After a rough start at our arrival to Exmouth, we found a late check in at a caravan park out of town and once again settled back into life in a tent. I thought about it today, after this trip Rob and I would have spent a quarter of this year living in a tent!

After seeing signs that the Cape Range National Park was full the night before, I was hot on the phone to the information centre at 9am to see if there were any vacancies  in the national park for the night. We got lucky as we managed to score the last campsite left in the park as every morning at 8am a queue forms at the park gate in a ‘first in best dressed’ game for the campsites! Who would have thought?

After all the kufuffle with finding somewhere to sleep, we had finally arrived and secured ourselves a little rest stop along the Ningaloo Reef. It became quickly apparent why the area was so busy and the fussing around to get there seemed well worth it.

Ningaloo reef is fantastic!!!

We spent some time snorkeling at Turquoise Bay. It is a tropical haven of white sand beaches, aqua marine water and great snorkeling just a stroll from the beach. We saw fish galore and coral of all shapes and sizes. Life for us really couldn’t feel much better!

We also spent some time snorkeling at ‘Oyster Stacks’. The reef here is so close to shore that you can only snorkel at high tide. It was the best snorkeling I had ever done and I wish we had a waterproof camera so I could show you just some of what we saw. We had to watch our step getting into the water as the seabed was littered with sea cucumbers! We saw loads of fish, many starfish and a giant bright blue starfish that was about 40cm in diameter. Life was so abundant and the water so incredibly clear! This really is one of the premier snorkeling places in Australia and it is such a rare treat to see such an abundance of life and coral so close to the shore.

We spent most of our time in Cape Range National Park hanging out at Turquoise Bay just laying in the sun and snorkeling. On the second day while out for a snorkel I turned around to make sure Rob was still swimming about near me to see the un-mistakable silhouette of a shark! A reef shark about 1.2m long was only a few metres behind us! I wanted to tell Rob so he could have a look too but instinct took over and I found myself swimming for shore. Rob figured I was swimming to shore for a good reason and followed straight behind. I wish I had been braver and had watched the shark for a little longer, however short the encounter it remained the highlight of my day.

We reluctantly left Exmouth and Cape Range National Park behind to continue to the southern end of the Ningaloo Reef at Coral Bay.

We arrived to find a retirement village disguised as two caravan parks right next door to each other. That is pretty much all there was besides a kayak hire booth, a dive shop, a bakery and a small ‘supermarket’. The town has a permanent population of only around 150 and survives purely on tourism and the mass migration of grandparents each year. We booked in at an overpriced camp site and enjoyed the afternoon by the beautiful bay watching rays and kite surfers.

Whilst cooking dinner in the camp kitchen, the lovely Rob overhead that a damsel was in distress as she struggled with her excel spreadsheet. The future IT consultant Rob had his first customer! He mended her spreadsheet and a very grateful Kerry introduced herself as ‘Kerry with a Y’. Kerry is a short haired middle aged woman who is more than just a little crazy and lives in the caravan park and works as the cleaner. She insisted that the next day, as she had the day off she thank Rob by giving the two of us a private local tour of her favorite snorkeling spot ‘past the 5 knots sign’. How could we not? So at 9am, it was insisted that we be back in the camp kitchen ready to go or she would be knocking on the tent!

We were in the camp kitchen at 9am but there was no sign of Kerry. We waited a few moments before Kerry rounded the corner, coffee cup still in hand barely awake after a sleep in but eager to go. While she finished her coffee she told us insane stories about her life and her adventures sailing around the world in a barely sailable boat as she made do living as a water gypsy. One ‘funny’ as Kerry put it is how she couldn’t afford all the ropes her boat needed so every time she tacked and changed direction she would have to un-tie the rope from one side and re-tie the same rope on the other! She is just crazy enough that I believe her! As we didn’t have flippers and couldn’t afford to hire any, Kerry insisted it was her shout as a thanks and paid for our flipper hire so we could swim far enough out to see her favorite bits. We were a little nervous about following a completely mad stranger out to sea, but another random Alaskan lady called Carla had tagged along on the adventure and we found safety in numbers.

Kerry really showed us the highlight of Coral Bay. It was a true coral garden known locally funnily enough as ‘the garden’. We swam about 200 metres from the shore skimming over intense coral. Coral of all marvelous shapes and sizes. Coral that was metres tall! We swam around with a big old turtle for a while and found ourselves in awe of the vast diversity of life under the sea. It really was an incredible experience to have a private local tour of Coral Bay’s delight. In a stroke of Irony, we found ourselves thanking Kerry for her thank you gift. It was a simple trade of time and skills and the experience reminded me of the generosity of strangers. Thank you Kerry with a Y for making Coral Bay so memorable!

As if the turtle and the coral wasn’t enough to make our day, the midday sun illuminated the ocean and revealed a palate of the most incredible ocean colours that an eye could soak in. The pictures will show you more than I could tell but believe me when I say there is no fancy photography going on here! Just snapping away at what was in front of us hoping to catch its beauty.

I would highly recommend the Ningaloo Reef to anyone looking for a tropical beach haven with fantastic marine life and snorkeling. It may be more expensive to get to Ningaloo from the East coast, however once here you don’t have to pay for a boat to take you out to the reef, It’s only a short stroll from the beach. I promise you won’t be disappointed. Just be sure to book you’re accommodation in advance!