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.