Coral Bay, Western Australia

Public transportation is a blessing and a curse at the same time.

1) I boarded the Greyhound Australia bus at 7:30am in Perth. We arrived in Coral Bay seventeen hours later. It’s normally an ~11 hour car ride.

2) Brekkie, lunch and dinner stops were at roadhouses. The food at all three roadhouses was barely edible. For example, I purchased a roast beef sandwich for dinner. The meat was more like beef jerky with a dense starchy, chalky roll (they don’t say bun). Luckily the roadhouse sold ginger beer to wash the meal down my throat.

3) Every seat on the bus was filled because there are zero public flights to the Coral Bay area. Plus, Greyhound has a monopoly on the route. Passengers included other backpackers (they slept most of the way), Perth City folk on school holiday, babies, and aboriginals. With so many people on board from all walks of life and cleanliness, there was a staunch odor of BO plus dirty shoes plus baby bottom for most of the trip.

4) I sat next to Kim, a Perth resident travelling to Exmouth for 8 days of camping, snorkeling and paddling. We swapped stories about our plans up north and thoughts on Australia, which was quite pleasant. After a few hours though I was tired of talking. She wasn’t.

Moving on from the bus ride…

Coral Bay is quite the sight to see! Crystal clear blue water, white beaches and minimal waves. It’s the perfect place to read a book, soak up some sun and snorkel along the Ningaloo Reef (which is why I made the trip!). Plus it’s along the Indian Ocean, which I had never swam in before. The other cool thing about this bay is that a large proportion of the area is deemed a sanctuary/no fishing/no boat zone, so it is teeming with marine life.

 

The Ningaloo Reef stretches from Exmouth down to the Shark Bay area (stromalite territory, the oldest known organisms on the planet). Coral Bay is wedged in between the reef endpoints. The Ningaloo Reef differs from the Great Barrier Reef in that 1) its really close to the shoreline (you can swim out to it) and 2) it’s made up of hard corals that are less vibrant, but larger in size than the corals found on GBR. This reef is home to the whale sharks in the fall, 12 foot manta rays in the spring, reef sharks, tiger sharks, turtles and squid clusters. Humpback whales migrate along the coast as well in the spring and fall. Since most people are terrified of sharks, I should note that Coral Bay is relatively protected from sharks because the reef is close to the water’s surface making it nearly impossible for sharks to come inside the bay. Having said that, the next bay over (a 2km walk) is designated as a shark nursery and is home 50-100 young reef sharks.

Because the Indian Ocean is still relatively cold, I wasn’t able to spend all of my time in the water snorkeling. I was, however, able to go on 5 drift snorkels along the reef, free of charge! I literally walked off the tip of the bay, swam out 100 ft and drifted atop large rosette corals, blue tipped pencil corals, and hundreds of fish. This was my first experience with a hard coral reef and I was truly impressed. The shapes and size of the corals was impressive. The best thing I saw at sea though was a large black and white squid! I wound up swimming against the current for 10 plus minutes following the squid around observing it. The other fish treated the squid like magpies treat a hawk, they pestered it so it would move away from their homes.

 

Since I was in Coral Bay during the Aussie school holidays, which means the campsites fill-up to capacity, I decided to venture beyond the bay to the outback for an afternoon. As soon as I got behind the dunes, the ocean breeze came to halt and the oppressive outback heat set in. It’s a good thing I was prepared with water, sunscreen and a hat! On my 2 hour hike I found a dried salt lake bed converted into an outback golf course, fossilized roo tracks and poo, desert flowers and coral remnants. The sky was a brilliant blue and the desert was seemingly endless. As I bushwhacked over the dunes back towards the bays, three big red kangaroos emerged from the bush and jumped off into the sunset. During the hike, I came to realize the vastness of this country and how comfortable I am being a small spec in this world.