Alan & Lyn's Huge Adventure: Exmouth to Coral Bay 23/9/15

Up with the birds , it was moving day again ( groundhog day ) , a bigger morning than usual as we hadn't packed anything up last night , so on with the bikes , and in with the kayak . We decided to try the kayak inside and check fuel economy , to see if there's any difference . Tanks emptied , we hit the road at 9:15 , it was 25 degrees already .
The road was a longer one today , with trees becoming a very rare species indeed , there were still a lot of wildflowers - mainly Mulla Mulla , giving the countryside a mauve / pink look , there were yellows and purple / blues , as we drove south over what seemed an endless number of sand dunes !!

The only other feature that stood out was the orange termite mounds !
After about 1hr 45 we arrived in Coral Bay to find a very small village with 2 large caravan parks , a shopping centre , a few more small shops and a lot of people , young people with young kids .
We walked into the 2nd park and enquired about a site , but they didn't have anything big enough for us , ( we weren't expecting to get in , school holidays start on Friday over here , so everything , is or has been booked out ) . Up the road to the other park , we enquired again , and much to our surprise they had a few we could choose from . We chose one and they then said we could have it for 3 nights, so we took it !!
We set up and had lunch , before getting into the swimmers and heading down to the bay . It was hot, and had reached 33 by 10:30 , only creeping up to 34.5 by 11am .
There is a lookout on top of the sand dunes at the western end of town , so we had to have a look , up we went , the sand very hot - you wouldn't do it in bare feet . The view over the bay was pretty good .

The water was clear , with white sandy bottom , spread in amongst the coral . Walking down the beach we headed toward the south as it is renowned for being the best snorkelling . I got organised and walked in , it was shallow for a fair way out - 25m , then it dropped off rapidly , and then the coral started in a patch here & a patch there , before becoming a huge coral garden , filled with fish of all sizes &shapes . The water was deeper , being about 7m at its deepest , the coral was staggering - huge gardens of plate coral, some individual ones were over 4m wide , but there were hundreds of them . There was also brain coral in blue , pink and orange stag horn coral - I need to get a go pro camera to take photos of it all . Parrot fish came and went , stopping for a chew on some coral - you could hear them chewing into it !!
Getting a little bit cool , I swam back out and sat in 300mm of warm water with Lyn , before I headed back out for another snorkel - this one I went about 200m out and around , seeing a small stingray , several schools of iridescent blue fish , small green fish , damsel fish , lots of Nemo's , parrot fish and many , many more !!! I swam back and got out , and we wandered back to the park , for a well earned cheese & biscuits and a beer .

There were a lot of people using the beach and bay , also doing glass bottom boat cruises as well as snorkelling trips .
We decided early that we'd wander back over the road at sunset to get a few pictures . We did that , getting a seat under a shelter , then David & Lucy arrived and joined us again as the sun disappeared over the horizon .