Coral Bay - Carnarvon

Hi everyone,  some last photos of Coral Bay.  We left there Tuesday spent the last 2 nights at Carnarvon, a nice little town.  There are a lot of fruit & vegetable  plantations around the town, it was really nice to see crops again after the arid territory we have travelled.  We really enjoyed the caravan park at Carnarvon as a lot of our travelling friends were there.

View from our van- a scene from the movie "The Birds"

Fish feeding at Coral Bay- 3.30 pm. The water is about 1 to 2 feet deep, the fish about a foot long. As I dropped my fish pellets into the water they swam between my feet and felt quite silky.

Very hard to take photos through water, this is a fish!

And his beautiful companion 

I really should shave my legs more often!

Big lizard wandering around the caravan park at Coral Bay

Last time we crossed this line was at Rockhampton in QLD.

One Mile Jetty

Carnarvon Harbour

Avenue Of Honour dedicated to HMAS Sydney.  Over 600 sailors died on the ship and all have a plaque remembering them.  2 examples below.

The OTC Dish at Carnarvon.  Opened in 1966, closed in 1987. It helped with communications for the first moon landing in 1969 & received Australia's first satellite  television broadcast. It closed after tracking  Halley's Comet in 1987.  There is a Space & Technology Museum, there opened by "Buzz" Aldrin  the second man on the moon.  Unfortunately the museum was closed when we visited.

That's me, clinging on for dear life-very windy on the ledge!

We moved today to Denham & have the best site ever, overlooking the ocean, across Shark Bay.  We will post a new blog in the next few days.

Coral Bay

Hi everyone, we arrived in Coral Bay 3 days ago, about a 2 hour drive south from Exmouth. It is a tiny little hamlet on the bay.  The photo below pretty much shows most of it- a little shopping centre on the right (supermarket, newsagency, bakery, & tour shop).  Behind the trees on the left are the 2 big caravan parks & at the end of this road is the hotel-motel.  Every building is within 200 metres of each other & the beach. The bay & town are surrounded by sand dunes.  The water is beautiful, even a more stunning blue of various shades than Broome. It is perfect for snorkelling as it is very shallow, & also for kids.  It has been a bit windy but has died down in the last couple of days.  We have been swimming each morning before the sun gets too strong.  We didn't realise what a tiny place this was, which means food & essential supplies are outrageously expensive. Also although there is fresh water in the parks amenities we cannot connect the van to fresh water as we normally do, as the taps are all bore water. We didn't know this before we got here, otherwise we would have filled the 2x90 litre tanks under the van.  It is not a huge problem, just means carting  fresh water for cooking etc.  Our friends Chris & Steve arrived today & kindly bought us some fresh meat from Exmouth butcher as you can't get any here.  We had a few nice evenings with Graehame & Pam,  whom we first meet in Qld. We all seem to be leapfrogging each other & have other parks to come down the coast where we will catch up again.  They left this morning, we will see them in Carnarvron & Denham (near Monkey Mia)

Stacks of 4x4 tracks in the surrounding dunes. 

Off to the beach!

The are lots of fish very close in, we can see them from our deckchairs. Grae having a frolic in the water.

                                                                               and Ginny

Out side the pub-note the white ribbons on the truck- yes, it is a wedding limo today!

Ningaloo Reef Exmouth

Hi everyone,our last night in Exmouth after about 3 weeks here.  Tomorrow we head south down the coast to Coral Bay about 200kms away. Yesterday I went on a glass bottomed boat out to Ningaloo reef, then went snorkelling for the first time in my life.  I didn't stay in the water too long but enjoyed looking down at the coral.  The water temperature was about 22 degrees, so not too cold, but I was not worried about that, more trying to keep water out of my mouth!  I think my flippers had a life of their own, which tired me out.  The boat had four large glass panels in the bottom and we sat in 2 rows, one each side of  the length of the boat.  There were about 20 of us on the trip.  We saw some amazing coral (some a thousand years old), lots of fish, sting rays & a Green Turtle.  The following photos are courtesy of our friends Chris & Steve, as my camera was on the blink.

Colourful welcoming sign entering Exmouth.

Another (far better than mine) photo of the Naval Submarine Communications Base, taken from the old lighthouse lookout.  It is a Very Low Frequency radar which enables signals to be sent to submarines under water.  It was built in the early 1960's, in a joint operation with Americans, and is the reason Exmouth came into existence, a direct result of the Cuban Missile Crisis. There are 13 towers, all over 300 metres high. The centre tower with the white block beneath it ( this "block" is 3 stories high) is the only transmitting tower, all the others are basically there to hold it up. They also put a light on one tower to serve as the new Lighthouse, as it is much higher than the old one.

Some photos through the glass bottom of the boat.

Drying off in the boat after my snorkelling adventure! 

View from the boat  of the happy swimmers!   We are about 1 km offshore, but in fairly shallow water.

These 2 photos are taken from inside the boat, looking down through the glass bottom.  When the boat was at anchor while we were snorkelling a crew member swam under the boat and proceeded to clean the glass underneath! There are 4 panels of glass on the boat, this guy could clean one at a time before coming up for air. The skipper & owner can clean all 4 in one breath, his hobby is free diving which is like scuba diving without oxygen, he has pretty good lungs. He can hold his breath for over 3 minutes underwater.

More of Exmouth

Hi everyone, we are still in Exmouth, riding out the school holidays, & will be here for another week. We've pretty much exhausted the tourist-y options except a Ningaloo reef cruise & snorkel,which I may do just before we go. The tour boat has a glass bottom, which sounds like fun. Unfortunately it is not whale-shark season, (April-May), maybe next time.  The weather is usually 30 degrees or so, & cools down at night. It is also very windy so we haven't swum in the sea yet.  We have had a couple of picnics with our friends Chris & Steve & some enjoyable "happy hours".

Indian Ocean side of the peninsula.  The water changes colour close to the shore because of the reef, which has a world heritage listing.

Waves breaking way out on the horizon, past the reef.

Ginny, Chris & Steve getting our toes wet.

Still on the west side of the peninsula, looking east.  Exmouth is on the other side of these hills.  As you can see, very dry countryside & very few trees. Lots of emus live here, also small wallabies.

Our picnic spot under one of the two trees in the area!  The see is just behind us.

Looking across to the tip of the peninsula.

Ningaloo reef research vessel.

Exmouth golf course, the brown blob in the middle is 2 emus enjoying lunch.

Closer to the emus, they both have their heads in a hole.

Exmouth township.

Pity I didn't bring my pushbike!

Mock up of front end of a submarine outside naval communication base.

The closest I'll get to a whaleshark!