Monday 3 September – Another moving day today, but not too far to travel.  We left Exmouth at about half past eight and were in Coral Bay by shortly after ten thirty.  The only notable things along the way were (i) we now see sheep on the side of the road instead of cattle, so of course you have to be really careful as sheep are pretty stupid and just wander out onto the road – the number of sheep roadkill is evidence of this, (ii) the abundance of yet another variety of termite mounds - these ones are not really high (maximum probably about a metre to a metre and a half) , looking for all the world like a little old-style haystack, and (iii) clouds in the sky – the first we have seen in several weeks!  And the wind had abated to a gentle breeze.

The mini haystack termite mounds.

We pulled up outside the caravan park at Coral Bay and as I got out of the car to go and check in for our booking, I was greeted by the couple that we chatted for an afternoon with in Nanutarra (our Nanutarra Roadhouse neighbours).  After a bit of a catch-up we went and checked in, then booked a seat each on the glass bottomed boat tour to see the coral in Ningaloo Reef for this afternoon.

This is a lovely park, just over the road from the most beautiful beach you could find.  Coral Bay township itself is very tiny, but boasts two large caravan parks.  Our neighbours here are a former South African couple from Montrose in Victoria and are very friendly.  They invited us to bring our chairs over and have a drink with them before tea, which we did, as did Rex – a 77 year old bachelor ex farmer who was a bit odd.  But I’m getting ahead of myself.

At about 2 o’clock we wandered across the road to the beach to meet our boat for the one hour ride.  The beach itself is beautiful – lovely white sand and very clear turquoise water which stays shallow for quite a distance out, and as the coral is growing really close to the shore – lots of people snorkelling. As it turned out there were only two other couples on the boat with us so we had plenty of room to see heaps of coral.  And, in yet another ‘six degrees of separation’ situation, one of the couples was from Wonthaggi, and when I asked them if they knew my cousin Dianne and her ex husband Ian, they did, and even talked about Dianne and Ian’s children and grandchildren!  I was going to talk to them more when the tour was over, but they left immediately for the caravan park. 

The coral viewing was amazing – such a variety of different types of coral, and the reef in some parts was almost touching the bottom of the boat.  And of course, hand in hand with the coral came several species of colourful and not-so-colourful fish, the biggest of which were greyish emperors.  We really enjoyed the hour, as the sun had come out and it was very pleasant.

Some of the coral we saw.

And the emperor fish swimming under the boat.

As we came back to shore at the end of the cruise, a crowd had gathered to watch the fish feeding, so we joined them as heaps of these emperors and a few other types of fish almost beached themselves as they came right in and swam between peoples legs in pursuit of the food which was being sprinkled in the water.  It was quite a sight, and the kids there were really enjoying it, though a couple of them were a bit freaked out with the fish touching their legs.

Hopefully if the weather stays nice (and tonight it is cloudy again), then we think we’ll just have a lazy day at the beach tomorrow, soaking up what might be one of the last tastes of sunshine for this holiday.  From what we are hearing, Perth is not having the greatest weather, so we’ll make the most of what we have here.