Went into Coral Bay yesterday morning, a very pretty tourist town two caravan parks and tourist sales places, but a beautiful beach.
Had a swim and cold shower in the toilets. Then went around to the boat ramp where they have a jetty arrangement, an amazing carpet of small fish as you look down, they almost look like seaweed they are such a mass. Also saw a huge Groper it must have been 2 metres long and weighed a tonne. It was huge and just swam very slowly under us. Lots of boat trailers in the car park.
At 3.30 we watched the fish feeding at the beach. Amazing to see heaps of North West Snapper also called Spangled Emperor swimming right up to your legs. They were probably around 3kg each, very good size.
We hung about the beach and had dinner. Around 8.30 we decided to go to the toilet and head out the 12k's to park for the night when we were harassed by a bloke asking where we were staying the night, he got quite threatening when I suggested it wasn't his concern. He claimed he was a ranger and would come looking for us if we camped within 40kms of Coral Bay. I suggested I may call him on that then he said he was fining us for parking in front of the toilets after 8pm. It was all a bit weird, although we were pretty much aware that you would get fined for parking anywhere in town after 8pm. Anyway we headed out towards Exmouth and pulled up in a parking bay after about 20 minutes. There were 3 blokes with a truck and a tent stopped there, they are heading for Derby to pick up some work, had a good chat.
In the morning we turned off to go into Ningaloo Station homestead. It's 30kms of very corrugated road. You come to a gate where you get on the two way radio to them and they direct you into the homestead. When we got there an older lady met us, took our $10 for the night and directed us to the short term camp which is through another couple of gates. It's pretty remote and we were the only ones there. We went for a long walk along the beach back to the shearing sheds we had passed on our way in. Found some beautiful shells along the way. There is no facilities at the camp, it's take the shovel for a walk when you need to go.
During the afternoon another vehicle turned up to share our camp. It was a man of about my age on his own. He was Italian, Julio, and he was driving a LHD Landcruiser he had bought in Germany and set up for camping in Italy then shipped to Australia. It was very unique and a great set up. He had arrived in Fremantle in November and went across the eastern states including Kangaroo Island and Tasmania. He went up to Queensland in February so most of his time had been wet with roads subject to the floods. He had crossed the Simpson and returned to WA via the Ann Beadell road from Cooper Pedy. His wife had had enough and had returned to Italy in March. He was heading north before returning home in November. It cost him around $5,000 each way to ship his vehicle. A very interesting chap who was still struggling with English, he said he had been planning this trip for 25 years.
There have been quite a lot of vehicles pass us on their way to Yardi Creek. We would have liked to have gone up that way but were told you cross the river mouth on a sand bar at low tide, we weren't prepared to go all that way and have to come back. Another good day.