Yesterday, Zac and I had a totally awesome adventure… Riding a quad bike on sandy 4WD track.
We met our guide Nick at the caravan park at 8:45 with our snorkeling gear under our arms, and the indemnity papers which Zac thought was great, as he had to sign it as the Pillion Passenger. We were both fitted with helmets and headed over to learn how to ride a Quad. Pretty simple really, turn the key, push the button, put it in gear and push the lever to go.
I was a little jerky at first, but quickly got the hang of the accelerator and we headed off to the beach. There were three bikes in total, Nick the guide, an English Girl who also had never ridden before, and Zac and I bringing up the rear. Lucky I did, as the English girl got stuck twice, and I had to jump off my bike to get her back on track. She went so slowly over a lot of the track, that at the first stop, the guide told her she had to pick up the pace or we wouldn’t make it through the tour!! Luckily she did get a little more confident and managed to do a lot of the track at 25km per hour.
No so for this speed daemon… Zac and I would hang back until we could just see them disappearing over the sand dunes, then…. Vvvvroooooommmmm!!! We would race along and catch up to them at 60km per hour, bouncing along the track and sliding in the sand, with Zac on the back squealing with delight 🙂 Was awesome fun and as I pulled up next to the guide at the first stop I said “Man I gotta get me one of these…”!!
We continued in and around the sand dune tracks until the guide pulled up and asked if we wanted to try something a little more challenging…. up a big steep sand dune. I didn’t even get to answer as Zac on the back answered for me…. “Oh yea…”, Not that my response would have been much different. The English girl gave it a miss, following the track up and around the side.
Now anyone that has done any 4WD’ing knows that to get up a Sand dune, you have to hit it at full speed and keep the speed on until just before you break through the top, and that is exactly what we did… We hit it at full speed and raced to the top… Zac was over the moon.
After that bit of fun, we cruised along the beach and back up into the dunes where we stopped at a cliff over looking the reef and spotted several massive turtles just off shore. Again we hit the beach and pulled up at a spot where we could go for a snorkel on the reef.
The English girl once again wasn’t so sure of snorkeling, so Nick the guide stayed with her while Zac and I headed out. Zac was a little apprehensive at first, as it was very windy and no calm water like in the bay, but I was very proud as he donned his gear and headed out with me.
Was a nice little reef with a lots of different coloured corals, heaps of fish, and I even spotted a large stingray, but it was under a ledge in about 3m of water, and good as he is getting, Zac couldn’t quite duck dive down that far yet.
After our fun snorkel, it was back on the bikes, and this time we went to the top of the huge sand dune. Going down was just as much fun as heading up. On the way back to town, we saw several Kangaroos on the side of the track in the shade of the trees. Most jumped away at the sound of the bikes. As we arrived back at the caravan park, all I could hear was “Awwwe…. is that it, I don’t want to stop, can’t we keep going? Can we go again Dad???” I think someone had as much fun as I did. Was great fun.
The rest of the day was spent like most others around here, we went for a snorkel in the afternoon, and then just hung around the caravan for the rest of the day. During our afternoon snorkel, I found a giant clam just of the shore, and Fi came out for a look while Big Brother looked after the little ones in the shallows. Fi loved it so I quickly dragged her around and showed her a few more things. Would have loved to have taken her out a bit further to the better parts of the reef, but we can’t leave the little ones alone for too long 🙁
While back at the van we had a couple of encounters with the local wildlife. First off as a goanna that was just wandering through the caravan park.
Second was late in the day when an entire family of small birds came up to the van for a feed. Appeared to be a Mum with her chicks, and they were very friendly. Tara, Jess and I lay on the ground and hand fed them bits of bread.
Again, I just have to say that we have had an awesome time here in Coral Bay. We are supposed to leave Monday, but I think we can afford to extend until Wednesday before heading off. That being the case we might wait until Monday to do the Glass Bottom boat as the wind is supposed to drop off then.
Anyway, had better sign off as I have my own little hungry chicks to feed 😉
