Coral Bay & Carnarvon

Beautiful Coral Bay and Ningaloo Reef.........................

Hundreds of gulls on Coral Bay Beach

Clear water taken from the deck of the boat

Inquisitive but never threatening

Dragging myself back on board after another big snorkel

Some patches of coral were 10m across

Lots of these little blue fish followed us everywhere

Giant clams about 600mm across

Even sharks need a rest

Blue spotted ray hiding in the sand

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Just a bit down the coast from Cape Range NP and towards the bottom of Ningaloo Reef, but quite a long way round by road, is the seaside village of Coral Bay.  There are two van parks in the main street both across the road from the beach which is a beautiful protected bay.  Tourism is clearly the main income earner with snorkelling, diving, fishing, quad bike tours, sailing, swimming with whale sharks and manta rays, etc all offered.  After the strong winds at Cape Range we were hoping for calmer weather and booked a tour for the next day snorkelling the reef and swimming with manta rays.  The weather was almost perfect with calm seas, little wind, small waves (ripples) and beautiful clear water. On the cruise out we watched several turtles and dolphin and after we located a manta ray had two swims with it.  The ray was 4 to 4.5m across its wingtips and was very calm about us watching it closely although you have to swim constantly to keep up with it.  It was a really impressive experience.   We also had 2 snorkelling swims in different parts of the reef and the coral and fish life was amazing.  We also managed to swim up close to turtles and watched a couple of reef sharks cruise by.  One patch of ‘cabbage’ coral was about 6 metres across and 4 or 5 metres high.  There were rays, giant clams, sea cucumbers, and all sorts of sea life to watch.  It really was a great day out even though us oldies had to retire for a quick nanna nap once we got home at about 4pm.  

Big peaceful creatures that take some keeping up with..

We saw several turtles wandering about

Another blue spot ray resting

Why would the sharks eat us with this much food around!!

Unfortunately it was not whale shark season so we have a reason to revisit Coral Bay in the future.  The next day the weather turned windy again and the fishing trip Garry had booked was cancelled – very disappointing.  We managed a snorkel in the beach out the front of the park and walked around to the next bay which is a reef shark sanctuary.  The reef sharks gather to give birth to and raise the babies.  It was great to see pods of 5-7 fully grown reef sharks circling in shallow water very close to the shore and not at all alarmed by the tourists snapping photos. 

Coral Bay shark nursery bay - reef sharks circling in the shallows

These 5 mums were swimming circles only 5m off shore

We pushed on further south to Carnarvon which has very different surrounds than the reat of the north west.  The Gascoyne River runs into the sea here and has huge rich soil flood plains either side of the river that support many farms growing all sorts of fruit and veges.  Bananas, mangoes, tomatoes, and corn are some of the crops we saw on the way in.  Coupled with great seafood there is a lot of food produced here.  Carnarvon also has a prominent landmark being the large radio communications satellite dish on a hill overlooking the town.  The dish was a major part of the communications link between earth and the Apollo spacecraft when they landed on the moon.  There is a new Space Museum that was opened in June this year by Buzz Aldrin which is very interesting for space buffs and has been developed entirely by the Carnarvon Community.  It is well worth a look. 

Carnarvon was the first port in Australia to export live cattle and has a huge jetty with railway tracks to the end.  There is a good little museum at the jetty with a big new building under construction. The museum contains jetty railway gear, shearing and whaling displays.  There is also a lifeboat from the ‘Kormoran’ which is the German warship that sank with the ‘HMAS Sydney’ off the coast here.  All 645 sailors on the ‘Sydney’ perished but 2 lifeboats from the ‘Kormoran’ made it shore and only about 100 German sailors died while 319 either made it to shore or were rescued.  The shipwrecks were only located a few years ago in more than 2,500m of water.   Carnarvon used to be a big wool centre and also a whaling station.  An old map on the wall showing the location of male and female whales killed in the bay is sobering.  The fishing is supposed to be good from the jetty but the wind is strong at the moment.  With a bit of luck the wind will die down and I will get out for a fish soon.  

Space Communications dish in Carnarvon

one of only 2 lifeboats to make land from the 'Kormoran'

Carnarvon's One Mile Jetty

Exmouth - Cape Range

Dampier is a nice quiet seaside village with and the small van park is a great place to sit on the waterfront watching the iron ore ships being loaded directly in front and to the right the stacks with huge flames burning off the excess LNG are also visible a couple of km’s up the coast.  The harbour looks like a great place to fish but the fishing is all off shore with dozens of boat trailers and 4WD’s parked at the boat ramp most of the time.  The market at Karratha on Sunday was the best Carol has been to yet.  It was a smallish market at one of the primary schools and only went from 10am to 2pm.  Despite having good sales we were packed up and gone by 1.30pm as it was hot and most people left at lunch time.

Hearson Cove - crushed shell beach 2km from LNG Plant

Ore trains arriving at Dampier for ship loading

We were going to call in to Onslow for the next stop but what was once almost a ghost town is now a camp town with hi-vis everywhere to accommodate the new LNG plant being built near town.  We kept going on to Exmouth which was a long day of 540km but with only two roadhouses in between was an easy drive.  Exmouth has a different feel about it as soon as you enter town.  The town is halfway back up the cape with a range up the middle and the gulf visible to the east for a lot of the drive.  The road west from the main highway goes through some very dry country with deep rich red sand dunes and scrubby bushes making it look very desert like.  The entire cape is best described as desert with very dry rocky or sandy country always backed by the range which is an upthrust limestone ridge.  On the southern edge of town there is a new flash marina and canal development.  It has large deep water canals with wharf moorings and small lockup sheds behind each house block.  The houses being built are also impressive and not your average 3X1 box.  The town is much more touristy like Broome and quite comfortable with good caravan parks, most services and plenty of resorts.  

Deep water canals in the desert. Cute little colored sheds under the stairs.

We had the car and van serviced and were happy with both.  The van park we stayed in backs onto bushland and emus have the run of the park.  Our first evening was entertaining with some young backpackers sitting down to a drink and a packet of crackers that were exactly to the emus liking.  There was much squealing and backing away from the emus that marched up and took the whole box of bickies out of their hands.  They are very inquisitive but just assertive not aggressive as you can walk up and take the bickies back and they wander off looking for their next victims. 

Friendly Emu

Checking the washing and whats for smoko.

Being at the western edge of Australia, the Defence Force presence is clear.  There are 2 airstrips; one an Air Force Base and the other public.  There is also a major Naval Communications Base at the tip of the Cape with the largest Low Frequency radio transmitter in the World installed there.  The Transmitter is made up of 13 towers all over 1,000ft (300 to 385m) high placed in a star shape 2.5km’s across and with a transmitter operating at 1Mw usually with a 2Mw maximum output.  It is pretty impressive and hard to judge the size till you drive towards it for several kilometres and realise that the road to the beach goes under the guy wires supporting one of the towers and you still don’t get close to them.  

On lighthouse point at the northern tip of the cap

RAN Communication Towers 5 of 13

HMS Mildura Anchor ship wrecked nearby in a cyclone

Original WW2 bagged anti aircraft emplacement

We went for our first swim at the beach beside the towers which is right at the tip of the cape but on the eastern (gulf) side.  The water was amazingly clear with gentle waves.  The range that runs up the cape ends right at the northern end and has the usual lighthouse that was installed and working until the Navy Comms Towers were built.  There is now a light on one of the towers that is visible for 58kms out to sea.  We took a drive to look at a couple of canyons (dry gorges) cut into the range south of town.  

Charles Knife Gorge looking SE to gulf coast

Shothole Canyon

They give great views to the east over the coastline and through the canyons.  The colours of the cliffs and stark white gums against a blue sky is pretty.  In the 1950’s the WA Govt drilled for oil along the cape and discovered oil in its first holes but none in the next seven so drilling was abandoned.  I tried once more to capture a feed of fish from the Learmonth Jetty but alas caught only small ones. Of course the other fishers that were there had caught a queen fish and a Spanish mackerel off the same pier 2 days earlier.  As I walked off the pier though, a large dolphin swam right underneath the jetty as if to prove that there were large fish around.

We stocked up with groceries and headed around to the western side of the cape into Cape Range National Park.  The camp sites here are right on the beach behind the first dunes.  There is little shade and the wind was strong for our 3 days there.  We were not disappointed though as most of the other campers had been there for weeks and had experienced strong winds every day.  There are toilets and generators are allowed (contrary to what the Information Centre in town says) and it was a beautiful spot.  The Ningaloo Reef is off the west coast of the entire cape and the scenery is spectacular with huge breakers on the reef several hundred metres off the shore and gentle waves inshore.  There is coral and weed beds right into the shore and the tides at this of year only vary by less than a metre.  The water  is as clear as any I have seen with at least 20m of visibility at Torquise Bay and heaps to see.  There are strong currents which help because use walk up to one end of the beach, walk and paddle out 20m and then drift along the coral for about 15 minutes before paddling back to shore for the walk back along the beach.  The coral has some beautiful colours in it but the best coloured coral is in the main reef further off shore and needing a tinnie to get to.  Every snorkel drift is different with hundreds or thousands of different fish around the coral or just following you as you drift.  We saw plenty of beautiful angel fish, tiny bright blue and yellow fish and heaps of larger snapper, emperor, perch and several rays including a pretty blue spot one.  The highlight was watching a black tipped reef shark swim around us (at least 1.5m long) and the next day saw a 2.5m Gwabegong Shark laying peacefully on the sandy bottom beside a beautiful purple coral bomby.  He(she) wasn’t bothered by the snorkelers as we all swam within a couple of metres of it and it only moved twice in a couple of hours.  It was really pretty with soft spotty skin.  We were not concerned with it as it was surrounded by hundreds of fish from tiny bright ones to 400cm bream, snapper and parrot fish.  We purchased Carol a new snorkel outfit and she enjoyed Torquose Bay immensely.  The current and drifting made it so easy just floating along over the corals.  My favorite were the bombies that looked like snow covered round pine trees which were always full of the smallest but most brightly colored fish. 

New pink snorkelling gear and perfect water

Watching the kite surfers enjoying themselves

It was hard to stay out of the water

Picture perfect beach scenes

Small part of rocky shore line with Ningaloo Reef corals in close to shore

We also drove to the southern end of the park to Yardie Creek which is a large creek that extends more than a kilometre back into the cape into a gorge in the range.  It is currently closed by a sand bar at the mouth which is washed out during cyclones or big rains.  It has been closed for a couple of years now but was open for 3 years following the last cyclone.  Water still seeps in through the sand bar at high tide keeping the creek fresh.  

Along Yardie Creek

Yardie Creek Gorge

At another bay the kite surfers were having a ball with strong winds blowing across a wide bay with only small waves less than a foot high.  It looked like heaps of fun and some of their jumps were metres high.  This is a beautiful place only next time we will bring a tinny and order lighter winds.

We are camped at Ned’s Camp and the ‘volunteer’ hosts are very friendly.  Carl and Bernadette are from Melbourne and have been here since August. They organise a great happy hour with several picnic tables lined up along the beach and most campers in our area along for a chat.  There are some interesting people from French and Danish backpackers to a couple of older blokes who have bought there vans and tinnies here for 28 days and have only managed to get out 4 times in their boats.  Today, Sunday, was calmer early and a couple of boats bought home their bag of 4 big crayfish and one boat had a great morning fishing just inside the reef, catching more than 60 and releasing most.  They still bought home a great feed.  

The 'Happy Hour' drinks always seemed to get disturbed by the sunsets and we were treated to some of the best.

These are natural colours - NO photoshopping here..

50m from the our front door

The colours changed by the minute

This is what beach living is all about!!

We borrowed a Waeco car fridge from Exmouth and our van fridge has not worked better since – go figure!!  A return trip to the fix-it man and we were on our way south again.