Day 71 - Ningaloo to Coral Bay.

Brave adventurers that we are, after farewelling Elaine, Libby and Roddy, we headed off to cross the sandy mouth to Yardie Creek. The creek hasn't flown out to the sea for two years. Justin gave it a go with 25 psi in the tyres, and we failed, 20 metres from the start of the track.

 

He let them down to 16 psi, but we were stuck fast. Any further attempts only dug the left hand side of the car in deeper. We looked under the car, most of the underside was sitting on the sand, so we started digging.

 

One helpful bloke wandered over, commented "This looks interesting" then disappeared. We removed the spare tyre from the front of the trailer to lessen the weight. After a few more failed attempts to drive away, and once we had dug the underside of the car free of the sand, Justin unhitched the camper trailer and managed to get the car across the sand to the rocky other side.

Now what to do with the trailer, resting on its drawbar? We were pondering this problem when a couple came up in a Suzuki Vitara. The man spent some time looking at our situation, then offered to help. Meanwhile a charter group with a boat on the trailer tried crossing. They also got stuck. That made feel a whole lot better! They let their tyres down and had a spare wheel at the front of the trailer to let down that helped. By now we knew it was Rod and Liz that were saving us. Using Rod's snatch strap and our two snatch straps to reach, his itsy bitsy Vitara pulled the trailer back on to a more solid part of the road. Then Justin retrieved the car from the other side of the crossing and hitched up the trailer again. By this stage I was ready to go the long way to Coral Bay via Exmouth. Rob was very encouraging for us to have another go at getting across the sand. So I crossed my fingers while Justin let the tyres down to 10psi, kept the car in low range second gear and resolved not to change gears mid crossing, all on Rod's advice. Rod was confident we would make it across, and WE DID! As he said, everyone is going to stuck sometime if they have a sense of adventure. We chose a good place to gt stuck, there were plenty of people about and vehicles going past.all the same, I was glad to be over the crossing.

 

Thanks Rod and Liz!

We spent some time putting air back in the tyres and making lunch. We were now two hours behind. We took the costal track to Coral Bay as seen below, and despite getting bogged, it was all worth it. This route is much more picturesque than the main highway. In the 120km we passed only two cars.

 

Still, we arrived in time to set up in daylight. It is windier here than we experienced at Ningaloo Peninsular. Coral Bay hasn't changed much in the eight years since we last visited. Two caravan parks, a resort, a backpackers, two small supermarkets, shops and tour places. I heard that in the '70s all there was a spot for ten caravans and a shop.

 

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