Sunday September 2

So, Winter has finally ended and whilst that makes little difference to us, we are sure family and friends in Melbourne will be very glad to reach this milestone!

A quick update, which was to have happened before we packed up and travelled the huge distance of 230 kilometres down to Carnarvon on Friday, but never eventuated because there was just too much snorkelling to be done!

We had a thoroughly relaxing (because we were pretty stressed when we arrived there!) two weeks in Coral Bay – snorkelled most days, lay on the beach and walked around just enjoying ourselves.   The temperature was 28 – 30, with a few windy days which occasionally caused a bit of a chop on the sea.  Generally though, the reef protects the lagoon very well, so it is not a huge issue.

For those of you who haven’t been to this part of the world, Coral Bay is a bit over halfway down Ningaloo Reef and like Cape Range, the coral gardens start just metres off Bill’s Bay beach and Paradise Beach (a very apt name) the swimming and snorkelling beaches, both of which share the crystal clear water and white sand we have become used to.

Bill's Bay and the 'town'from the lookout

Bill's Bay looking back towards the lookout

Coral Bay is very small and has been established specifically to meet the needs of visitors to this area. There are two caravan parks, small supermarket, general store, bakery, general store, two restaurants and the businesses which provide the necessary snorkelling, diving and kayaking opportunities and supplies for the many tourists. 

One is always mindful of the environmental issues around catering for large numbers of visitors in such places – water for showers, toilets etc is drawn from a deep bore and is quite hot and salty and fresh water is provided from a desalination plant.  Our (well, not ours personally!) still-not-cured need for green grass rather than the sand which is the natural state of affairs in these arid areas, means that huge quantities of the bore water are constantly poured onto said sand to provide grassy roadsides and campsites.  Electricity is provided, as is usually the case, predominantly by large diesel-powered generators, although there are large banks of PV panels on the newer buildings and three smaller wind turbines, which is encouraging.  Given the seemingly never-ending sunshine on this coast, there has been little significant use of solar power beyond water heaters.  As areas such as these are so isolated, there is no provision for recycling either, which I still struggle with.

The juxtaposition of the incredibly arid landscape of this area (still in the arid tropics) meeting the white sand dunes, white beaches and the sea, which goes from clear to turquoise to indigo as the water deepens towards the reef, is just amazing.  Every time we go down the beach I want to take more photos!  Apart from the many huge Tamarisk trees which have been planted in the caravan parks (the same trees as the huge old ones at Coward Springs on the Oodnadatta Track), there are no trees in this area at all and no shrubs are taller than 2 metres.  As I knew little about Tamarisk trees beyond the fact that they are not native, I thought I would ‘google’ them and now wish I hadn’t – more environmental nightmares!  They were introduced from Africa and Eurasia as they are salt tolerant and able to access ground water very effectively and are now a Weed of National Significance, as they soak up huge quantities of water and like willows, choke up water courses.

We spent most of our time on Paradise Beach, as we found this the best spot for snorkelling and it is where you access a large coral garden known as the Lavender Patch, which as its name suggests is an amazing expanse of purple coral.  Bills Bay, the area right in front of the ‘town’ is a beautiful beach, but the coral here is much less impressive and apart from the many large Spangled Emperors (or Nor West Snapper as they are called here) which gather each afternoon at 3.30 for the fish feeding (now strictly controlled by the Department of Conservation), there were very few fish. 

Fish feeding - the kids loved the feel of these large fish brushing against their legs

Spangled Emperor have the most beautiful colours when in the sunlight

Paradise Beach looking south

Paradise Beach from the lookout; the coral viewing boat is over the Lavender Patch

Ready for a spot of snorkelling at Paradise Beach; didn't always use the wetsuit, but it let us stay in much longer! 

The coral here is much more impressive than we saw at Cape Range NP, although there are not the huge numbers of fish we saw there, so we are glad that we got to spend plenty of time at each place.  Having said that, we saw Green Turtles often and many rays – Blue-Spotted Fantail Rays, Eagle Rays and one other which  we have not yet identified.  We also saw many of what has become our favourite fish – the Blue Angelfish, which looks as if it has been outlined in neon blue.

Blue Angelfish on the Lavender Patch

Where has this photo come from you may all be asking!  I have not infringed anybody's intellectual property and stolen it from the internet as Murray made one very important discovery last week. Whilst the drowned camera has virtually no functions remaining, it will still take photos if turned off between each one and the photos can then be downloaded from the memory card!  This means that we are able to overwhelm you with a heap of photos from our last couple of snorkelling trips, so I will put them all at the end

We had one foray around to Maud’s Landing beach (another superb beach, but not for swimming), where Murray caught one Trevally and had a few trips to the boat ramp, where you cannot fish or swim, to enjoy the views and to buy from some fresh Goldband Snapper from the fishing boat which runs out of there. 

Fishing at Maud's Landing - everyone's retirement should look like this!  It is not Murray, as you may have gathered, but this old bloke looked so much more organised than he did . . .

Even the emus enjoy the beach up here!

Whilst buying our fish, we were very excited (well . . . I was particularly excited, as Murray has seen many of these amazing creatures when diving) to see Merv, the resident Queensland Groper, which is over 2 metres long and has been coming in to the boat ramp when the fishing boats arrive for some years, as well as a more recent visitor, a much lighter and little smaller groper. 

Merv



Looking south from boat ramp

Still looking south from boat ramp

 Also had a walk up to Skeleton Bay at low tide, where from October up to 200 reef sharks gather to breed.  Apparently there were already a few sharks in the bay at high tide, but the combination of my dodgy feet and the vicious limestone rocks meant that a visit at high tide was not for me.

Skeleton Bay - see what I mean about the limestone!

Once again, we had some lovely neighbours in the campground.  One of the many joys of travelling has been the terrific people we have met and, of course, you make a real connection with some, which makes a place even more special.  Jan and Ian from Newcastle and Colin and Barbara from Heatherton were our neighbours for the second week and we had lots of fun together!

LR: me, Barbara, Murray, Colin, Jen and Ian enjoying happy hour and making good use of the green road reserve outside our campground

 It is astounding to think that we have spent a month on the Ningaloo coast.  We will have a week in Carnarvon, which is a major fishing port (crabs, scallops, prawns, fish – yum yum!) and a huge market garden area, providing over 70% of WA’s winter vegetable supplies so we have already gone mad at the local growers’ market.  Will get the car serviced as well and enjoy visiting the large Aboriginal cultural and heritage centre, but more about that next time!

A Chevroned Butterflyfish

Green Chromis amongst staghorn coral

 

Staghorn coral with live and growing tips

 

This and the next three . . . Lavender Patch

The unidentified ray, trying to hide in the sand . . .