The furthest North we travelled was a tiny town called Coral Bay. The small collection of buildings by the beach are all, in some way, there to meet the basic needs of visitors to the beautiful bay.
The main attraction, apart from the glorious sunshine, warm dusty sand and clear aquamarine sea, is the Ningaloo Reef. The West Coast's answer to the Great Barrier Reef, the bonus here is that you simply have to swim out a few metres with your snorkel and you are at the outer layer of coral. Tropical fish, turtles and rays are just a few flipper kicks away, and if you stand still in knee deep water, massive snapper fish swim right up to investigate your legs.
Ben's giant beard and moustache were a bit of a problem when it came to the snorkel hire. "You might have to put a bitof vaseline on that fur, mate," The guy told him, "Or the mask won't seal properly". Ben didn't, but only suffered minor water seepage. We did both, however, burn our backs a bright crimson colour on our first day in the water, despite factor 40 suncream.
The next morning, donning protective T-shirts, we went on an organised snorkel trip to further out on the reef. The guide pointedsome things of interest out as we swam and I was very excited to see two reef sharks and a big turtle.
After a few relaxing days, we bundled back into the cab of the van and headed back South again to Kalbarri National Park. The inland gorges of the park were out of bounds for our campervan so we settled for a dawn walk on the coastal gorges, where the small bays and fiery red rocks were deserted apart from us - and a little kangaroo.
This was our last major stop on the coast so we returned back to Perth over a couple of days to drop off our first mobile-home and take a flight to Melbourne.
