We had about five days exploring the NW Cape area and Ningaloo Reef, then headed south to the southern end of Cape Range National Park. There's a crossing at Yardie Creek that can only be made at lowest tide, so we timed our day to enable us to cross the creek and take the coastal track down to Coral Bay. It was just a track, but the scenery was interesting and it passed through the RAAF weapons testing range.
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| Plenty of termite mounds and you can see the quality of the track here |
Emerging from that, we were on Ningaloo Station. It felt odd being in this cattle station landscape with the ocean just beyond - a real 'outback meets the ocean' scenario. Reaching the Ningaloo Homestead gate we turned onto the Coral Bay "road" which was one of the roughest we've encountered in ages. The corrugations were horrible! Luckily it was late afternoon and the sun bathed the countryside in the most gorgeous light so that was a good distraction.
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| Not ripples in the sand, but hard corrugations in the road |
Next morning we were in Coral Bay, a tiny settlement on a beautiful turquoise/blue bay. Our priority was to buy goggles and snorkel and get out in the water which was as clear as any we've seen. The snorkelling was great, though not quite as good as up north in the national park. It's still Ningaloo Reef here and it was mainly really big coral, fantastic stuff, like being in a completely different world.
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| We did see what's known as a Spanish Dancer in the shallows, which was exciting. |
We spent two days in Coral Bay and explored the area. The caravan parks didn't inspire us at all so we drove the 20km north to a bush-style camp in the Bateman Bay sanctuary area. This was a really different, interesting part of the marine park.
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| The cattle station joins the sand dunes. There's a sand bar that causes the water to converge from different directions. It's all so pristine and breathtaking. |
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