the North West Highway, Coral Bay

Its another tantalising piece of road to Coral Bay which is still the great NW highway with a turnoff to Coral Bay. The roads are all sealed but the one to Coral Bay was a recent addition. Prior to that it was a dirt track and a 4WD domain which kept the Britz toaster brigade and anybody with 2WD out. Now it is relatively easy place to get to and a regular stop on the flashpacker trail. Now when we left Denham, Des and Annette took pity on us and gave us a Bill Bryson Audiobook..Downunder.
We are the only Britz van with a tape machine in the western desert and the Western Hemispere...sigh
We had listened to TBO Elton John which is great...the first 26 times...and then well Sad Songs becomes saddos and then we have to switch to ABC Western Australia radio which is a bit 'Good Morning Vietnam' a la Radio 210. Thats the local nonsense in Reading...and then there is James Lush who god bless his mum...sounds like Gary Davies...the king of nonces if ever there was from the heady days of Radio 1...well when you are about to renounce the Lion King and apply to the priesthood for a vow of silence...turn it over.
So we cut into Bill Bryson. Actually I think he is a brilliant writer in his genre and the stories about England, the pubs, the people. We pick up in Aussie and he beautifully describes Perth and then embellishes each stroy with facts, simple stuff. Lovely bit about the Stromatolites in Hamelin Pools where we had just been and a lovely bit about a trip to Alice Springs with his producer mate from the beeb involving good aussie hangovers and not opening puffy eyes for risk of bleeding to death!
Anyway a very good story which really tickled the van muppets:
'So this freind of his is having an extension done and his daughter was helping the builders. At the end of the week they give her a silver coin for helping them and the father takes her to the bank to open an account. The manager asks her if she enjoys working with the builders and she says yes. Then he asks her if the builders are likely to be on site next week and if she is going to be working and she says 'only if we get the fucking bricks!' boom boom. Well after a diet of EJ this was a breath of humour badly needed.
After all this we arrive in Coral Bay and it looks small, sandy and the home to Ningaloo Reef. There is lots of men gathered around another gutting table for the
catch of the day so fishing is all well and good and living in Coral Bay. The campsite is great and we wander to the Dive shop. We dive tomorrow on Ningaloo - inner reef.
From the shore you can see the reef fringes the whole bay and forms a sanctuary inside for the inner reef. The weather has been rubbish recently and diving on the outer reef, where the big fish live and probably the sharks, is a no go.
The reef stretches up to Exmouth in the north and Whale Sharks are here for 2 months and have just left..no worries.
The diving the next day is fabulous and then we snorkel in the bay in the afternoon which is a tad murky but the water is a beautiful temperature and there is coral and stuff to see. Fo comes snorkelling on the dive boat and probaly sees more life on the surface than we do below the surface. The coral is in great nick and there is plenty of life with sharks, rays and barracuda around. The next day we are doing the
'Manta Ray interactive experience' as the lingo goes.
We leave at 9 as usual and make for the place the spotter plane tells us the Mantas want to get 'interactive'. The visibility sucks and i think the pilot has been on the grog. We follow a couple of cold leads and then Emily, Dive Master and spotter girl, gets a hot lead and swims along behind the assailant with her arm directly in the air indicating visual contact. She was very fast considering she only had one arm and two fins to propell with and she signalled for us to enter the water. We followed the Manta for a long way but didn't interact too much as she was clearly late for a meeting on the other side of the reef and we were all in hot pursuit. They are truly beautiful animals and there will be other meetings! We knock off and head for a dive on the reef again. Very beautiful, lots of life and a great divemaster in Emily who can finally bring her arm down from above her head with some heavy physio.
Apart from the diving and the local fauna in the bayside cafe the town is deliciously small, the beach reaches all the way round the bay where you can always find a quiet spot to yourself and its generally paradise. Like the whole of the west coast at this time of year campsites are full, you cannot book ahead in most cases and everybody wants to be in the same place. It is set to grow although hopefully it won't lose the special atmosphere it has now. Besides that there is still very few resorts on the coast and heaps of coast. We have to leave, the toast is ready and we have only a couple of weeks to get to Broome...back on the highway again towards Karratha and Dampier, Fo's spiritual home!