Travel Guide to Western Australia’s Coral Bay
Guest Blog by My Aussie Travel Guide
Western Australia’s Coral Bay is one of those places that you just need to visit. With its spectacular turquoise coloured water and fantastic white beaches, we bunked there for a few days in a great park directly opposite the beach. We had heard the park was a popular one and it was very true. It wasn’t even tourist season when we visited and the park was already well over 50% capacity.
Hi Ho!
There was one particular reason we were looking forward to our stay here as we longed to snorkel with manta rays. What an absolute buzz this turned out to be. Luckily for us, these guys don’t have stinging barbs and are completely harmless… but they sure are big! Booking our trip with Coral Bay Eco Tours, it was pretty well a full day trip which took us to the inner reef where we were able to first snorkel on a coral reef to hone our skills before swimming with the “main attractions”. To assist in locating the manta rays, spotter planes are sent up to locate them, and then once spotted, the boat steams forward towards the manta ray’s location. Frantically, it’s then “go, go, go” as the snorkelers jump into the water, and before you know it, the manta ray is swimming below you, only a couple of metres away at the most. What an incredible sight!
Up close and personal
The experience was amazing… seeing these graceful animals often with around a 4 metre wing span doing “loop the loops” below you as they swim and feed, filtering the plankton with their mouth open (which alone was almost 1 metre wide)! Seeming quite relaxed with our presence, we were lucky enough to do numerous swims with these fantastic creatures during the day, and felt very privileged to be able to swim with them in their natural environment.
Our next stop, Exmouth, was another we were both looking forward to. Originally set up in the 1960’s as a communication station for the US, the town is now more famous for the Ningaloo reef which covers much of its coastline and goes all the way south to Coral Bay as part of the Cape Range National Park.
Basing ourselves here for a few days, we checked out the marina, visited the Mildura shipwreck which can be seen from the beach, and visited the now defunct Vlamingh Head Lighthouse.
Lighthouse, Exmouth
But we knew there was much more to be seen in Exmouth by visiting Ningaloo Reef from the Cape Range National Park. We decided to head down there for a couple of nights camping, and had no troubles getting in to the Lakeside Campsite to set up camp. Lakeside is right next to the beach and has a tidal lake adjacent to the beach with around 8 campsites.
Sunset at Cape Range National Park
King Tide at Cape Range National Park
Before leaving the National Park, we recommend taking a boat tour along Yardie Creek Gorge as we found this tour absolutely fantastic. We spotted a few rock wallabies during our tour and their rock hopping on the huge gorge walls was great to watch.
Leaving the National Park, there was one important date we had back in Exmouth which I had been looking forward to for sooooooo long…. we were going to swim with the whale sharks!! Telling both parents that’s what we had planned to do raised all sorts of comments, such as “you’re crazy”! Growing up to 15 metres in length, swimming with whale sharks had been high on my bucket list for a few years. What a sensational tour! We managed to swim with 4 sharks, the last being around 8m in length. Trying to describe how good it was to swim alongside an animal of this size in its own habitat (and it not try to eat you!!) was the opportunity of a lifetime. So we think this part of Western Australia’s coastline is one not to be missed, and we definitely can’t wait to go back.
Sensational whale shark tour
Catch you next time.
Grant & Linda