Coral Bay, Home of World Famous Ningaloo Coral Reef

Coral Bay

Coral Bay is famous for its coral reef and would have to be one of my very favourite spots in the whole of Australia.

We have been coming to the Ningaloo Reef for many years on holidays - sometimes several times a year. I guess because I am a Cancerian, I thoroughly enjoy the beach but this is more than just water. Sure there are better Western Australia beaches around but they don’t have the coral reef only metres (yards) away from the beach where you can swim out and go snorkelling and see all this live coral and multitude of very colourful fish only centimetres (inches) from you. It is also quite possible to see manta rays, sting rays and turtles (on one of my most recent visits I was snorkelling about 20 metres (yards) from the beach and a turtle just swam right up to me and brushed against my hand). Something I will remember for a long time. (Where was my underwater camera for a turtle on the coral reef photo when I needed it?).

Snorkelling at Coral Bay

Have you ever been Quad Bike riding? The pleasure you receive being in control of one of these, without a special licence, is amazing (a normal drivers licence is required). On top of this you will be riding these Quad Bikes over sand dunes that are inaccessible any other way and ending up viewing turtles in their natural habitat.

Quad Bike included as part of your 11 day tour

If you would prefer you could go on a glass bottom boat in the sheltered bay and view the many colours of the coral reef. You can also snorkel from the boat and get a better view of this amazing live coral in areas that are only accessible by boat.

Quite possibly my very favourite experience on the whole tour is the Deep-Sea Fishing Charter. If you have never been deep-sea fishing, I can only begin to explain the feeling you get when you wind in a magnificent fish from 100 metres (yards) from the bottom of the ocean. When you do this again and even again you can become addicted to this type of fishing. Included in this fishing trip is trawling on the way out and on the way in. There is a distinct possibility you may even hook up a Marlin. If so this will be tagged and released with your name against the tag number.

Deep Sea Fishing Results (Red Emporer) - included in your 11 day tour

Following on from the deep sea fishing trip, for dinner this night, we will be cooking some of the fish we will catch from Bernie’s boat (Bernie being the boat Captain). The good part about this fishing trip is the fish are all filleted for you. I love fishing but I hate the scaling and filleting part of it. The BBQ fish we have tonight is so fresh - it was swimming around just a few hours ago. My mouth is watering even now just thinking about it.

Other activities you can do in this wonderful place include:

• Just plain do nothing but soak up the sun and relax
• View (and participate) in the feeding of the fish at 3.30pm each afternoon. You can be at the shore and see all these beautiful snapper swim within centimetres (inches) of the shore to get a free feed. Crikey, wouldn’t I ever love some of these on my BBQ
• A short walk (15-min) to the north of the main beach is a reef-shark sanctuary where you will often see hundreds of baby reef-sharks swimming around
• Snorkel viewing the coral reef and fish just metres (yards) from the beach (there are over 450 species of fish and 180 species of coral at Ningaloo Reef!)
• Go swimming in the naturally heated pool
• You can plan tennis or volley ball if you wish

P.S. Make sure you don’t forget to apply your sunscreen here. (Slip, Slop, Slap).

Adventure Tour Itinerary where all this is included as part of your tour to the coral reef.



Kayaks at Coral Bay on Ningaloo Reef