Coral Bay in-spite of the wind definitely not over-rated - beautiful place

Spangled Emperor fish feeding 3:30pm daily

Lisa

Nancy better be getting dinner ready

Coral Bay

25^th Sept 2013

During the three days we were at Carnarvon there was a chilly wind blowing so we decided it prudent to stay within the confines of our caravan as Nancy had become quite chesty, not like Marilyn Monroe more like Louis Armstrong. The main thing was not to let it develop into asthma.

Monday morning I was eager to get away early and managed to get us mobile by 0830. There’s not a lot at Coral Bay and what is there is as dear as poison so Nancy wanted to buy up half of Carnarvon before we left, unfortunately the first venue we pulled up at didn’t open until 0900. Eventually we got under way about 1000am, cloudy and windy but at least it was warm in the car and gradually as the heat increased the cloud burned off and it turned into a nice day.

Our run up to Coral Bay was uneventful and although only just over a three hour drive with the van, it’s a boring drive right until you enter the village of Coral Bay. Coral Bay, for those that haven’t been there, has two caravan parks a pub come motel a very small shopping complex that is full of dive and tour booking offices a bakery where you can buy coffee, very small supermarket (corner store size), the obligatory souvenir knickknack shop and post office. Alongside this is a huge and modern backpackers accommodation that is by far the largest single building in town. Apart from that there isn’t much more in the way of commercial establishments, other than a small snack bar at the entrance to the caravan park where we are set up. All packed in like sardines and lots more expected by the end of the week with the start of school holidays here (heaven forbid). There isn’t any TV coverage at Coral Bay, we do have good Telstra reception so at least we can get on the web. Water is a premium here with bore water that is very salty used in the showers and toilets and there are several taps around the place where you can draw fresh rain water for drinking purposes. We fill a few jugs for that purpose and cart hot bore water for washing up etc. You don’t hook up to the bore water or it would corrode everything.

At 0600 Tuesday we made the run through to Learmonth airport (Exmouth) 122kls to the north. Lisa’s Qantas jet was right ontime at 0720 with her on board and a mob of fly in fly out off shore oilrig workers. Lisa then had to wait until 0800 for a teleconference call that lasted until just before 9:00am. In the meantime watching the comings and goings of the FIFO rig workers changing shifts by huge helicopters intrigued Nancy and me. One chap we learned actually comes all the way from Belgium 2 weeks on 2 weeks off, must be good money to make that worthwhile.

The weather at Coral Bay has been blue skies and sunny but blowing hard all the time, the bay looks beautiful in the sun with its white coral sand bottom and crystal clear water reflecting the blue sky, really picture post card stuff. Lisa and I have managed a snorkel, she had a wet suit and I shivered with the cold water so I didn’t stay in very long, Nancy wasn’t game to get in the water with her ‘Louis Armstrong’ chest, there’s no hospitals here. This morning we all did a two hour beach walk before breakfast which gave us a good appetite, I listened to Lisa trying to get Nancy out of bed at 6.00am. “You go ahead, I’ll catch you up”, ‘yea right’. She gave up and eventually enjoyed the walk. Lisa has done a lot of reading and sleeping and that’s what she needed, all ready after just a couple of days she says she is feeling quite relaxed.

   

Sept 20th 2013 alive and kicking.

20th Sept 2013

Yes we are still alive, to start with with we spent a lot of time in areas without internet coverage then when we did have some I discovered we had run out of Big Pond credits due to watching TV on the computer.

We have just pulled into Carnarvon for a couple of days on our way to Coral Bay so here's our up-date.

14^th Sept 2013

Currently we are camped at Ellendale Pool a picnic area next to a freshwater pool in a pleasant nature reserve, that also has room for a few caravans to park. Facilities here include a couple of clean flushing toilets; several gas BBQ’s with shelters and a small children playground. In all a pleasant and peaceful venue for $5 per night if you stay and I believe a max of seven nights.

Unfortunately it is blowing a gale and in between glimpses of weak sunshine it buckets down with rain.

We are about 50 kls south east of Geraldton where we are due in to the caravan repair centre Monday to have a look at our troublesome fridge. You wouldn’t believe it a few weeks ago it wouldn’t work on gas, now it won’t work on electricity and it’s acting almost like a freezer on gas.

Since my last written post on the 31^st August we travelled from Geraldton north east through beautiful rolling hills of lush pastures and healthy wheat fields to a country village called Yuna. Wild flowers abundant we stopped numerous times for photo shoots observing black faced sheep with young lambs on shaky legs staggering drunkenly around them. The black-faced variety of sheep appears popular in this area and looks quite different to the iconic Merino we all know so well.

Passing through Yuna we changed direction southeast to the town of Mullewa normally well known for its wild flower displays. We visited the information centre for the latest wildflower report only to be told that it was a very poor season due to the lack of rain in June but were advised by the young lass behind the counter to take a particular wildflower reserve walk, which we did, all 3.5 kilometres of it. Not one flipping flower thank goodness we were glad of a bit of exercise.

As we were leaving the township that troublesome wheel hub collapsed again, thank goodness I was crawling along and stopped before it did too much damage. So we set up camp in the local shire caravan park, that turned out to be first class and only $21 per night on power. Over the next couple of days in between showers and freezing wind I changed the brake drum, bearings and seal and sent photos of the problem to the van builder in Caboolture Qld. Fortunately I had purchased a spare hub and bearings as insurance when we were in Geraldton. I am now of the conclusion that the stub axle of this particular hub has either been machined concentric or more to the point it is slightly bent, either way it is a pain in the butt and I can’t get anything done about it until we get back to Qld.

We extended our stay at Mullewa and spent one day driving the district looking at wild flowers and another day went back to Geraldton (100kls) to picked up another spare hub and bearings, at least we have some peace of mind we can get out of trouble when it fails again. From Mullewa we travelled south through rich grain and grazing country checking out wild flowers and shrubs as we went, stopping for the night at another shire caravan park at Perenjorri. The whole purpose of using a caravan park instead of free camping was to be able to watch the election on TV. After establishing camp and hooking everything up, to our dismay (Nancy’s) there was no TV reception whatsoever. Fortunately we discovered we had Telstra coverage with the phones and that meant internet so we watched the election results unfold on the ABC’s live streaming on the computer, good old Aunty.

From Perenjorri we criss-crossed the countryside admiring the scenery and wildflowers alike and followed this pattern over the next few days stopping each night at shire caravan parks of varying standards and price range, all very acceptable and reasonably priced though.

We spent a day and a night at a town called New Corcia this is a totally monastic town established by Spanish monks circa 1846 a two hour conducted tour through this town was extremely interesting and well worth the few dollars we spent. That night we camped for $7 in a paddock with numerous other travellers, no facilities, just somewhere to park during the night it bucketed down I was sure we would end up floating out of the place.

At this stage we were only 65 kilometres north of Perth but had no desire to venture into a city so started our return journey north to Coral Bay to eventually meet up with Lisa on the 24^th Sept.

Driving north through heavy showers and head winds we eventually arrived at Western Flora Caravan Park 22kls north of Eneabba on the Brand Highway. This is a nature sanctuary on 160 acres of land established by the current owners Allan and Lorraine Tinker who purchased the land several years ago when it was cleared farmland and then allowed the place to return to its natural state. Although a considerable distance from the ocean this area was once a seabed and consequently the soil is extremely sandy similar to what you would find travelling across our sand islands like Fraser, Moreton or Stradbroke for example. As a result of this there is a large variety of wildflowers and shrubs endemic to sandplains.

Allan and Lorraine built a pleasant caravan park and homestead out of adobe brick, they carry out botanical research, seed collection, nature walking tours and tag along 4wd tours on the property. We joined the two hour guided information tour led by owner Allan, and were surprised at how interesting and informative it turned out to be. Allan’s knowledge of plants was just astounding as he described and showed us how plants adapt to reproduce and survive by using various means. At the end of the walking tour he took us into a room where on a projector screen he showed us various wildflowers collected on the tour and magnified under a microscope to be able to see up close what he had been talking about, it was quite mind blowing and not the least bit boring, we both thoroughly enjoyed it.

Friday 13^th we continued our journey north looking at various small towns on the way and ended up at Ellendale Pool. No TV no phone coverage but nice and peaceful.

Last Christmas Lisa gave me a complete box set of ABC DVD’s of the series Spooks (British security MI5), 7 packs in all with several discs in each pack and each disc containing multiple episodes. So when we are in areas without TV coverage, each night we watch a couple of episodes.

A couple of days in Geraldton doing the necessaries, shopping, haircut, washing and water top up and then we start heading north to eventually get to Coral Bay where Lisa will join us for a week.

Once again the weather was inclement cold, wet and windy so Nancy did a good job getting her washing dry. I managed to swap several books at the caravan park, that should keep me quiet for a while. Just lately I’ve read a few, couple by Wilbur Smith a Dan Brown and a John Grisham and I’m just starting Tom Clancy’s “Executive Orders” supposed to be a number 1 best seller and it looks bigger than “War and Peace”.

         

Wild flowers from the central wheat belt

Wreath flowers this is how they grow each year the outer ring gets bigger

Wild Flowers through the central wheat belt