The Coral Coast
Chloe Writes: After a day of snorkelling in the beautifully clear waters of Coral Bay, we embarked on a sunset quad-bike safari. Even though I had never even driven a moped (Pete did all the driving in Asia), I thought ‘how hard can it be’, and ‘why on earth do you need a driving license to drive one’, especially since in many of the campsites we had visited, many Aussie’s own one and drive round the camp sites on them. After a quick 2 minute lesson it was crash helmets on and away we go. I WAS PETRIFIED!! Even more scared than my first driving lesson. Not really being into Adrenalin sports, I decided that this was one of them and after the first stop we made I was more than a little shaky and couldn’t wait for the trip to end, vowing I would never get on another quad bike again. But, after gaining in confidence, and most certainly speed, I couldn’t get enough. It was so much fun, bombing up and down steep hills in the sand and driving fast round corners, I want one!
The next day it was up early to catch the boat that uses a spotter plane to locate Manta-Rays so that we can swim with them. It was crazy, you have to slide off the boat with your snorkel gear on and swim as fast as you can to chase up with them and swim beside them. Manta-Rays are the biggest rays in the sea and can get up to 8 meters in width but are so graceful. It was an amazing experience and the next morning it was up early for the same again, but this time to swim with Whale Sharks, the biggest fish in the ocean, growing up to 13 meters long. We managed to swim with 3, the second being 8 meters long and the biggest they get on the coral coast, so we were very lucky. Again it was an amazing experience but hard work as you have to swim very fast to catch up with them. My day was slightly tainted by constant sea sickness, and I wasn’t the only one. We were out in the open ocean, on an overcast day, with VERY choppy waters. The waves were massive and the boat was all over the place, and being in the sea was also making me feel very ill, not to mention having to breathe into a tube and use all my energy to catch up with the sharks, not once but several times. I’d do it again though in a flash.
After all the Coral Bay excitement, it was down to Exmouth, where Pete went diving and I had a very relaxing day, then on to Monkey Mia. After checking out the camp-site and deciding to stay by the roadside, as it was not worth the money, we parked up. After getting stuck in the sand (ours is not a 4WD) and getting attacked by thousands of flies and mozzies, we had to bite the bullet, ring the campsite, say we were on our way to stay but stopped off for a moment and got stuck, and could someone come and tow us out. I had to hide in the passenger seat when we got back while Pete went in the office to book us in so they wouldn’t recognize me from before. The next morning we were at the beach to feed the dolphins. Although a lot of people think this is slightly manufactured and controversial, we really enjoyed it and the dolphins didn’t seem to mind either. We got an amazing up close look at the fantastic mammals and would go again if we could.
Pete Writes: After some long drives and a lot of baron landscapes we finally arrived at the coral coast, a place that I had really been looking forward to. I had heard lots of good reports about the various locations that we stayed and have to admit that none of them let me down. Coral bay and Exmouth are both part of the Ningaloo reef, which is Western Australia’s version of the Great Barrier Reef. We were lucky enough to be there at the time of the Whale sharks, as they swim through the reef from May to July every year. To swim with these massive fish was an amazing experience and one I will never forget, you do need to swim fast to keep up with them, but they do not disappoint as they cruise along the top of the water sucking up plankton through there meter wide mouths. The manta rays were just as impressive, barrel rolling along the bottom of the ocean to disturb the sand then rolling back down for lunch!
Next stop was Exmouth to dive one of the top ten sites in the world (Navy Pier). Within minutes of being in the water I could see why it makes the top ten! I saw loads of fish including my first close up view of a reef shark (white tip) as well as big schools of fish swimming around the uprights of the pier. It was a bizarre feeling swimming through them all watching them dart out of the way. Unfortunately the photos with the underwater camera did not quite do it justice.
We then headed down to Shark bay which holds Monkey Mia and the dolphins as well as an interesting marine park. The dolphins were really interesting to watch, and at times it looked as if they were checking us out more than the other way round. On the way out of Shark Bay we decided to stop for lunch at shell beach, which is a long beach made of 5 meter deep cockle shells (thus the name).
So now its time to head South for the winter Weather!
Page Gallery
Pete on the Quad Bike
Chloe on the Quad
Whale shark
Both of us snorkelling
Turtle
Sea Cow
Fish on one of Pete’s Dives
Our Whale shark group
Blue Spotted Stingray
Stonefish…isn’t he cute!!
Shark hanging on to a fish for dear life
Shell beach…and Chloe’s hand
Dolphin
Dolphin and a Boat
Tags: Australia
June 1st, 2008 at 1:38 pm
wow, I missed this one. What incredible photos!
Beautiful :o)