Four months after Cyclone Narelle hammered Western Australia's Coral Coast as a category 5 system — 200 km/h winds, 250 mm of rain and a storm surge that pushed Exmouth Gulf water more than 18 km inland — the Ningaloo Coast is open, rebuilt and, by many accounts, looking better than ever.
The headline attraction is still the drift snorkel at Turquoise Bay in Cape Range National Park, where you float over coral gardens metres from bone-white sand, gliding past turtles, groupers and rivers of tropical fish. There are rules: enter at the southern end, let the current carry you, and exit before the northern end of the sandbar — leave it late and you risk being pulled out to sea.
The cyclone's flood has had surprising upsides. Guides report rare blooms of purple mulla mulla appearing months early, Sturt's desert pea signalling a bumper wildflower season, and at Yardie Creek the cleared sandbar has restored the natural tidal flow, drawing squid, dolphins, rays and turtles back into the gorge. The one-hour eco-cruise there ($70 adult) also covers ancient fossil reef walls, black-flanked rock wallabies, Aboriginal fish traps, and a palm-sized megalodon tooth from when this desert was ocean.
If you want it all in one go, Exmouth Adventure Co runs a "Ningaloo in a Day" safari ($320 adult) taking in Charles Knife Canyon, the national park, Turquoise Bay and Yardie Creek, with snorkel gear and lunch included. Whale sharks and humpbacks have arrived on schedule, and the annual coral spawning went ahead as normal.
An hour south of Exmouth, Bullara Station — a 100,000-hectare working cattle property — copped 380 mm of rain in six hours, the worst in a century, but reopened within five weeks. Accommodation now includes campsites ($58/night, April–October), safari huts, bell tents and the historic Shearers Lodge ($210/night). The standout is dinner at The Table, a farm-to-table restaurant run by a husband-and-wife chef team inside a 110-year-old woolshed.
The Ningaloo Coast is a World Heritage site for both its reef and its ranges, and this is the moment to see the ranges side. With wetlands full and waterbirds returning, locals reckon Exmouth is having its Lake Eyre moment — a rare window when the desert half of this desert-meets-sea region is at its most vivid.
