Day 44 – Exmouth to Coral Bay

An easy two hour drive south this morning from Exmouth down to Coral Bay. Oh Coral Bay – what a beautiful, beautiful place. There are only two caravan parks in Coral Bay and you can’t book ahead, so even though we arrived by 10.00am there were no powered sites left! Yikes!  So we settled for one of the last remaining unpowered sites. It’s a wonderfully positioned park right near the beach, nice grass sites, and expensive (like all the WA ones) at $57 per night – unpowered.  The Peoples Caravan Park, has a bistro restaurant, café, small supermarket, and snorkel/dive hire shop.

So after checking ourselves in we wandered over the road to the stunning turquoise waters and went for a snorkel off the beach. As you stand in ankle deep water, several huge reef fish come over and check you out, and you only need to go a few metres offshore to float over the coral, and see the stunning array of fish life. Clam shells, squid, tiny vivid blue fish, angel fish, large parrot fish, huge silver fish, red emperors, and a huge variety of tropical reef fish. A snorkelers paradise, and so good for the kids as they can just step off the beach and swim back there for a rest when they need it.

 

We wandered down to the tiny shops – a few dive/snorkel/glass bottom boat tour shops, a newsagent, a bakery, and nursing post and sat outside enjoying our lunch. Sam and I were very taken with the Reef n Beef pies from the bakery. Then we wandered back to the van park for a wander around, and a short drive down to the harbour to have a look at some of the larger cruise boats, then we went back down the beach for another snorkel, swim, and play in the sand. This is such a stunningly beautiful place, it would be easy to spend days here.

After another snorkel, it was time to head back to the van for a shower, and a walk down the street to the newly opened Bills Place – a lovely restaurant for dinner. We enjoyed our Red Emperor in these lovely surrounds. What a great day!