Coral Bay

The drive from Point Quobba to Coral Bay was a mere three hours. Pfft. That’s nothing. No need for pit stops. Just get there. All that was needed to protect Ern from fatigue this time was the Def Leppard album, Hysteria. Cover to cover...

Ern: “Give it some volume!”

Ern usually likes the music on quietly in the background so he can still hear the Kombi and diagnose mechanical issues with his psychic powers. But not today. Today the sweet harmonies and arpeggios were lifting Ern’s spirits. With a Kombi-Pool karaoke session that would have surely gotten us into the final stages of “The Voice,” we sang our little hearts out. Ern tried to convince Daph that this is a concept album, following the tales of a lovelorn rock star through his trials and tribulations. Falling in and out of love, he finally goes mad with hysteria when Trixie the stripper falls pregnant and forces him to marry her. Or he joins the army. Whichever way you interpret it. Daph wasn’t buying it. It’s just a great album. Still, Daph humoured Ern because it kept his mind off the long, boring drive.

That got us halfway. Daph is aware that it’s usually the last hour of the drive that sucks the life out of Ern, like a Dementor[1]. Daph worked swiftly to keep Ern in the zone, and seamlessly glided into a Metallica mega-mix to see us through the last part of this leg. Ern arrived in Coral Bay revved up and raring to go.

Here in Coral Bay, there is no sign of a pandemic. You wouldn’t even know it existed. The caravan park has everybody packed in like sardines, with the odd sign about social distancing that everyone is ignoring. Daph and Ern thought it was clever to come here just before the school holidays, to avoid the crowds. But it appears that everyone has pulled their kids out of school early, as soon as the regional borders opened, and hot-footed it to Coral Bay.

This is where the desert meets the reef. You drive through a vast red desert of nothingness to be greeted by the azure waters of the Ningaloo Coral Reef. You can walk straight off the beach and snorkel amongst the reef. No chartered boat trips are required. We enjoyed an afternoon of frolicking in the water with the tropical fishes. For free. Lovely.

As beautiful as it is, it’s spoilt by tourists. So, we decided to split this overcrowded joint and move onwards to Exmouth and Turquoise Bay.

[1] You don’t know what a Dementor is?! Where have you been? It’s a character from the Harry Potter books that sucks your soul out. Not nice.