The tour north was cleverly designed to put the majority of the driving at the front of the week which allowed us to spend plenty of time on the fabulous beaches around Coral Bay and Exmouth. One of the most interesting beaches we went to is known as Shell Beach because the entire thing is comprised of tiny little round shells. Trillions and trillions of them. The beach is hundreds of meters wide, kilometers long and our guide told us that they are tens of meters deep. The top shells are slightly dirty grey, but the ones underneath are blindingly white.
After Shell Beach we quickly stopped in Exmouth to check into our hostel and then headed out around the tip of the peninsula to Turquoise Bay in the Cape Range National Park. As is evidenced in the picture below, there is perfect white sand and crystal clear water. This corner of Australia is fringed by a large barrier reef called the Ningaloo Reef. While it is far smaller than the much more famous Great Barrier Reef on the eastern side of the continent, the marine life is in perhaps better shape for it. The remote location and low population densities in the area also insure that the beaches are a lot less touristed.
We spent most of the afternoon snorkeling in a current where we would walk up the beach swim out into the current over the reef and get a free ride along. We saw turtles, rays, two types of shark, a swarming feeding school of reef fish, and of course tons of coral.
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