Close to Coral Bay, the Tropic of Capricorn crosses Highway One
Today I drove north again, to a place called Coral Bay, a lovely little tourist spot with an idyllic beach and tourist prices to match. My current project is to plan a route that will cost me just A$5 per day (plus petrol), perfectly possible with a bit of dossing in the scrub and staying in National Parks as much as possible, using creeks and the sea instead of expensive amenities. I'm going through a financial crisis, but if everything was free, there'd be no challenge, would there? I can't rely on a job in Sydney, but I can hope...
I was led to believe that Coral Bay was a paradise, and indeed, it had a cute little bay, with the Ningaloo Reef passing quite close to the shore – so you can snorkel the reef from the beach – and a pleasant enough sandy beach. But it's really just a tourist hole, and not a great one at that. It took me one night to figure out why it had been recommended: there's a hostel there, a big – and very expensive – caravan park, and it's not too far from the northwest coastal highway. It's perfect if you're a coach traveller, or a city dweller in search of a family holiday on the coast. But it was far from perfect for me.
For a start, it's full of building sites; it's extremely noisy, with power generators churning all night, and builders building; the caravan park, which cost as much as the one in Adelaide, for goodness sake, didn't even have taps for drinking water on each site (I had to traipse across to the office for water); and the beach turned out to be right next to loads of moored boats, hardly a beautiful sight.
I was not terribly impressed, and wondered if the northwest cape was worth exploring further. Luckily, it most definitely was.
