Monday, June 7, 2010

Time to leave Coral Bay and head up to Exmouth. I have to admit this place is hard to leave, so laid back and easy going, it has a really nice, casual feel to it. Since it’s only 2 hours to Exmouth, Bill went for one last snorkel, and we stopped for a short hike in a canyon along the way.  We saw this big bird walking along, and found out later it's an Australian Bustard, considered to be a sort of bush turkey by the aboriginals.  We continued on into Cape Range National Park to check out some of the beaches for snorkelling the following day.  Our last stop was at a beach called Mangrove Bay, where we stopped to talk with an Aussie couple who really liked to talk. We ended up leaving just after sunset, so were forced to drive back in the dark.  Now we know why people are advised NOT to drive at night, it was nerve-racking to say the least.  Bill drove while I yelled out, "roo on the left, now the right, left, left, right again," and so forth, all the way back to the hotel.  They were literlally bounding all over the place, this area seems almost overrun with them at night. The hotel we’re staying at used to be part of a US Naval base, built here in the late 1960’s to communicate with submarines using low frequency radio waves. Literally everything needed to build and equip the base was brought over from the US, including even the concrete used to pour the foundations. We walked around the now deserted base and noted that they had pretty much all the comforts of home, including a swimming pool, baseball diamond with stadium lighting, dive shop, movie theatre, bowling alley, church, etc. The radio towers are still being used to communicate with subs, and a small portion of the base is fenced off and still in operation. We were told the rooms in our section of the hotel used to be the female officers housing unit, and still had working 110 electrical outlets, definitely not something you typically find over here.  

Sunday, June 6, 2010

Well it absolutely poured all night, and we would not have been surprised if the campers had decided to riot and take over the hotel for some relief from the rain.  It must have been miserable in those tents, even the locals the next day said it NEVER rains that hard.  We also half expected to get a phone call from the dive shop, cancelling today’s snorkel/dive trip, but it went out at scheduled, even though it was cold, cloudy and windy when we left.  However, after a while the sun came out and it turned out to be a gorgeous day out on the water. The first stop was for snorkeling, which we did for about an hour, and we saw tons of beautiful coral and lots of fish. Then we went further out to find the manta rays. This is a very well choreographed and rehearsed effort, involving the use of a small airplane to spot the rays.  Once they’re spotted, one of the crew goes in the water and swims out to them, then half the people on the boat go into the water and swim along with the rays for a few minutes, then the other half go in. We switched back and forth like this 3 times, so we got several chances to see them, and they are enormous. The ones we saw were 6 to 8 feet across, and they swam fairly fast so it was hard to keep up with them. The visibility wasn’t great but here’s one of our pics.

After that was lunch, then another snorkel/dive, and then we headed back.  Here are some more underwater pics.  (It's best to double click the pics)

Saturday, June 5, 2010

We made it to Coral Bay, a very tiny little hamlet, not even a town really, just a couple of caravan parks and one hotel, a couple of dive shops, two restaurants and a tiny little grocery store and gas station. Went snorkelling this morning, just needed to walk a short distance from our hotel to the beach, and then the reef begins just yards from the shore. We were amazed at the number and diversity of fish, and some of the coral heads were enormous. Very easy snorkelling in very shallow water, but the numbers of fish and coral were amazing.  It rained just a bit while we were out, but since returning to the room, it’s turned into a tropical squall, with quite a bit of rain. Bill has gone back down to the beach to snorkel again, he thinks he’s in heaven with the incredible snorkelling here, but I’m done for the day.  I let him talk me into booking an all day snorkel trip tomorrow, on a boat looking for “giant manta rays.”  I will definitely be out of my comfort zone but so long as my mask doesn't leak I'll be happy.   Here are some of the underwater pics Bill took today, as well as a photo of the beach.

Friday, June 4, 2010


Today was an all day travel day, although it took us less than 7 hours to drive to Coral Bay, instead of the 8+ the map listed. Not far from Coral Bay we crossed the Tropic of Capricorn, so we’re officially in the tropics now. Besides almost running down a couple of kangaroos, the drive was pretty uneventful. These two appeared to be playing chicken, because they stood on the side of the road, watching our car approach, and then at the last second they both hopped right out in front. We had been warned by multiple people not to drive at night, but sometimes the roos are active during the middle of the day as well. We were amazed at the number of road kill on the drive to Coral Bay, everything from kangaroos to goats, sheep and even cattle. There are very few fences, so the cattle and sheep just wander wherever they want to go, and the goats are apparently wild. We’ve heard that driving even further north, we can expect to encounter lots of emus and even wild camels, and I can't imagine what hitting a camel would do to your car.

The scenery consists of mile after mile of these termite mounds, and not much else; and the termites apparently eat leaves and sticks from bushes, since there are no trees or other sources of wood around, like houses.

Thursday, June 3, 2010

Today we did a rather challenging, level 4, 8 kilometer hike, down into the Murchison River gorge, and the river was completely dry in most places. It was amazing to see how high the water level is at times, and some of the trees had huge amounts of debris wrapped around their trunks, extending up several feet. This is caused by flooding from cyclones, and the force of the water has created some amazing rock formations. The geology was as colourful as parts of the grand canyon, with multiple layers of red, cream and gold. The rock is called tumblegooda, not sure if that’s an aboriginal word or not, but I expect it is. We saw some wild goats and lots of roos and parrots, and as usual, very few people. I have to admit, we were tired by the time we finished, and of course the last part of the hike was all uphill.

Wednesday, June 2, 2010

Today we joined a bunch of backpackers for a canoe trip down the Murchison River. Once again we were the only old farts but at least we didn’t get stuck on a sandbar, like some of the others did. It was sunny and warm and surprisingly the guide let us go on our own, while he drove downstream to cook up a big brekky for everyone. I guess they don’t worry too much about people drowning in the river, since it’s pretty much waist deep in most parts. Prior to the guide telling us that, he explained how to inflate the life vests that we were required to wear, and he said after pulling the cord and inflating the vest, you simply stand up and walk out of the river. That gave us a clue that it was pretty shallow. Although we saw lots of cool looking birds, my pics didn’t turn out so well, since I kept turning the camera off every time I tried to take a picture. Bill had put the camera in the underwater case so it wouldn’t get wet, but it’s hard to see the buttons and even harder to push them, and I kept forgetting which ones did what, so I got very few pictures.

In the afternoon we drove out to one of the river gorges for a hike along the riverbed. It was surprisingly hot in the sun, since this is late autumn, but the temps out here during the summer months reach nearly 130 degrees, so this is definitely the right time to visit.

Tuesday, June 1, 2010

Road trip to Kalbarri National Park, Coral Bay, Exmouth and Shark Bay.  We left yesterday, around 5:00 pm, although we actually had to backtrack to find a gas station, and we hadn’t even left town yet. We’d been warned about the scarcity of gas stations as you drive north, but we didn’t expect to encounter a problem before even leaving Perth. So we didn’t actually get on the road until around 6:00, then drove as far as Geraldton, where we spent the night at a B & B. The house was a 120 year old two-story, set on a hill with great views of the ocean, even from the first floor.

The B&B owner suggested we check out the local museum before heading up to Kalbarri, since it’s less than a 2 hour drive. First we walked to a memorial at the very top of a hill overlooking the city, which memorialized the seamen from a ship sunk off the coastline during World War II. After touring the museum we headed for Kalbarri National Park, which was wonderfully quiet. Only two other rooms in our motel were occupied, but we were told that next month, during school holidays, the population would expand from 2,000 to 10,000.

We drove to several coves along the coastline, and hiked for a while just as the sun was setting. The above  pic shows some of the fascinating sandstone, some of which looks like stalactites or soda straws like you’d find in a cave.

This is a photo of the Kalbarri coastline.