Chapter 10: Ningaloo

Ningaloo is our favourite.

And this time I want you to put down whatever you’re holding and listen to me, because I have called a great many places our favourite over the course of this, and you’ve been very patient, and I’ve watched you start to suspect that I may not be an entirely reliable witness on the question of favourites. Fair. But this is the one. This is the real one. Ningaloo is the favourite, generally and truly, and everywhere else was wonderful and Ningaloo is the reason the word exists. Let me count the ways.

It is better than the Great Barrier Reef. I’ll defend that. The Barrier Reef is more spectacular to look at, I’ll give it that much — but Ningaloo beats it on the thing that matters, which is that the reef is right there, against the shore. There’s no hour on a fast boat to reach it. You drive down to the beach, you park, you put your gear on standing next to the car, you walk into the water, and you are on the reef. That’s it. And it’s quieter under the water to look at than the Barrier Reef, less postcard-coral — but the life in it is extraordinary. Fish, turtles, rays, sharks. Whales. We’ll get to the whales.

And there’s no boat telling you that you have forty-five minutes. Nobody is managing your experience. We once followed a single turtle for a full hour — just followed it, at turtle pace, through the shallows, because there was nothing on earth requiring us to stop, and because you do not get many chances in a life to spend an unhurried hour in the company of a turtle who does not care that you’re there.

The beaches are absurd. Turquoise Bay makes the top ten in any list I’ll ever write, and I’ve now seen the competition. The snorkelling spots have names like Oyster Stacks, which somebody clearly came up with on a Friday afternoon. You can surf. You can kayak. You can camp on the sand behind the beach — if you can secure a booking, which open six months ahead and are gone inside the hour, the whole season claimed in sixty minutes by people who know exactly what they’re doing.