Coral Bay 6 - 10th June

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Rest stop after Carnarvon

We spent the day in Carnavon doing all our little jobs which always seems to take the whole day!! Gas bottles, petrol, and shopping. We only shop every 2 weeks so it is a huge job when it is done. Naturally buying the stuff is the easy part, then comes the unpacking and putting it away. Even in a smaller living space it is a tedious task!

When we were doing the aisles we noticed a couple of ladies who were filling their trollies with amazing amounts of stuff. It looked like they were buying supplies to set up a shop!! Turns out they were from Exmouth, over 300km away and they come down to Carnavon to do their shopping as there is nothing cheaper in between!! Thinking about the price of petrol and a 600km round trip which was a cheaper option for them than buying locally we began thinking that we wouldn't be buying groceries until we hit Darwin!!

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Yikes!!

We bought a few extra supplies anyway, despite it being difficult to do in our kitchen!

On our way out we passed banana plantations which was exciting. We felt like we were heading into some sort of tropical fruit paradise. I had promised Molly before we left that as we were following the summer we could eat cherries and mangos every morning for brekky. She was hanging out for that.

That turned out to be a lie.

However, I was hoping our luck had changed and we would soon be lying under mango trees gorging ourselves on the delicious golden flesh. The banana plantations were a good sign.

As it turned out that was a lie too.

We were told later that Carnavon was indeed a fruit and veggie growing area and you could drive into the farms and buy their produce at really cheap prices. I love doing that!! But nobody told me before we got to the place did they!! I bought our stuff from Coles which had probably been grown in Carnavon, shipped to Perth and then shipped back again!!!

We drove out, past the bewitching plantations, and set up camp in the next free rest stop. Toilet and rubbish bin!

It was here that we met a Danish family. We had been there for a while when a new van pulled up and kids hopped out. Molly's kid radar had been activated and she went on the prowl for some new

play mates. I watched her go over to the family but she was being shy so I thought I would go over as well to give her a hand.

That's when I heard it! Danish!

“Er du Danske?” (are you Danish?) said I in my perfect Danish.

And they were. We got chatting and the kids got playing and before you know it we had arranged to met at the next town's caravan park as they had just stopped for lunch and were moving on.

Very cool.

Rasmus had also met a backpacker couple, Joakim and Flo. But I didn't know about this until the next caravan park. That's when I met them.

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Coral Bay

We had a few hours drive ahead of us soon we went. The highlight, for Rasmus anyway, was when we crossed the Tropic of Capricorn. We all piled out of the car and performed the ordained rites, also known as, taking lots of photos! And then piled back into the car. On we went.

We arrived at Coral Bay and set up our caravan for 3 days of sun, surf and snorkeling.

The beach was just over the road from us so we knew where we were headed as soon as we were ready.

Well, actually the kids found the Danish family we had met at the last camp spot so the beach trip was put off for a short time while they had a play.

It was really lovely watching the kids interact with the danish kids. Especially Ben. He and Johannes had really hit it off and so spent all their time together. Johannes couldn't speak english so it was left to Ben to fall back onto his second language and he did a great job. I was so proud of him.

I even made a Brun-sviger cake to share with our new friends. It was all very cozy.

Eventually we did make it to the beach and spent some great hours snorkeling under the water watching the marine life.

Great big Snapper would be swimming around your legs and if you swam out a bit more you reached the reef and could see some beautiful coral.

It is such an adventure to see a different side of the world.

It was here that I met up with some people that Rasmus had previously found. Joakim and Flo.

They were from The Netherlands and Switzerland respectively, and were doing a trip around Oz in a van.

They came over a couple of times for beer and coffee and it was nice to chat about stuff that is different from our own lives.

The Euro Cup was playing at the time and the 3 Europeans planned to met up and watched a game between Denmark and The Netherlands. Not surprisingly I have no idea who won! (Rasmus: the towns sports pub didn't show the game as the owner wanted to be in bed by 11pm... I managed to find an online streaming but watched it alone)

We were only at Coral Bay for 3 mights as the caravan park was so darn expensive so it was with a bit of sadness that we said goodbye to our newfound friends. Ben and Johannes swapped email addresses and promised to keep in touch.