Coral Bay

Coral Bay felt like a circus. Ningaloo Coral Bay was the most densely packed caravan park we've been in and even though the school holidays had finished a week ago, there were loads of families still around, apparently happy to wag the first week of school. Unlike Exmouth, Coral Bay was not so much a town as it was a collection of holiday accommodation and tour operators. For many, it's the perfect place to enjoy the reef and we met plenty of people who make it an annual pilgrimage, often staying for weeks on end. It is a beautiful bay and the tidal beach is a great, safe place for kids to play. Very sadly, all the coral directly in the bay had been killed in a recent fish-kill event - an unlucky coincidence of two cyclonic weather systems and the coral spawning creating toxic water conditions. We therefore didn't do any snorkeling from the shore. But ultimately, we were there for the manta rays.

We'd booked a tour each on consecutive days with Ningaloo Marine Interactions. Matthias was first cab off the rank and I was in for a day of solo parenting. With ice-cream cones at 11am and a swimming pool and the beach to keep us busy, my task wasn't that onerous.

It turned out that I had the pick of the days for the tour. We both had similarly great experiences swimming with the same resident manta ray "freckles". But I got the added bonuses of 1; watching a grey reef shark getting it's teeth cleaned (by cleaning fish) and 2; swimming with a tiger shark! The mantas were certainly impressive but the opportunity to swim with them was so generous that it reached a point that you'd seen enough; contrary to the whale sharks and the tiger shark where the experience was fleeting enough that you're left wanting more. The snorkeling spots we were taken to on the tour were spectacular. Different to anything we'd seen already in terms of coral types and landscapes.

Other than the tour we didn't get any snorkeling in Coral Bay. Our plans to visit Five Fingers Reef just south of Coral Bay the morning of our departure were for various reasons foiled. We had so many fabulous snorkeling experiences across the five different campsites and 20 days we had on the reef and yet still I felt I could have stayed longer. But it was time to move on, the gorges of Karijini awaited us.