03 May, 2024

Coral Bay, Western Australia: The best things to see and do

by Julia D'Orazio, Photographer: Julia D'Orazio and supplied

Julia D’Orazio discovers there’s much more to Coral Bay than its main beach.

Some water activities require effort, but not in Coral Bay. It’s a short stroll from the caravan park to explore the southern tip of the World Heritage-listed Ningaloo Reef/Nyinggulu, with the rigmarole of packing/parking a car unnecessary. It takes 15 minutes to walk from one end of town to the other — and that includes trekking up to a scenic lookout over the coast. Its walkability factor and proximity to the thriving reef make the coastal village one of Western Australia’s favourite tourist destinations, a 12-hour road trip (1121km) north of Perth.

A few streets comprise the peaceful settlement, with just 200-odd residents calling the bay home. Sandwiched between regional hubs, Exmouth is 152km north, and Carnarvon is 238km south. Coral Bay is the sleepy cousin, with just a few food outlets, tour operators, a bar, a supermarket and a bakery making up the town’s facilities. Yet beyond that, unforgettable adventure is on its doorstep, with plenty to explore just offshore and down hidden dirt tracks.

Upon your first visit, you’ll soon discover why this secluded spot attracts repeat visitors. And I’m one of them, a fifth-time visitor captivated by the magic of the bay — and here’s why.

The bay is where it’s at

It’s late spring, and we know we will feel the heat once we get into Coral Bay — but then again, it’s always mostly sunny here. The coastal town lies north of the Tropic of Capricorn, with temperatures hardly dipping below 20 degrees Celsius except for the winter months; even then, it’s still bearable around the 17 degree mark.

My partner and I pulled into Ningaloo Coral Bay – Bayview Caravan Park and picked our campsite, a rarity. As we are visiting off-peak, life seems less busy than I have previously experienced during school holidays, where every patch of land was occupied with overflow adjacent to the beach. There’s a lot of commotion in a compact area, making the quiet paradise morph into an animated commune. Here are two titbits of advice: book early and avoid visiting during peak periods.

It's not hard to appreciate the area's natural beauty (Image Tourism WA)

Campsite sizes vary, with most sites on grass and shade almost non-existent in some areas. But you’ll be taking the shade with you as life by Coral Bay’s main beach, Bill’s Bay, is where it’s at. Many holiday-goers become easy adopters of the new daily routine of setting up a shelter and spending days committing to the three S’s: swimming, snorkelling and sunbathing. The sheltered bay is popular with families for its calm waters and proximity to the shoreline; a day out by the bay requires almost minimal effort.

Coral Bay didn’t get its name for no reason, either. A large, beautiful coral garden fridges the shore just waiting to be explored. On previous trips, I enjoyed its famed drift snorkel, Paradise Beach, west of Bill’s Bay, a short stroll away, which flows into the bay. This time around, things are different.

In March 2022, Coral Bay experienced a perfect storm, with a coral spawning event — a natural phenomenon — unfolding simultaneously with unusual wind activity in the region. Spawn became trapped in the bay, starving fish and corals of oxygen, resulting in the death of 16,000 fish and corals, appearing as if bleached.

It’s not to say things are still bleak through a snorkel mask, with marine life slowly returning to the bay. But if you are after seeing the bay’s other famed residents — whale sharks, manta rays and humpback whales — there’s a boat for that.

Looking for black diamonds

Coral Bay attracts the ocean’s ‘Big Three’, with whale sharks and humpback whales migrating along the west coast from autumn to spring. The third aquatic attraction, manta rays, lurk around all year, making it easy to spot at least one oceanic giant during a stay.

While we missed out on swimming with the region’s gentle mascot, the whale shark, due to visiting off-season, the ‘consolation prize’ did not disappoint. Coral Bay EcoTours offers tours throughout the year, including marine eco safaris to swim with manta rays and glass bottom boat excursions. I joined in on the former; any chance to have a curious swim with the peculiar, and I’m in.

Departing Coral Bay Jetty, we hopped on board eco-vessel Kurni-Ki for a full day out in the big blue. It’s also a different world out here, with a chance to see other reefs barely frequented by tourists. The guided tour includes a few stops to scissor kick alongside sea turtles and reef sharks and admire the marine life below.

The main event is, of course, swimming with manta rays. Spotter planes help to spot the ocean’s black diamonds, with an average wingspan of three metres. Clear blue water also aids their discovery of the majestic giants, their diamond-shaped bodies hovering over seabeds and reefs.

Once spotted, life on board the boat turns into a frenzy, everyone in a rush to put on their fins and snorkel and go, go, go! A tour guide instructs when to get in the water to see the manta rays up close so that it’s not too manic and so that the tour is conducted responsibly and respectably for marine life.

The rays below seemed on board with putting on a show for us manta-mad folk. Five manta rays were spotted, wings extended and swimming in single file. Some chose to abandon the parade, deciding to flirt with us above, somersaulting, revealing their white bellies. Watching the rays is hypnotic, the ocean’s smooth operators flexing their wings, sometimes within a few metres of my fins. Even though their movements were slow, I felt such a rush seeing these placid creatures play. And I was extremely happy to be part of their audience.

It’s not all about the Big Three

Aside from having a chance to swim alongside the trio of ocean giants, Coral Bay also offers an opportunity to observe exposed fins from the shore.

Coral Bay is home to a shark sanctuary, also known as the nursery for its young dwellers. It’s a 20-minute walk north of Bill’s Bay to see baby sharks lurking within metres of the coastline, if that. We arrived at Skeleton Bay around midday (it’s best to visit when the tide is high) to see a swarm of sharks loitering in the bay. Swimming with them is possible, but seeing small, broad cowtail stingrays join the shark party had me carefully treading the crystal-clear waters, keeping my distance from all piercing jaws and barbs.

Down dirt roads

“We are going to take you to magic places,” Baiyungu woman and tour guide Hazel Walgar said gleefully with a sparkle in her eye. With her husband, Gavin, they run Baiyungu Dreaming, Coral Bay’s only tag-along tour. The new tour journeys along dirt roads around Coral Bay and goes ‘behind the ropes’ of management access points in Ningaloo Marine Park (Baiyungu Dreaming has been granted permission). It makes it a unique outing to understand the region’s Indigenous culture, seeing Coral Bay from a new but ancient lens and being able to touch its past between fingertips.

We left the hub in a three-car convoy to travel along beige sands between salt bushes south of Coral Bay to arrive at our first stop. At first glance, we were on sandy lands, spotted with patches of spinifex. But Hazel revealed there is more to this rugged scenery. Hazel started to analyse the ground, looking for relics of the past — broken shells — once used by her ancestors.

She told us we were standing on a shell midden as she picked up different carving tools, such as human-cut shells and stones. The more we examined, the more scattered artefacts we saw right back into the dunes. This was once a dining room, and the dunes had been used as shelter and shade. These small pieces of the past are remarkable, and I felt humbled unearthing them with Hazel.

Gavin soon got on the ground to show us how freshwater used to be sourced. He dug with his hands, tossing out sand to get roughly 50cm to locate water. It’s incredible, considering we were near the highest point of the southern end of Ningaloo. It, too, is all a shell midden and provides a stunning panorama of Ningaloo’s blended blues swathing the coast.

Driving along white sands, Hazel and Gavin guided us to a secret beach, only accessed on their tour. It was bliss, having a slice of Ningaloo to ourselves and experiencing the local’s preferred beach.

The adventures continued with a visit to Five Fingers Reef. As the name suggests, five reefs run parallel to each other, jutting out into the ocean like fingers. This stop would be Coral Bay’s redemption snorkel from the shore. We only had time to snorkel over one finger (the reefs are widely dispersed), gliding over giant luscious-lipped purple clams, darting fish and colourful coral reefs unaffected by nature’s collision a few years earlier.

The half-day tour ended around midday, just in time for some pub grub. Bill’s Bar is Coral Bay’s main pub, open daily. It offers a few areas to relax: a sports bar, indoor dining and a beer garden. It’s a good thing you can mix up the vibe as during the day, the beer garden can be too hot to bear, but come nighttime, it feels like the centre of town. The bar hosts live entertainment for the young and old to mingle after a day in the sun.

As I kicked back, I thought of Hazel’s promise to take us to magical places. She did. Her guidance made me see Coral Bay in a new light. And I know I would make the effort to experience it all again.