May 2014 - Ningaloo Reef

Coral Bay is another absolutely beautiful place along the West Australian coast at the southern end of the Ningaloo Reef, and like all the other tourist destinations, it has expanded to suit the influx of visitors wanting to come here.

We visited here with our 2 daughters about 20 years ago and it was just a gravel road which finished at the beach, with a pub on one side of the road and a camping ground on the other side of the road.  Today there are 2 caravan parks and a resort as well as 2 supermarkets and various other shops.  The town is said to be capped at 3,000 people, but during the last school holidays they had up to 5,000 people. Along with all the development came tour operators who do fishing trips, whale shark swimming tours, manta ray tours, glass bottom boat tours, 4 wheel drive tours and quad bike tours.

The reef is about 350 metres from the shore line which protects the bay and the coral is growing within 50 metres of the shore. Snorkeling over the coral from the shore is quite easy and is well worth making an effort to go out for a look.

Coral Bay Ecotours operates a whale shark tour which takes visitors out past the reef to swim with whale sharks, which are the world’s biggest fish.  These massive fish are filter feeders that visit Ningaloo Reef each year over winter, and they can grow up to 18 metres in length.

Yes!!, I DID take these photos AND they were taken without any zoom on the camera.  We really did get this close.  WOW!!

Funny how the worlds biggest fish feast on plankton which is just about the worlds smallest food. They can filter 1.5 million litres of water per hour through their gills when they are feeding on plankton. We took the tour and wow, what an experience.

We went out onto the reef in their boat and had a snorkel around the coral. Very nice, saw lots of coral and fish etc.  The water temperature was about 24 degrees and air temperature about the same at that stage.  The tour company have a spotter plane that goes up looking for whale sharks and they found one after a short while.

The boat stops about 10 metres from the whale shark and organised groups of about 6 people enter the water from the platform on the back of the boat for a swim with the whale shark. They are awesome. The one we swam with was 5 metres long and just gracefully swam around.   They only leave you in the water for about 2 minutes the first time as other boats have people that want to see them as well.

The second time in the water we were in for about 5 minutes and managed to get some great photos. These sharks are magnificent.  We were out there at least 2 hours and had the opportunity to swim with the whale shark 5 times and for longer periods each time.  

In that 2 hours we drifted towards Exmouth and ended up about 20 kilometres from Coral Bay and about 3 kilometres off shore.

Once we started coming back towards Coral Bay and got into calmer water, the crew served a beautiful salad buffet for lunch before they anchored near the reef again so we had another opportunity for a half hour snorkel over the coral. During the day we saw not only the whale shark but also dolphins, a minki whale and turtle.  The trip was topped off with a fruit platter and sparkling wine for afternoon tea.  This experience is an absolute “must do” when visiting the Ningaloo Reef at Coral Bay.

Exmouth is at the northern end of the Ningaloo Reef, and as the road had been opened again following the heavy rain that they had over the past 4 weeks, we decided it would be worth a visit.  Exmouth sits almost at the tip of the North West Cape and for this reason, a lot of travelers give it a miss as there is only one way in and the same way out, a distance of 160 kilometres each way.  We found it to be well worth the extra kilometres as there are so many beautiful beaches and canyons around the cape and we found the coral to be a lot more colourful along the reef here.

We decided to take an organised day tour around the cape with Dave from Ningaloo Safari Tours, and what a great day we had. Dave picked us up in his OKA 4wd bus and headed south along the east side of the cape to a gorge along Charles Knife Gorge road. He usually goes to Shothole Canyon but the road was still closed from all the previous rain.

The gorge is awe inspiring as it winds it’s way through the Cape Range National Park.  The highest point along this section of the range is 250 metres above sea level so we had a wonderful view out across the Exmouth Gulf.  Dave has many stories to tell about just about every point of interest that we drove past.  

I didn't know that the Japanese actually attacked Exmouth Gulf during the second world war and there are 2 or 3 memorials along that part of the gulf that commemorate the airmen that protected that part of our coast during the war. From there Dave took us back north through town with a look around the marina, canals and the homes being built around the canals. This canal development started 15 years ago and although it took a while to catch on, new homes are shooting up all around that area now. Further north of town is the Harold Holt Naval Base which was once known as Little America as it was built and run by the Americans during and after the war. We went into the non restricted part of the base and saw how it was set up just like a small American town with their own church, 10 pin bowling, baseball diamond, bar and grill, swimming pool, single officers club and single mens quarters. They even had to drive on the right side of the road. Further out are the High Frequency radio transmitters and towers, but the real important aspect of this area is the low frequency radio transmitters. This band is used for transmitting radio waves into the ocean for submarines to pick up when they come back up to 20 metres below the surface.  This area has ultra high security because of it’s importance to the American and Australian submarines in the whole of the south pacific region. The main 2 towers are 382 metres tall which is taller than the Eiffel tower in France.

Continuing south now down the west side of the cape is the Jurabi Turtle Centre which houses information about the turtles life cycle and how they return to shore here where they were born some 20 years later to breed.  Turtle breeding season is over the summer months, but it was interesting to read about the plight of the poor little things, with about only 1 in 1,000 making it back for breeding.  Traveling further south along the west side we entered the Cape Range National Park and passed about 20 beaches along the way where you are allowed to camp, provided you obtain a permit from the ranger at the park entry.

We stopped at the Osprey Bay camping ground for lunch which Dave supplied as a part of the tour cost.  A beautiful beach with water as clear as crystal.

After lunch we headed about another 10 kilometres onto Yardie Creek, which is as far as the road goes around the west side of the creek.  Yardie Creek is the only gorge in this national park which joins to the Indian Ocean and therefore has water in it.  Dave has a tinny moored in Yardie Creek and part of his tour is a trip on the boat up into the gorge.  According to Dave,

Yardie Creek is the only place in the world where you can see the Yardie Creek Black Tailed Rock Wallaby which live amongst the caves on the sheer rock faces along the creek. These are a shy animal, but we managed to spot 7 of them on our 45 minute trip through the gorge, as well as a pair of nesting osprey, some egrets, numerous short billed corellas and even a pair of “Yardie Creek Brown Feathered Emu’s”.(Dave has a good sense of humor)

By 3 pm the temperature had reached 30 degrees so we stopped at beautiful Turquoise Bay for a snorkel amongst the coral. Turquoise Bay has the best “drift snorkel” we have ever done, as the waves break over the reef to the south and flow through the bay towards the north. This takes you for about 200 metres along the reef without having to put in much effort swimming at all, you can just relax and watch the fish and coral go by underneath you.  This was all followed up with a big slice of home made carrot cake and date cake and washed down with a cup of billy tea or coffee.

Some of the best sunsets can be seen from the Vlamingh Head Lighthouse on the way back into Exmouth.

Dave told us how this lighthouse was built over 100 years ago as a result of the shipwreck of the SS Mildura which hit the reef on the 12th March 1907.  The SS Mildura had sailed from the port of Wyndham loaded with 498 cattle bound for Freemantle and hit the reef while confronting a looming cyclone.  Building materials and equipment were shipped in from Freemantle and a railway line was built up the side of the mountain so horses could pull the carriages up there loaded with that equipment and materials to build the lighthouse.  A small part of the railway line still remains today, a tribute to those men who built it over 100 years ago.  We had a great day out with Dave and the rest of the folk on the tour.  How else could one gather all this information in one day.

We left Exmouth and headed for our next overnight stop at Nanutarra Roadhouse which sits right on the banks of the Ashburton River. This was nothing like we expected. There was water running down the river which is fairly unusual for this river.  Water in this river comes from hundreds of kilometres inland in the Kenneth Range, and good rainfalls in there have seen this river run 3 times already this year.

The water has picked up a lot of red sand along the way which contrasts nicely at sunset with the white ghost gums that line the river bank. This goanna was out for it's afternoon stroll and walked straight past us while we were sitting under the awning in the evening.

The sunset here was even more spectacular than what we saw at Exmouth.

From Nanutarra we left the North West Coast Highway and headed inland again through the Hamersley Ranges to Tom Price and the gorges of the Karijini National Park.