Coral Coast

Sat 21^st June

Today we saw a fantastic blowhole, when we drove out along the coast from Carnarvon for about 70km and found the most remarkable piece of coast at Quobba. Our first sight was a huge overhead sign “KING WAVES KILL” and a little further along was a lifebuoy.  Then there was the most amazing shaft of water shooting high in the air to the sound of thunder.  The information suggested that they can get to 20 metres high and I think it was pretty close to that today. Actually the whole area was a big rock platform with caves under it and the monstrous waves that were coming in were being forced up out of the holes and cracks in the rocks above. It was an awe inspiring sight.

 

We came back out onto the highway again and found a camp site at about lunch time and decided to stay the night and go into Coral Bay tomorrow, spend the day there and then camp out somewhere on the road to Exmouth.  Our camp was very flat and sandy with a couple of shaded tables and a clean bush toilet. It also had a fireplace with wood in it but it was much too warm for a fire. We spent some time watching a long line of processional caterpillars walking along nose to tail and were fascinated by their organisation when one of their members was removed from the line. They seem to have a strong communication system and mill around until find each other again and resume their walk.

Sun 22^nd June

All good plans go awry. Through the night it started to rain. Mick said that the wind really blew up but I slept through. He said it was so gusty that he considered lowering the roof. In the morning it was still raining, not heavily, but constantly and it continued that way for the entire day. We went into Coral Bay and were a bit disappointed. Thirty seven years ago when we were there we thought it was a beautiful unspoiled beach with a friendly pub at the end. Now the foreshore is crammed with caravan parks and commercial signs about boat tours and swimming with whale sharks. The beach still looked good, but the weather wasn’t conducive to enjoying that. You could only get a glimpse of it from the car park. We decided to cut our losses and continue on to Exmouth. We visited Jan when she lived there in the 1970’s, so we were all looking forward to seeing the place again. We thought we would book into somewhere for a couple of days so that we could tour around – at $49 per night!! Not likely!!  So we drove around towing our caravans. Jan’s old house is no longer, a school is now on the site. The town was unrecognisable apart from the Pot Shot Hotel that is still there, and the naval base that still looks the same apart from the stars and stripes poles by the roads and the American flag that are no longer there. We decided we would be disappointed by Yardie Creek in this weather and left town to find a free camp area about 100 or so km away. We weren’t the only people there who objected to the prices in Exmouth. There were several others at the site who had done the same thing. There was one group in a small tent – a mother, six kids between 6 and 13 and two dogs. Her daughter said they had been on the road for 5 months. And the woman didn’t even look frazzled.