Coral Bay (12 - 16 May)

We left Cape Range National Park and drove back to Exmouth to top-up on water, fuel and provisions for our stay in Coral Bay. We also cleaned the vehicles (a futile effort given they would soon be covered in red dirt again) before meeting my mother (we call her “Popo”) at Learmonth Airport for the next leg of our trip. The timing of her arrival turned out to be immaculate as we had to order bits and bobs for the trip which she brought over for us. This included a new satellite phone as the provider for the phone kindly loaned to us by our friend, Brendan, experienced a terminal failure with its sole satellite.

The township of Coral Bay consisted of a single strip containing three adjacent holiday parks, a small arcade of shops and a resident nurse whom Justin saw about an angry 2-week old gash in his lower shin. Without even bending down, the nurse took one quick glance and told Justin to refrain from swimming (due to spawning coral), avoid the swimming pool (due to the kids) and regularly clean the gash. She was right and the gash soon healed. 

Heaving with visitors, our caravan park was cramped and directly faced the entrance to Bill’s Bar across the road. However, the absence of a footpath did not prevent campers from making a beeline through our site to the bar in breach of camp ground etiquette. Justin’s strategically-positioned outdoor furniture did little to minimise the traffic flow as people picked their way around the obstacles.

With high expectations, we were unimpressed by the snorkelling at Bill’s Bay until we found out that it was impacted by an unusual coral spawning event in 2022 which killed some 16,000 fish. Although the bay has not recovered from the incident, it did however provide an ideal environment for further snorkelling practice due to its calm waters and wide sand banks. We also drove over sand dunes to snorkel at Five Fingers Reef, explored the southern Coral Bay coastline (14 Mile Beach, The Ridge and Pelican Point) and played Dutch Blitz with our camp neighbours, Kyle and Kara, before heading back to Exmouth for a few nights.