Sat 13th September – Day 126: Coral Bay

After a late night for the kids they slept in till nearly 8am when KB snr rang for a chat. Toby was ecstatic to find $2 under his pillow and the tooth gone. We all lazed in till about 9:30am reading books or playing Nintendo DS (the kids are keen to buy a $50K seaside house in their DS Dogs game which means they are constantly doing dog shows, competitions and obedience training to win $$ - if only it was that easy in real life).
We finally made our way across the road (through the enormous shopping centre – not) and onto the beach where the water was turquoise blue, clear but unfortunately very choppy & windy.
Pies from the bakery for lunch then I took the kids down the beach for some sun, while Pete applied for various Marketing IT jobs that seem to have cropped up on the internet and papers over the past week or so.
We decided to do a drift snorkel as the wind was howling and the current running strongly from south to North. The tide was out so the water was quite shallow and a good introduction for Chloe to her new snorkelling gear. As we entered the water, Toby nearly stepped on a large stingray (about 70cm diameter), scaring both himself and Chloe, who then refused to go out into the deeper water. Despite staying in the shallows we saw more stingrays, enormous Norwest snapper, nudibranchs and lots of parrot fish.
Back at camp we washed off under the showers, but were not really sure if the sea or the bore water was saltier. Pete was still computering, so we grabbed the beach stuff and headed back down to fly kites, throw Frisbees and build sand-castles.
Exhausted, I sent Pete off to play soccer with the kids while I organised our gear for tomorrow (they just never seem to tire). Later that evening, Chloe triumphantly announced she had also lost a tooth (her upper front right which has been wobbly since Tunnel Creek when she bit into an apple), so the tooth fairy will be required again.
It must be Saturday night because right on cue the 1am boof-heads were yelling obscenities and threatening violence to all just outside the trailer. Everything seemed to settle down only to flare up again 20mins later. It continued in this pattern for a good few hours until they all eventually drifted away.
Bayview Coral Bay Caravan park ($33/night)