Coral Bay, Heaven on Earth

Day 304

Lay down
Your sweet and weary head
Night is falling
You’ve come to journey's end

I did save best for the last. It's bloody amazing how this place hasn't changed at all in 2 years. Coral Bay is still extremely quiet, relaxed and low-key destination without the tourist mass that flock rest of the tropical Australia.

It's actually a wonder why Coral Bay is not widely known among tourists. As I have been traveling around Oz, I have constantly said how Coral Bay is my favourite place in Australia. Most people after hearing ask "Where is that?". Let's go through what Coral Bay and Ningaloo Reef has to offer and why this place beats Great Barrier Reef hands down.

1. You have chance to swim - not just see but actually swim - with Manta Rays and Whalesharks. They use spotter planes to find these magnificient animals but incase you are unlucky and can't find any...don't worry, you get your money back :-) Now, how many places in world can offer something like that? None that I know of...

2. Unlike GBR where you have to travel atleast an hour by boat to even reach the reef, here you can put your goggles, snorkel and fins on in the beach and jump in. Reef starts 10m from shore. Not only is the reef here more easily accessible, it is also much healthier which means more variety, colors and more fish.

3. In Coral Bay you have chance to see much more marine life than ever in GBR. One rarity for example is Dugong, near-extinct weird looking animal which looks like a cross between seal and dolphin. Other cool things you commonly see every day: Dolphins, Turtles, Eagle Rays, Stingrays and Octopus.

4. Diving is world-class and addition to everything mentioned above you can actually dive among sharks!! They have separate sanctuaries to sharks where you can see Reef Sharks, Nurse Sharks and sometimes Tigersharks. It doesn't get much cooler than that.

5. Weather. Most locations in GBR have their wet and dry seasons with very unpredictable weather. Coral Bay has none of that. Out of 365 days in year, Coral Bay gets rain only average 10 of those days, rest is sunshine. Temperature varies between 38(summer) and 25(winter).

6. Lack of tourists. When you go to GBR from Cairns, you are waiting the boat in the pier with 1000+ tourists(I am not shitting you here!). Doesn't make the experience too unique or even special. Coral Bay has 1 two-star resort, 1 backbacker hostel and 2 caravan parks, that's it. This makes sure that place is never crowded and keeps the number of tour operators down(actually, the tour operators here were exactly same as they were 2 years ago, most even had exactly same staff). There are only 2 boats going out each day to see whalesharks, it really does make the experience unique and special.

Ok, I could go on and on and on about this rave for Coral Bay. Now pics...hmmm, unlike what I said in last entry I am not going to post pics. First of all connection speed here is slow as hell and second...I don't want to share pics about this small little paradise with anyone :-) This is my little playground, my slice of heaven. You just have to come here to see it for yourself. Coral Bay is my favourite place in Oz. Hell, it's my favourite place in world. If I would have to rank my best experience on this 10.5 months journey, it would be monday in Coral Bay where I dived with 5 Manta Rays(one of them had 5m wingspan, it was huge!), 3 Reef Sharks, 4 Nurse Sharks and a Tigershark!

I will come back here, sooner or later(hopefully sooner).

Now it's another enjoyable - not! - 17hn bus trip to Perth where I will spend little over week getting my mindset ready for Finland.

See you all soon!