Coral Bay, Gnaraloo, Wind, and a 7th birthday

Posted by efloow on October 30, 2015 in Uncategorized | 2 Comments

October 23-30

The next leg of our journey took us to the southern end of Ningaloo Reef, with a few nights in Coral Bay and then further down the coast to Three Mile Camp at Gnaraloo Station.

We went to Coral Bay with some reservations. We had briefly been there a week earlier to meet up with Granny and Grampa and had been horrified by how expensive the shops were, by the fact that it was essentially two massive campsites and little else, and by the fact that we had to pay for drinking water for the van (1$ for 10L). But our fears where unfounded, especially as we provisioned and watered up in Exmouth before going, and our time there turned out to be good fun.

There was pretty easy access to the reef with snorkelling off the beaches and a walk along the coast to Skeleton Beach where black tipped reef sharks and Ray's are within meters of the shore. We chose to spend a day trip on the reef with Ningaloo Marine Interactions (oceanecoadventures.com.au). The weather was horrendous; overcast, cold and windy, but we all swam with manta rays, turtles and sharks over stunning coral and it was an amazing experience. As a bonus the camp site was great for the kids with a pool, jumping pillow and playground and fortunately we had good Telstra reception that allowed us to stream the RWC semifinals to our iPad!

The water story for Coral Bay and the other towns and stations as we head down the coast is interesting. The land is all semi-arid desert and the main source of water is from bores into artesian basins. The bores in Coral Bay and Francois Peron are over 500m deep and the salty water comes to the surface at about 40 degrees making for an interesting hot and salty shower! The cost comes from the fact that to make the water palatable these towns need to run desalination plants. The water in Denham is the most expensive water in Australia at $15 per kilolitre… the campsites water bill for 3 months in peak season was $41,000!

From Coral bay we travelled via Carnarvon to Gnaraloo station and camped in another of those amazing costal sites. This is the southern most tip of the Ningaloo Reef, and as well as being renowned for its marine life, wildlife, and ruggedness, it is a famous surfing and windsurfing location with the Redbluff and Tombstones breaks near by. We snorkelled off the beaches and drove the costal track from Gnaraloo to Redbluff where the reef finally ends. Our surfing abilities were not good enough to go out over jagged coral reefs, but Alex and I looked on longingly and dreamed of sandy breaks further south! We picnicked at the Carnarvon blowhole, and saw the cairn to HMAS Syndney that sunk in WWII 150km off this coast with the loss of 645 lives.

Gnaraloo also came with the wind that drove us from Ningaloo station but we were much better prepared by now. The wind in the last month has at times been a real pain and not something that we had anticipated or read about in our planning. We were aware of the “Fremantle Doctor” but not this. It seems to blow 24/7 between 20 and 35 km/h from the south, shifting SW in the afternoons. It cycles from moderate to intense every few days and is apparently the normal weather here from October to April. It can be a real issue in planning where we go and how we do stuff, and it seems amazing that it is not mentioned more in the information for the area…. perhaps we should have cottoned on as to why this coast is such a mecca for wind and kite surfers! Anyway, now that we know about it we have invested in a very fancy Gazebo that works a treat. We have also learnt that Gazebo is a made up word to sound exotic and not based on any foreign language (thanks Holly and Alex).

From Gnaraloo we spent a night in Carnarvon on our way to the Shark Bay World Heritage Area. It was here with great excitement that we started our celebration for Alex's seventh birthday made more exciting by Granny and Grandpa being here to celebrate with us. Lots of happy birthdays and presents (more Lego), a favourite breakfast, ice creams on the road, and finally a special dinner on arrival at Monkey Mia.