Coral Bay - Places to See

The town's great appeal is its access to the 260 km Ningaloo Reef which lies close to the shore and forms a kind of natural lagoon which is ideal for people wishing to fish (although the waters of Coral Bay itself are a sanctuary area and 'no fishing' regulations apply), snorkel, scuba dive or explore the reef.

Lying just north of the Tropic of Capricorn (i.e. it is Western Australia's equivalent to Rockhampton) the waters are warm for most of the year and the beaches, like most of the beaches on the Western Australian coast, are white and hard and beautifully clean.

Ningaloo Marine Park

The Marine Park offers visitors a rare opportunity to inspect the reef and its fauna at close quarters. It stretches south along 260 km of coastline from Bundegi Beach, near Exmouth. At points the reef is no more than 100 metres from the shore and its waters are home to such spectacular creatures as the huge whale shark, the humpback whale, green turtles, dolphins and dugongs.

The Marine Park was declared in 1987 in an attempt to protect Western Australia's largest coral reef and to control public access to it. It is a unique area because the reef is so close to the dry landmass and because it is here that the Australian continent is closest to the continental shelf. The reef boasts 170 hard corals, 11 soft corals and 475 species of fish. In its own way it is as good as the Great Barrier Reef and it is much more accessible.

Both the Peoples Caravan Park and Bayview Holiday Village have glass bottom boat tours available.

Point Cloates
Point Cloates was, unusually, named by Flemish sailors who visited the Western Australian coast in 1719. The Flemish mariner Captain Nash, sailing from Ostend in Belgium, sighted what he took to be an island. In his journal he wrote: 'This island cannot be seen far even in clear weather and NE by E and SW by S about thirty-two leagues in length with terrible breakers from each end running about three miles into the sea.' He named the island after Baron Cloates, a Flemish aristocrat who was part owner of his ship. It was subsequently renamed Point Cloates, is now part of Ningaloo Station, and was established as a whaling station in 1912. By the mid-1920s over 1000 whales per annum were being caught and processed. It was, like so many places on the Pilbara coast, destroyed by a cyclone in 1945. Opened again in 1949 it was closed again in 1963 when a worldwide environmental push made governments aware of the dangers whaling posed to the ever-decreasing population of humpback whales.

Point Cloates can be reached by 4WD vehicles travelling along the coast road which runs from Cape Range National Park to Coral Bay. The wrecks of the Zvir, Fin, Perth and Rapid all lie on the reef just off Point Cloates.

For the history of Coral Bay and the whole North West Cape area see the entry on Exmouth.