Coral Bay

For us, the big fizzer. Got up and about quickly this morning and knocked off the remaining North-West Cape items reasonably quickly, and attempted to get a campsite in Coral Bay or close by, by telephone from Exmouth. Failure in all respects. So we go back to plan A – get in the car and see what happens.

Lynne’s first suspicion about Coral Bay was aroused by the fact that the telephone numbers of the two caravan parks differed only in the last digit. When we showed  up it did appear to be a one-development town. In any event, we were there for the snorkelling, and as inviting as it looked, with a broad bay obviously coloured by vast coral banks, the stiff breeze, overcast skies and low temperature turned us right off. While there were a few hardy souls out in the water, the only ones we saw coming out all had wetsuits on. We were not so equipped, and that, coupled with our little splash in the water convinced us the day would lie elsewhere.

The last items around North-West Cape were of a military nature. Perhaps it is my current mental baggage, but for me  it had all of the odour of US imperialism. The Harold E Holt communications facility was created by the US Navy in the 1960s for communications with submarines. With 3.1MW of broadcast power at 14kHz, I wouldn’t be surprised if they can cover a large slab of the entire world from this facility, and indeed it is considered one of the most successful of it’s type in the world. If ever you were under any doubt about the amount of shared national input into the development, the power system runs on 60Hz. Allegedly the control of the facility passed entirely to Australia in the 1990s, but the armed guard on the gate had a bit of a foreign feel. I didn’t take his photograph…

Also in the area is a US naval jetty, and a memorial to a submarine sortie undertaken from the area in WWII which was considered quite successful.

On the way through Exmouth, we had a little shopping to do, and were reminded that it was election day. Perhaps another small feeling of relief that we spent the entire campaign in some of the most remote areas of the country. As I write, there is a TV in the camp kitchen analysing just what went wrong for the ALP.

Late this afternoon we crossed not only the Tropic of Capricorn, perhaps bringing to an end our glorious run of unspoilt  warm, dry weather, we also crossed the Gascoyne River. With it we also passed into an unlikely agricultural and orcharding area. Apparently the Gascoyne River, looking as dry and arid as the surrounding red sand dunes we have been crossing all day, actually runs underground, feeding a thriving irrigation area. We’ll investigate further tomorrow.