Days 13-16 – Coral Bay (18-21 Sept)

220 kms today from Carnarvon to Coral Bay. Crossed the 26th parallel along the way. We arrived before lunch, a first for us. It is really warm in Coral Bay and there are so many people, we are all packed into the caravan park like sardines. Not the best place to come during its busy season we’ve decided. Unfortunately we haven’t been able to put up the broadband satellite dish due to a tree being smack bang in the middle of the dishes viewing line – hadn’t counted on this happening. May have to chance the internet café if we get desperate. It is also very expensive here so best to bring food supplies with you, ie. $5.65 for 2 litres milk! Fuel is $163.2/litre the most we have paid to date. Went for a snorkel – the water was freezing (which we weren't expecting - has to be warmer than Busso). Didn’t see a great deal only some huge spangled emperors and a large shovelnose shark. We visited the reef shark nursery which is about 1.5kms away from the main beach. It is an annual occurrence, we saw about 30 babies, unfortunately it wasn’t the best day to view them as it was so windy and the water choppy but it was still neat to see them. Each afternoon there is a fish feeding experience where a hundred or so spotted emperors come into shore and are fed fish pellets. The fish just about jump out of the water to take the pellets. It is all part of an education process – I think mainly to stop people feeding them bread and other food. The one time we didn’t have our camera so can’t show pictures. Whilst we enjoyed our four days in Coral Bay we were ready to leave as the school holiday invasion was beginning (a week early?) and the park and beach are getting packed with people.