Coral Bay - Travellers Behaving Badly
Trip Start
Feb 01, 2005
1
120
145
Trip End
Dec 31, 2008
Coral Bay,
Australia
Thursday, May 15, 2008
Coral Bay is a real gem. The authorities (sometimes misguided) and the locals are trying to present it in the best light for visitors and preserve for the future.
Mostly when we are travelling we find our fellow travellers are very aware of not abusing the privilege and try to minimize the impact on the environment or culture where they are guests. Unfortunately in our time here we have almost been brought to tears of anger at some of the antics. Check out the pics which are just a selection of many. Fires on the beach are so irresponsible and many have bottles thrown in them which break and usually the fire lighters cover or partially cover the fire with sand when they leave
1 Fire on Town Beach
. This produces such a dangerous cocktail for barefooted beach goers - broken glass and hot coals - imagine what it does to a little kid digging in the sand? Then the final insult - the tide comes in and (if conscientious Coral Bay residents have not cleaned up) drags the lot out into our pristine Coral Reef.Check out the pics of travellers totally ignoring the signs and again, these are just a sample.
Then we encounter quite often guests who have done the right thing by registering in a park, but during their stay they have collected a heap of shells from inside the marine park, yet when they drive off they leave the shells on site. It simply defies logic.
Can anyone fill us in on why smokers believe butts look good on the ground? Even our smoker friends here are horrified by the butt dropping attitude. The strange thing is these same people are coming here to admire our wildlife and yet killing off our reptiles, birds and fish every time one mistakes these toxic bombshells as food. Not to mention the illegal camping scaring off the wildlife and destroying habitat.
Council have now appointed a part time Ranger and erected warning signs and while clearly the situation has improved there is still a problem. We would also like to ask fellow travellers to actively encourage others to leave a spot in a better condition than when they arrived, to enhance the experience for themselves and those to follow.
While we could go on and on about this depressing topic, we would prefer to write about more positive travel experiences. So onwards.
