We sadly left Coral Bay this morning.  It’s a very cool place, we could’ve easily spent a lot more time here.  There’s plenty more to explore via 4wd.

Only a short day today, 170km to Exmouth and then about 40 or so more around the cape to our campsite.

The only stop we had was to get a little bit of groceries at Exmouth.  A little bit of groceries took about an hour though.  Exmouth was so incredibly busy and I can’t begin to explain it.  There was a queue at the bus stop about 200m long with people waiting to go ‘somewhere’.  It was a bit bizarre seeing all these people queued up … we’re just not used to crowds of more than 20 people anymore I guess.

We headed around the cape and saw the submarine comms array.  It’s a bit hard to miss it.


Tulki campground site #3 was all ours by about 12:30.  Two nights here.  It’s a tidy patch of dirt about 100m from the sea.  Rob was our campground host and he keeps the campsite in very good order.  The drop toilet was easily the cleanest we’ve seen anywhere.  Rob even gave us a census form since Tulki was our home on census night.

We had a quick look around at the local beach and it looked pretty good to us … but Rob just had a chuckle and suggested we go a few km down the road and checkout Turquoise Bay.  I’m glad he did.  Turquoise Bay is absolutely amazing.

I didn’t take the underwater camera with me and that was a huge mistake.  Turquoise Bay is actually two beaches.  The first is the drift beach and the second is the bay beach.  Both are about 400m long and have beautiful sand and, as expected, Turquoise water.  What makes the beaches special is that where they join is a permanent channel at the outer reef that lets out the water.  The ocean waves crash over the outer reef and the water gets trapped in this area and it can only drain out through the channel.  This creates a nasty rip where the two beaches join, but its really easy to see and avoid it.

On the drift beach you simply walk up to the far end of it, put on your snorkel gear, swim out about 20m to 1.5-2m deep water and let the current drag you down towards the rip.  This all happens parallel to the beach and is gentle enough to easily swim against should you want to hang around and watch something in the water.  You probably will want to take your time during the drift too, since you’re drifting over a coral reef about a metre from your nose filled with tropical fish!  When you get to the end you just climb out on the sand bank and walk up the beach and do it again.  I think we did this about 10 times at least.  The kids weren’t even taking flippers, they would just grab a noodle and their mask/snorkel and just float down enjoying the scenery.  We stayed here until almost sunset and then headed back to camp.

Hannah, Kellie, Blake

The trip back is a little hazardous due to the abundance of little wallabies along the few kms drive back, particularly along the access road to the actual campsite.  They’re tiny little critters and tend to hide in the bushes at the side of the road and jump out at the last second.  30-40km/h maximum the whole way and even that was hair-raising.  The campsite was all gathering around for the traditional sundowners when we arrived … not that we needed an excuse to empty the Engel.  No power, TV or Internet made for an early night.  Hamburgers and sausages for dinner added to the excitement.

[sgpx gpx=”/wp-content/uploads/2011/08/2011-08-09.gpx”]