Day 8 Carnarvon to Coral Bay

Early morning again we are on the road by 0800 and on the way to the lovely Coral Bay where we arrived about 1100am.  The weather was blustery but the place still looked like the family or individual holiday paradise it has always been.

Our team went for a walk on that magnificent beach, chatted to the volunteer visitors centre crew and chilled out before an excellent light lunch in the bakery in the shopping centre and I visited the other travel shop opposite in the shopping mall where they had a fabulous array of tours available from quad bikes to sailing to snorkeling etc.  One could easily spend a week there and we had a couple of hours only sadly.

We had originally intended to drive from there area to Exmouth along the beach to one of my very favourite spots at Winderabandi Pt on Ningaloo Stn near where my Dad had brought the Norweigan Bay whaling station back to life as part of the team that built up the NW Whaling Company.  I had listened to his stories of that exciting post war endeavour which was undertaken at the request of the WA Government because whale oil was desperately needed after the worlds oil stocks were so badly depleted by WW2.

I have some old pics of his and those stories made a big impression on me so I have always felt a strong attachment to the area.  Certainly Winderabandi is great and the Yardi Creek area also very beautiful BUT we have one of John Hughes cars and the crossing is a bit dicey and we did not have enough camping equipment and we did have a young lady who was a bit uncomfortable about sleeping under the stars with the team of assorted males she had found herself with.

So sadly we are not sleeping on the beach in our tents this time – perhaps when we return to do the Warlu Way we will be able to start the tour with a night on the beach at Ningaloo.

So we left Coral Bay in time to get to Exmouth by 3pm so we could see the Visitors Centre and perhaps do the glass bottom boat trip today while the weather was good.

On the way to Exmouth there are some really impressive white ant mounds and Paul who is an expert at many things to do with insects etc was fascinated with them.  We did a piece to camera, tripnoted the place where there was a good place to pull the car off the road so one could see the extensive white ant mansion – and we changed drivers again and moved on to Exmouth.

We arrived in plenty of time and the team took some shots round the Visitors Centre as I dashed off to DEC to pick up the much needed license to film commercially in the National Park which was at reception as was promised on time.  DEC were great to us throughout the trip and nothing was too much trouble for them.

We moved on to Bundegi past the massive aerial complex which is the HF radio signals that the US uses to send messages to and support its worldwide submarine network.   It’s an interesting concept that to send messages deep into the oceans at long distance you need a network of 12 supporting towers and one massive aerial tower rising into the air - and not a network of aerials under the sea as most would perhaps expect – now most people would call this 13 towers BUT the US is very clear on this – it is one tower and 12 support towers and there is no number 13 issue here at all of course.

Luck and positive energy is very much in the eye of the beholder and 13 at dinner and the number 12a as an option to 13 in a hotel complex never worried me but I found this a quaint story for a super power.

We arrive at Bundegi just as the BIG and the little of it - lightly built Dave Sever arrive in the Ningaloo Glass Bottom Boat bus pulls into the carpark with his larger crewman - and there is that great view – the Exmouth Gulf and that magnificent clear blue water – and in the middle of the foreground in that shot is a really well designed glass bottom boat.

It had a ramp that came down at the front for people who were young (in strollers), older in wheelchairs or just infirm or injured – and they let reasonably able people use it as well which was a bonus for me.  Brett was really excited at the thought of getting a snorkel and he had the underwater camera and all the gear as well as the two above water and thoroughly unsafe in the water High Definition Movie Cameras.  I was delighted to see Taryn also getting ready to snorkel as we wanted our participants to be seen participating in the tours and not just sitting them so our viewers and clients could get a real feeling for the tour and want to do it themselves. 

And she is a stunner – looks great in her bathing suit despite the couple of kilos she reckons she has put on through the trip with all the great meals we had enjoyed.

So with a great deal of excitement the Intrepid Escapees loaded themselves onto the Ningaloo Glass Bottom Boat with Dave and we made our way out to the Reef.

I have known Dave for many years and was interested to see how passionately he had come to love the reef and the sealife and how well he delivered his patter explaining the various types of coral and sealife that graced this beautiful area.  We saw all manner of colourful fish, many different types of coral and the magical clear water on a picture postcard perfect day.  What made that even better was the fact that each of us had spoken to our loved ones at home in Perth where it had been pouring for days and the high winds associated with a winter storm were in stark contrast to the magnificent weather we were enjoying up here.

Over an hour passed with some very colourful scenery before Dave tied up the boat to a mooring off Bundegi and the snorkeling was on – great excitement for our young ones but the older ones sat in the Glass Bottom Boat and looked out over the snorkelers and the most beautiful and peaceful visage one can imagine.

It was great – would have been better in the water but my bathers had gone the way of one T shirt and an old watch – lost in transit and so useless and I was still producing anyway.

Dave produced some really delightful fresh fruit in a container for us to take pieces from and eat – no packaging, no paper products, no litter for the sea and most appetizing and healthy! Excellent.

The intrepid escapees snorkeling adventure came to an end and they came about happy and excited about what they had seen and in Bretts case what he had shot – with the underwater camera of course.

We wound our way home towards a beautiful setting sun drenched beach and the winding was because we were dolphin watching although the mother had a smallish calf and she was not letting us get too close.

We checked in at my friend Axels' Best Western Sea Breeze Resort and we were in four delightful apartment style rooms off a communal room – each had a kitchenette and a Queen and Single bed, bathroom toilet and most importantly for me a hot shower.

Axel and his mates had just finished resurfacing the bitumen driveway to reception and he looked a picture when we arrived – a picture of an exhausted person.  He and I had discussed an evening together on the Beach on his 5 acre wilderness block off the main road into town on the Gulf side – which I had been really looking forward to once Winderabandi had been deferred for the next trip.  But he looked like he would only make it there if I carried him and with my new totally replaced left hip that was not likely to work well.

But Ax is german born and a strong Aussie who is used to hard work – he had a hot shower and we left for the block without much else happening except of course that I said goodbye and fare the well to my Intrepid Escapee team team after double and triple checking all the details of Sat and Sundays filming. 

It was pretty simple now – Ocean Eco Adventures were picking them up from the BW Seabreeze by taxi at 0815 and bringing them back that evening – all they had to do was get dressed, have their gear ready and be at the front with the DEC filming permit.

I have seen Axel and Eskes block from the road so I know it is pretty special but once we are down there and driving onto the block it is clear why he loves it so much.  We put the 4WDs into 4WD and drive on a windy track down onto the Beach – and there it is – magnificent – he has made up a fireplace from stones and collected some wood and that is small and compact and safe but very special.

We both have rooftop tents and we put them up quickly in the dark with the aid of some headtorches Axel has in the back of his tent and we have the comfy fold up camp chairs, a table and the most ingeneous cooking item I have seen for some time.  It is a 20l paint tin with a square hole cut out of it about 10mm from the bottom and just wide and high enough for a few pieces of wood to be poked into it and to allow air in.  There are three slits cut horizontally in the tin which are about 100cm long on each side of the opening for the wood and the top is not on it.

He puts a open weave grill plate on top of that and he takes small pieces of burning wood off the main fire and puts them in the cooking appliance.

Then he gets two meals out of his 4WD which are made by our Katherine Station Restaurants business all ready to heat and serve and we have a beef and a chicken dish with rice which goes into two saucepans and they bubble away till they are ready with Axel stirring them periodically.

We open a Sandalfords red wine bottle for me and a  bottle of spirits for him and we settle in to some serious "hard work" – well we did actually discuss some work and made some pretty good decisions too – but we concentrated also on soaking up the great beauty of the scene as we sat in these idyllic conditions and solved some of the worlds great problems.  Its great for the soul to get in touch with the beauty of nature and creation and this is one of the best and most powerful place to be.

The stress of the previous week melted away and the blanket of bright stars in the Aussie outback away from the lights of the city and the pollution one cannot escape are really amazing and enchanting.  I had the guitar but for once did not feel like playing it so it rested in the back of the WA Pass Nissan.

Somewhere around 12.30 we hit the sack and I woke only once during the night and looked out through the windows in my rooftop tent over that magnificent view and was soon asleep again.  Now I am sure I told myself to do it – I am sure I did, BUT THE ALARM STILL WENT OFF AT SIX BLOODY FIFTEEN.  Damn I thought – someone forgot to turn it off - that was me I know.

I hope that has not woken Axel whose car and tent are about 20 m away.  I was p…ed off for about a minute – then I looked out and was instantly delighted that I had forgotten the alarm.

Cause there it was – the suns first rays of dawn were sneaking over the horizon over water – we don’t see sunrises over water much in WA as we are of course a western coast so the sun sets in the water and rises out of the land in most of the country we live in.  East coasters find the sunsets in the water fascinating (as I do also) but West Aussies don’t really believe the sun rises out of the water – or at least don’t often get to experience it at home.  And there it was happening before my very eyes as I lay in that old rooftop tent and gazed out the window.

I feel differently outside the city and there is a peace out there in the aussie outback that is hard to describe – perhaps as Capes and Ann Preest tell me – if I stop working long enough to listen I might hear something special.  Am working on that – but at least this trip to the outback has refreshed me in a way not much else does.

 

As my favourite song says

"Ever since I was a boy I've loved to get away

To hit the open road and make my way

As far as I can get from city life and stress

To the aussie outback where I feel my best

When things are going crazy on a real bad day

I log on and watch a segment of DriveWA…""………