a few hours back to our campsite which by this point we were all pretty tired and in good need of a shower as the constant wind and sea this morning left us feeling a bit salty!
All fresh and ready to go we decided to head out for dinner tonight to another campsite, Ian saw a sign for sushi earlier in the day so thought that would be a good call. Myles & I looked at the menu and decided on what we wanted. We all sat down & the waitress told us there was no sushi or pork belly left.. Well Ian and I were stuffed and had to make new choices! We had some really nice starters, olive bread for Deb and Ian and Myles and I had Camembert. The mains came out and they were HUGE not even sure if my chicken came from one.. If so it would have been a prize giant chicken. After a good meal we headed back for the camper ready for our early start snorkelling tomorrow!
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