Day 76 | Coral Bay backpackers: actually the Ningaloo Reef Resort
55 km | zzOz total: 3,624 km
Wind?
Yes, great assistance there, at least until turning the corner and those last, slow, 12km.
I’m back in Termiteland, there’s just an absence of woodiness for the most part, those termites have no respite from patrolling their territory searching out shrubbery to munch on.
That means it’s back into the spiky old spinifex.
I realised that yesterday when I came off the road to find something, anything, to prop my bike when the valve ripped out from my thornproof, make that thorn resistant, tube. The rear one so that meant the full disassembly of the caravan, panniers, trailer bags, and yes, my mask and flipper pack strapped to the side, carefully strewn like a calamitous traffic accident alongside the highway.
Changing tubes is no big deal. Trying to prop up the bike is.
So the entrance to Coral Bay is one of the more barren landscapes I’ve traversed recently, no bush in any direction, enormous sand dunes covered in short spiky grass, still the odd patch of wildflowers in full bloom, huge sky above, cloudless.
There’s been some climbing in the last days, often heading through red sand dune country, minor rises here and there, so it shouldn’t have been a surprise to see that iridescent blue Indian Ocean from a fair distance.
I worked out where all that 4WD transportation has been heading: Coral Bay.
You turn that final barren corner and suddenly you are into full on Resortland. It’s all big sunglasses, icecreams, straw hats, bikinis, sweet smelling suntan lotion, quad bike hire, swimming with dugongs, manta rays, turtles, or, the big one, whale sharks.
The coral, and tropical fish, are all easily accessible just swimming from the shore.
See you later, I’m off for a dip.