Epic Round The World Trip Adventures! Stunning Photos & Articles - A fascinating gap year travel journal covering every stop of their journey.

Go to content

Main menu:

Epic Round The World Trip Adventures! Stunning Photos & Articles – This page is all about Coral Bay, West Australia on our around the world trip.

Stop 2 - W. Australia > North Of Perth > Coral Bay

Coral Bay - West Australia
Round The World Trip Journal

Text By Jo and Pix By Mike

(11th - 13th February) Coral Bay - First visit
After driving past an area covered with huge 10ft high termite hills as far as the eye can see we arrived at Coral Bay, a three hour drive north of Carnarvon, late in the evening of the 10th February. Coral Bay is part of the huge Ningaloo Marine Park which runs all the way down from Exmouth 100 miles to the north. We drove the length of the town which comprises just two campsites, a holiday resort, a small shopping centre and a backpackers hostel and made an instant decision on which campsite to choose – lush green grass sites (a first for us!) that overlooked the beach and the beautiful turquoise sea in the bay. Mike decided we should hire fins here to go for the full on snorkelling experience and it was certainly worth it. We only had to swim out about 100yds to reach the coral reef, they have living coral here, which was stunning, all shapes and sizes and on a large scale. A major feat for Jo who so far had been able to put her feet down whenever she panicked! But she was amazingly calm and totally focussed on the coral and fish, even though way out of her depth. There were small shoals of huge snapper (2ft long) coasting around the shallows who were curious about people and kept swimming up to us. We also did a drift snorkel here from one end of the bay round into it. The current wasn’t too strong but it’s lovely to float there and not even have to flip your fins! Jo was exhausted both emotionally and physically but on such a high as she had faced all her fears here and beaten them. The temperatures were on the rise and were heading slowly up through the 40’s so it was great to spend so much time in the sea – otherwise we hopped from shade to shade. We saw huge lizards lazily strolling across the campsite – up to 3ft long! We took a 20 minute walk up the beach to a shark nursery area that can only be seen at high tide, you are allowed to stand in the water with them, but only up to knee deep so you don't freak them out too much. We must have seen easily 50 sharks cruising around literally feet from the beach. Mike got a fit in his head that he really wanted to get in the water to have a better look, but once he was knee deep the sharks never swam nearer than 6ft from him, they were surprisingly cautious, so great news he still has both his legs intact! The black blobs in the photo by him are a few of the sharks getting ready to pounce. We also saw lots of stingrays cruising along the shore. We spent three nights at Coral Bay and on our last day we decided to do a quad bike tour – something neither of us had done before. (See next posting for details)

(15th - 16th February) Coral Bay - Second Visit
On 15th February we left Exmouth and headed back down south. On the way we stopped at Charles Knife Gorge. Most of the road was sealed but the last 1km was extremely bumpy – skilfully negotiated by Priscilla Queen of the Dessert (that’s our name for the van now!) ably driven by Mikey. The view from the lookout at the end was very disappointing but we were more than rewarded by the views from the road on the way back down. We could see the sea on either side of the peninsula from the top. Dramatic views across deep gorges in red and yellow rock. The road back down to Coral Bay was lined with termite hills as far as we could see and we saw the odd dust devil whipping up the red sand as they snaked across the landscape. We arrived at Coral Bay to a bit of a breeze and a much cooler day – back in the 30’s again. Went straight in for a snorkel to cool off. We were given some fresh young coconuts by our neighbours so Mikey poured out the liquid to drink and dug out the flesh – very creamy and tasty. The following morning our neighbours told us that there had been an earthquake at Monkey Mia - 5.9 on the Richter Scale apparently. We later found out that the epi-centre was off shore from Denham and that no damage had been caused even though the houses had been shaken as though a train was going by right outside them. Didn’t seem to affect the dolphins though which was our main concern! This is not usual here apparently. This morning we went snorkelling at Paradise Beach around the corner from Coral Bay. Beautiful coral again and even though it was deeper, the visibility was much clearer. We saw loads of fish again including shoals of green parrot fish. Mike rescued a fluorescent orange sea slug washed up on the beach. When he put it into the sea it fanned out to reveal stunning frilly edges that danced about much like a flamenco dress – we looked it up later and it is called a Spanish Dancer!

Gap year travel journal from our round the world trip

Click thumbs for fullscreen view

Coral Bay, West Australia - Round The World Trip Photos

Highlights of our round the world trip: