Memorable marine encounters - Coral Bay

The small coastal towns at the Ningaloo are all geared towards water related activities. Think surfing, whale watching in season, and whalesharks! (Which is March to July)

Another must-do is diving or snorkelling. With the fringing reef so close to the coast it's a waste not to. Of course we've done some in Exmouth, but we also went a little further south to tiny Coral Bay. (2 campsites, 1 hotel and 8 shops, of which 7 tourism related.) 

But Coral Bay has something extra special: a resident manta ray population! To be more exact, there are a row resident mantas, and many seasonal and visiting ones. But it is one of the few places where you are almost guaranteed to see them year round. A chance not to miss.

Exploring Ashos Gap

There are many manta ray snorkel tours on offer, but since there's just one dive shop in Coral Bay, our choice was an easy one. A full day tour, with a dive in the morning and afternoon, and a manta interaction snorkel in between. If the mantas felt like it. Because the previous week they hadn't shown up for five consecutive days... But, if you don't try, you're sure not to see them. 

Later that afternoon, the dive shop owner told us our tour might not happen, since the other couple that had signed up, had cancelled. And they had a 4 person minimum. After a few phonecalls that evening it was certain: no tour tomorrow. So we spent an extra lazy day at Coral Bay and went one day later: on a fully booked tour. 

After the usual morning fitting sessions (who doesn't love a cold damp wetsuit in the morning?) that go with dive tours, we were ready to go. And can I just add that I simply love Australian sizing? I easily fit a S, sometimes even XS suit, always nice when (un)dressing in front of complete strangers. 

Blue spotted stingray 

On board were 10 divers divided in 2 groups. We were happy to be in the 'experienced' group, which made for lovely relaxed dives. We all had about the same pace and mindset. Keeping an eye out for each other, but wandering off a bit it you saw something interesting. As opposed to the 'less experienced'. When we saw them, the six of 'em were huddled in a tight knit, condensed shoal following the leader.

The first dive was around a clusters of coral bommies not far of shore. We saw loads of tiny fish, some bigger ones like potato cod, little cleaning fish doing their job, a few blue spotted stingrays hiding underneath the corals, nudibranches, sea worms, a moray eel, clown fish, and loads more.

It's pretty cool to see how every coral and anemone has its own species of related fish. Two coals right next to each other, but slightly different, both have tiny fish on them, but slightly different. 

The underwater landscape was really nice too.

First look at a wild manta ever

When we surfaced after a shallow 55minutes dive, it was time to head to Batemans Bay. In search of mantas. 

On our way there we got some instructions on what to do and what not. In the mean time a spotter plane was on the lookout for mantas to optimise our chances of seeing one.

We were divided into two groups, and instructed to sit on the rear of the boat, on the platforms. Fins and mask on and snorkel in. The boat would drop us in the manta's expected path. At the crew's 'go, go go' we slid in the water, moments before we saw th manta underneath us! 

How utterly, extremely cool was that! 

Just a few meters below us was the his magnificent creature, gently flapping its wings. They really do fly. 

Showing its belly just before flying away

We swam with it, until some of our group got slower. That was when our guide gave the cue to stop swimming. Group two was then dropped, after which we were picked up again. As soon as the other group stopped swimming we were again dropped in. The second time in, the manta swam sideways for a bit. 
Another boat in the vicinity had had no luck yet with finding a manta, so our skipper decided that we'd pull back for a bit to give them a go. We looked on, and to be honest, our tour looked far more professional in getting everyone in and out of the water. And it was apparent that we had some stronger swimmers on board. Because it does take some effort to keep up with a feeding manta! 

We then did our third and final run. Most of us stopped swimming when directed, but one of our group continued... Rodie stealthily joined group 2 for an extra long manta swim! Afterwards we had lunch aboard, and went to the next diving spot. During that trip we saw even more wildlife: Dolphins, several turtles surfacing to breathe, stingrays, and even a humpback with calf! 

Giant cuttlefish

After that superb manta swin, we really didn't care that much about our second dive, but happily went in. What a surprise was that second site! Ashos Gap are two interconnected bommies, with a cleaning station at it. Basically it is one massive coral garden. We stayed under for an hour, and swam above coral that enitire time.

Some really good marine life too. A lovely green turtle (I never get tired of those!), a distant grey reef shark, some barracudas, giant clams, and a really big giant cuttlefish. This one was about 30cm, and prettily changing colours as we stayed with it for a bit. 

The number of small fish was incredible, and the coral itself was more diverse than at the first spot. Really. Opal was that you could actually see some of the coral 'breathe'.

Yep, that was a pretty amazing day! 

Green turtle

Pelican party - Monkey Mia

We came to Monkey Mia to watch dolphins, who are known to visit the beach every day. After we parked the campervans, we decided to enjoy a beer on the beach, while staring at the sea.

I can see you...

And, joining us on the beach were a few lazy pelicans. Now, since I really like Pelicans, I thought I'd treat you to some random pics of 'em. 

 

Heeeeeeey!

And I really feel that they're not the most intelligent animals around, but correct me if I'm wrong in that one. 

Does this make me look smart?

But they are very amusing to look a at. One even did a little random dance, just for us I think.

Doing a random little dance

We had fun watching them, hope you do too!

Beak stretching 

Turquoise drift - Exmouth

After our Broome adventures, we visited inland Karijini NP, which was stunning. Then we headed back to the blue waters. Or should I say turquoise waters? It was time to finally visit the Ningaloo Reef!

Turquoise Bay beach

The Ningaloo reef sits on Australia's west coast, and is far less visited than the Great Barrier Reef. But supposedly at least as beautiful. This is one of the main reason we really wanted to see Ozzie's west coast. 

One of the really good things about the Ningaloo is, that it is a fringing reef, so it really close to the coast. (The GBR is always at least a boat ride away. ) We decided to start in Exmouth, on its northern end.

Turquoise Bay Area corals just under water

When we arrived in Exmouth, we expected a bit of a resort town, but nothing like that. It's a sleepy village, though very expensive at it. 

Exmouth Bay is known for its whale shark swims (but the season ends in July), whale watching (but we just did that a few days before in Broome) and of course diving! 

Happily eating fish

We booked a 2 dive boat tour with Exmouth dive centre. Though is wasn't very well organised, the dives themselves were really nice. We saw an olive sea snake on both dives, good sized potato cods and many nudibranches. On the second dive we were caught in shoals of millions of glass fish. They're tiny, but they block sight and light. But most special about these dives? Whale song! The whole time we heard them. Magical really.

On our way back to the marina, we even saw a few, just in front of our boat! Mama was showing off, breaching for us, and the calf tried to imitate her. But he needs to practice a bit more, but we know now that humpbacks do swim belly up...

Abundance 

After these dives, we decided we simply needed an underwater camera. So what do you do then? You guessed right: we now own a go pro. Bought in the most expensive place we've seen them so far. Because the next dive will hopefully include manta rays, and if it does we have to record that. But first: practise how to use it. 

The Cape Range NP just west of Exmouth provide the perfect opportunity for that. Here you can snorkel right over the reef, right off the beach.

Cabbage corals at the drift 

Our first snorkel was in Turquoise Bay. We started in the 'safe' area, the little bay, just 2 meters deep without currents. It was pretty, with massive corals and many fish, we even saw a turtle! The corals had such pretty colours in these shallow waters. 

But, maybe because of the strong winds, the water was quite murky. 

Look at those colours

Our next snorkel was at the 'advanced' area: theTurquoise Bay drift snorkel. You enter the water on the southern end, then let the current carry you over the bommies. You have to get out of the current in time, before it sweeps you through the gap into the ocean. 

This snorkel the water was a lot clearer, but we drifted very quickly, probably because off the string winds. But a lovely Go Pro practice snorkel, with pics to prove it! 

Shoal of fish right at the beach

Jurrasic Tracks - Broome

Our alarm was set at 5:30am, today we would search for dinosaur tracks! Not that this search would take all day, but the 135-million-year-old tracks are fossilised at the beach, and only visible at very low tide (less than 1.60m). The resident birds were kind enough to wake me an hour before the alarm with their 'friendly chirps' right outside our van. Anyway, we were up as the sun rose, and after a quick run to the amenities we decided to just drive off. It was too early for breakfast.

Sun rise over Gantheaume Point

At 5 past 6 we parked near the lighthouse at Gantheaume Point. Broome's tourist brochure had a sketchy little map with the location of the 3 sets of prints. We had expected, or kind of counted on, other tourist to be huddled around the prints and lead the way. On our tour yesterday we were assured that would be the case. But we were the first ones there! Getting up early doesn't make sense at all. This was going to be a proper treasure hunt. 

As we changed our footwear, a taxi stopped and offloaded three girls, we weren't alone anymore. 

Our treasure map

We then walked past the lighthouse to the cliffs. Since the prints are only visible at the lowest tide, they must be near the waterline. But jumping down 2 meters onto slippery, barnacle covered rocks before breakfast did not seem like a bright idea. We decided to scout the route a bit further to the right. And we both made our way down, just one scratch, and fifteen minutes later our search was on! The girls followed suit 5 minutes later.

Clambering over rocks

We tried to make sense of our treasure map and find locate landmarks. One of the girls had a slightly different methodology: Pokemon Go. One of the track was a Pokestop. And a Pokestop only becomes active when you are in its direct vicinity, thus when the Pokestop is active the dino print is close. Now that's what I call modern archeology!

Just visible when the tide receded

In the end though, our deduction-theory that we should look closest to the tide line beat Pokemon. We found the middle print first. But it wasn't very defined, so we weren't completely sure if it was a print. But if it was, 17meters out or in should be another print. Looking around we saw a little plateau in the receding tide. Could that be...? It was the outer print! Three well defined dinosaur footprints. Minutes after we found it, the tide came in again. It had been visible for maybe 10 minutes. 

Having found two prints the third was easier to locate. This turned out to be the Pokestop print. However, the girls had already left so couldn't share in our excitement.

Pokestop dino prints

We made our way back up around the other side, which turned out to be a lot easier and were back at our campsite at 8:15, just in time for a refreshing shower and some breakfast. 

A few prehistoric looking animals 

A whale of a time - Broome

One of the must-do's when in Australia is whale watching of course! Australia is surrounded by different species and populations of whales. We've seen the Eastern humpbacks off the coast of Fraser Island and Byron Bay. Because we wanted to get closer we booked a whale watch cruise from Huskisson on the east coast, but unfortunately we didn't see any! Because sightings are guaranteed, we took the same boat the day after, but had no better luck hat day. We could've continued to go on, but since it was cold and wet on both days, we decided to call it quits. We had missed the peak of this migration: the whales were travelling north and we were going south. Looking back we probably should've taken a cruise from Sydney.

The biologist's intro talk

But when we got to Broome and looked at the brochures at the tourist office, they had many whale watching cruises. We were a bit surprised, since we hadn't read about it in our Lonely Planet (aka 'the Book of Lies'). The lady at the counter raved about how many whales were out there, and that it was really at the peak of the season here. Since we didn't want to miss out on them again we decided to book a whale watch sunset cruise, though it was a bit more expensive then we'd hoped. 

Just saw a blower!

The next day a courtesy bus picks us up at the campsite at 2pm, arriving at the beach just before 3.
Staring over the ocean we see the first whale blowers  in the distance, that looks promising! From the beach today a funny little amphibious thing shuttled us to the boat, and while we set off in search of whales, the on board marine biologist gives us a short introduction on the humpbacks. Right now were expected to see mostly pairs of mothers with a calf. The males have already started their migration south. We spot our first whales 10minutes out! Indeed a mother with calf. So cool.

First sighting, so cool

We stay next to them for a while, but since an other whale watch vessel is also watching this pair, our skipper decides to head to the next whales. We have a spotter on the roof, and he sees breaches and blowers at different locations. The next two hours we see some 5 pairs of whales, though most are camera shy, and mostly stay under while we are near.

Getting our info talks at the front deck

While not spotting, we enjoy the sun at the front deck. Free soft drinks and nibbles are included: a huge improvement from our previous whale watching effort. The biologist goes back and forth between the parties on the front and rear, and tells us all about the humpbacks.

Nibbles being served 

Once we're heading back, we spend the final 30minutes on the rear deck enjoying the gorgeous sunset. And nibbles. This is where the budget travellers stand out: those huddled around the free nibbles, not buying alcohol! It is strange though, that is even though the boat has a fully licenced bar (another job of the biologist) it also is BYO. They even have a Esky just for the BYO. 

And then, suddenly we get called to the front deck: a mommy is showing of and does two massive breaches, just next to the boat! Whoa!

That was the cherry on the cake.

Bird Paradise - Corroboree Billabong

Our journey north ended in tropical Darwin. Heading south again our first stop was in the Mary River region, where we booked a 'lunch cruise' on the Corroboree Billabong. The billabong is the last remaining water of the river system during the dry season. It's in the middle of flood plains, but now surrounded by dry, burnt land. It's hard to imagine that this whole area will be flooded in a few months, maybe even weeks. The road to the billabong closes for 4 months a year.

Lotus love

Late August the billabong is a green oasis in the middle of the red and black. A humid oasis though! Especially at this time of day... We boarded at 12:45 and disembarked at 14:15. But it was so worth it! The whole billabong is covered in big pink lotuses, and smaller purple water lilies. Almost immediately we spotted our first salty, just as our packed lunch was given out. We ate while we continued. At first we mostly saw egrets and Australasian darters. One of the darters kept close to our boat for about half of our trip.

Salty in the shade

But quickly we saw other birds as well. The little comb crested jacanas walking on the lillypads our quite a sight. It's fascinating to see them with their enormous feet and bright red comb.

Look at those feet!

And how about the purple swamp hens that hid in the shrubs, accompanied by several species of ducks and geese. And the crocs lurking in there of course. 

Purple swamp hen

I think my favourite birds might've been the amazingly coloured Jabirus, or black-necked storks as they're officially called. The female has a bright yellow eye and her black and blue feathers shone in the sun. Our guide said that their nest was not far off, and he was right off course. The male Jabiru was garding the young. Not nearly chicks anymore, the brown juveniles still looked very clumsy. One attempted to fly, after aimlessly poking in the water for food, neither looked particularly smooth. The other one, a bit more fluffy, was still just waiting to be served like a good little chick. Just an adult sized chick. 

Female and juvenile Jabiru

Towards the end of our cruise we even spotted a pair of white bellied sea eagles. Those are pretty impressive birds! And we saw much more wildlife than the few I mentioned above, like whistling kites, of course a few more crocs, both freshies and salties, huge dragonflies and arboreal termites. And we got loads of info on the local plant life and seasonal changes as well. We loved out little detour.

White bellied sea eagle