Western Australia Road Trip – Coral Bay & Ningaloo Reef

The next 4 days of our trip were spent in absolute relaxdom (did I just invent a word?). Coral Bay was a couple of hours drive from Exmouth and was probably my favourite stop on the whole trip. We parked up in the camp site and didn’t drive a single km for 3 days. Everything was a short stroll away – the shops, the beach… erm.. the shops. Well that was about all that made up this tiny town! But it was all the better for it.

There were two snorkeling areas in the bay – a relaxed, but less rewarding coral reef was right inside the bay and the other was a little more effort but well worth it. Around the tip of the bay in the photo below, I had to walk a few hundred meters down the beach and then swim 500 meters off shore to reach the coral garden. The water was crystal and the garden was a sight to behold. Unfortunately I am not an underwater photographer so I can’t show you how good it was, nor am I a very good writer so I can’t really do it justice in words… You’ll just have to go see it for yourself!

Coral Bay

Without doubt, the highlight of the whole trip for me was the Manta Ray snorkel tour we went on on our second day. We got lucky in so many ways. It was low season so the tour was virtually empty – only 5 guests including us two – which made it all the more personal. We had great weather with low winds (low winds are rare at this time of year) and the actual dive was sensational. Our skipper located a group of 4 Manta Rays and we got in and snorkeled, dived and generally fooled around having a wonderful time with them for around 45 minutes. They were circling us, letting us follow them for a while and then looping back around to form a circle with us and really didn’t seem to mind us being there at all. They are apparently very inquisitive animals and very intelligent so I suppose they were curious of us and found it perhaps as interesting as we did. Again, no underwater photo’s unfortunately but here’s one Sonia took when she was resting on the boat.

As well as swimming with the beautiful rays, the tour also included some other great snorkeling sites, including a reef shark cleaning station where we witnessed up close a group of white-tip’s being ‘serviced’ by a bunch of smaller fish cleaning their larger counterparts’ teeth for them. We also saw dolphins surfing our boats wake and we also visited a protected turtle feeding area where we witnessed many grazing the seagrass below our boat and coming up for air in between snacks.

The tour company we went with are called Coral Bay Adventures and if anyone is reading this looking for a recommendation for potential tour guides to go with yourself, then look no further – these guys were super friendly, loads of fun and really knew how to make our experience one to remember. Hit this link to visit their web site and read about all of their tours.

This stop on our trip really was all about relaxing and taking in all of the wonderful experiences the Ningaloo Reef has to offer, so given that most of our time was spent in the water where I could not take my camera, I’ll sign off with a few more pics from around the tiny town. Next Stop – Shark Bay!

The main street in Coral Bay