We had a snorkel and dive trip planned but the company called us that they had to cancel because their boat broke down. So instead of getting up early we could sleep in and have breakfast before loading up the car and checking out. We used the time freed up by the cancellation by driving to Cape Range and visiting a few of the spots we didn’t have time for on the 4WD tour. First was the SS Mildura wreck but this was hard to see because of the high tide. We returned there a few hours later before leaving for Coral Bay.
Most of the points of interest here also have geocaches so we could log a find and see the sights in one go. The last geocache we went to was near a water tap about 300 meters from the main road. As we got closer we noticed 3 emus nearby. This was a great photo opportunity but soon we noticed that there were 5 and then 6 emus near our car. I still had to get out and look for the cache about 70m away but I wasn’t sure if any of the emu would react if I was on foot. I just took a chance and kept the car between me and the big birds and that seemed to work. After finding the cache I walked back and saw that there were now eight emus and 2 of them were in my path. As I got closer they decided to move away so I could get back in the car. Still further south on the main road we visited the exhibition of the visitor’s center and ate our lunch at the picnic tables.
We headed back to Exmouth, filled up our tank and got on our way to Coral Bay. There are no services between Exmouth and Coral Bay (159 Km). When we checked in at the hotel reception we were informed that our trip for tomorrow (snorkeling with manta rays) was canceled because there were not enough people taking the tour and we should contact the office to reschedule. When we called they said they got a late reservation and the trip was back on schedule.
We took a quick stroll through Coral Bay (takes 10 minutes) and it was time for dinner.