Coral Bay and Perth

Geoff asked for a protected site at Exmouth from the wind. The lady obviously misinterpreted this as, "Please use us as a wind break for all other campers within the park". If you remember from earlier posts, our camper trailer and gale force winds are not compatible! The canvas flaps like a bird preparing to take off, the poles creak like a pirate ship, and the bed shakes with gusto. Needless to say, we were happy to leave windy Exmouth. Just around the other side of the peninsula is the gorgeous Ningaloo Reef which wraps down the coast for a couple hundred kms...

CORAL BAY

 It was still windy enough to blow a dog off a chain, so we opted out of a snorkel and pushed onto Coral Bay (about 170kms south). What a place Coral Bay was! A little holiday village with the most awe-inspiringly clear water... have never seen water so clear and perfect. (We haven't photoshopped these photos at all... totally the natural colour of the water).

As inviting as the water looked, it was cold! About 16 degree's (and still windy). We decided a much more pleasant way to see the Ningaloo Reef was a glass bottom boat. Ningaloo Reef, in our opinion, is not as good as the Barrier Reef. The Barrier Reef is made up of soft, colourful coral and Ningaloo is hard coral that has fantastic formations but lacks colour. The great thing about Ningaloo is you can snorkel off the beach, whereas the Barrier Reef is a 1.5 hour boat ride from shore.

 A school of Spangled Emperors followed the boat the whole way around the reef...

My favourite fish to see underwater... the Parrot fish.

After leaving beautiful Coral Bay, we decided to ditch our plans to go to Monkey Mia and just head 1120kms straight to Perth. Monkey Mia is famous for dolphin feeding (we've already seen this) and was a long detour to get there. So we spent two long days driving... We overtook 13 caravans one day. We hit a few birds too with one unfortunate soldier getting taken out by the aerial! Messy. We spent the night on the side of the road with road trains roaring past all night. We are not sure which is worse, gale force winds or road trains!? The WA wildflowers were again a feast for the eyes though...

Work this one out!

No, we're not about to have a head-on with a Mack Truck. It was being towed backwards by another truck.

PERTH

We have seen all the capital cities now, and Geoff declares Perth the winner, hands-down. It all looks new, clean, neat, well thought out, has heaps of waterways, great roads, and is WEALTHY. After seeing all the mining work in northern WA we can understand where all the money is coming from. I have one bone of contention with Perth though... Perth, where is your chicken burgers!!! It seems I must have a chicken burger daily (weird pregnancy craving) and we spent 1 hour driving around looking for one! That aside, we hope to visit Perth again some day.

While we were in Perth we were also able to visit my cousin Jay, and our friends from Newy, Rehana and Eden. Was great seeing them! 

Last night we had our first rain in 13 weeks! And today, with mixed emotions, we packed up our full camp for the last time before heading home, (we will only be doing quick roadside set-ups from now on).  Perth to Newcastle is 3950kms, which we are aiming to do in 6 days!! Time to make a mile...