CONSUMMATE CORAL COAST
THE track is always rough, but this time, for a change, it was muddy and in places, even slippery. Then we hit the first patch of water – a shallow stretch of red, thickish aqua that had taken on the colour of the surrounding rugged range country that lies a little to the east of the white dunes and long beaches that make up this spectacular section of the West Coast.
Underneath the water and the thin layer of mud was ancient limestone laid down when this whole area was under the sea and the range of today was, in fact, a coral reef. The limestone, though, makes the track rough and any rain takes a while to drain away, while the nearby dunes were showing little or any signs of the recent downpour we had been subjected to.
We were driving through the RAAF firing range, the track (officially known as the Ningaloo-Yardie Creek Road) being the only real link from our camp at Winderabandi Point on the northern edge of the old Ningaloo station property, north to Cape Range National Park and the bitumen road to the region’s
