About Coral Bay
Coral Bay is a small holiday resort town which is really nothing more than a couple of caravan parks, holiday homes for fishermen, a hotel, two cafes and a few basic facilities. The town’s great appeal lies in its unpretentiousness, its simplicity and, most of all, its access to the 260 km Ningaloo Reef which lies close to the shore and forms a kind of natural lagoon which is ideal for people wishing to snorkel, scuba dive, canoe or explore the reef. Lying just north of the Tropic of Capricorn (i.e. it is on the same latitude as Rockhampton) the waters in Coral Bay are warm for most of the year and the beaches are white, hard and beautifully clean. Today the town is still quiet and peaceful. A retreat for grey nomads, backpackers, sunlovers and anglers. It is hard to imagine that it will still be like this in a decade’s time (sourced from the Aussie Towns website – click for more).
Coral Bay Caravan Park
There’s only a couple of choices for caravan parks and we selected the Ningaloo Coral Bay CP which wasn’t a bad choice.
Coral Bay is an interesting town (maplink). First thing you must know is to bring your own fresh water as there is no “town water” which is drinkable. We had 240 litres of water in the caravan so that was a good start but we still had to ration it. The toilet blocks in the caravan parks all use bore water which was practically salt water.
The town’s power supply is created by several wind powered generators.
We stayed for 4 nights and loved it. The only downside was the wind which made it difficult to snorkel as it was really windy. We’ll definitely return again.
Coral Bay Snorkeling
Coral Bay (maplink) is a snorkeling wonderland. We just walked across the road from the Bayview Caravan Park and strolled into the water from the beach and drift along over beautiful corals teaming with fish.
The corals of Ningaloo Reef are apparently not as colourful as those on the great barrier reef and this is due to natural causes (non environmental like bleaching).
Coral Bay (maplink) is a snorkeling wonderland. We just walked across the road from the Bayview Caravan Park and strolled into the water from the beach and drift along over beautiful corals teaming with fish.
The corals of Ningaloo Reef are apparently not as colourful as those on the great barrier reef and this is due to natural causes (non environmental like bleaching).
Coral Bay Fish Feeding
3 times a week the tour companies combine to feed the fish on the main beach of Coral Bay (Bills Bay – check the satellite map).
The public just stand in the water whilst about 50 or more Spangled Emperor fish swim around your ankles whilst they are fed pellets by the tour guides. It’s pretty amazing to see these fish showing no fear of the humans. I suppose everyone is going to say “why not fish there” – well you cannot as it’s a sanctuary.
Crowd gathers
Coral Bay Dune Buggies
We took a trip with Off Road Rush Tours doing a 2 hour sunset tour in the dune buggies. It was a hoot blast through well defined tracks in the sand dunes to the south of Coral Bay. The tracks were really bumpy and we were continually knocked about but laughed through the whole trip. It was a really fun thing to do ending up with a sunset upon the cliff face over the ocean.
Merrisa took over the driving half way through and had a ball too.
We took a trip with Off Road Rush Tours doing a 2 hour sunset tour in the dune buggies. It was a hoot blast through well defined tracks in the sand dunes to the south of Coral Bay. The tracks were really bumpy and we were continually knocked about but laughed through the whole trip. It was a really fun thing to do ending up with a sunset upon the cliff face over the ocean.
Merrisa took over the driving half way through and had a ball too.
