Shark Bay area

Thursday, 28 June 2012 to Friday, 29 June 2012

We chose to stay at Hamelin Station Stay, a working sheep station about 100kms from Denham. They have a great caravan, camping area which is only a couple of kilometres from Hamelin Pool where some very rare and interesting stromatolites can be viewed. The stromatolites are a very simple life form which grows very, very slowly in extremely salty water. Last year we saw thrombolites at Lake Clifton in the south of Western Australia and discovered the difference is only that stromatolites grown in tidal water and thrombolites grow in the still water of lakes.

Stromatolites, Hamelin Pool, WA

Shell Beach, WA

5.30pm is "Happy Hour" in the camp kitchen/entertainment area, complete with a great fire if required.

Shell Beach, WA

The next day we drove towards Denham and our first stop was at Shell Beach which is created by millions of tiny shells, Fragum cockles, that grow in profusion in L'Haridon Bight where the beach is located.
Some of the shells have over time been cemented together by a chemical process between salt and calcium breakdown and this creates a very solid rock like substance which has been quarried for many years and used to build many of the original buildings in the area.

Shark Bay, WA

We continued on to several beaches and cliff lookouts around Shark Bay. Shark Bay is actually a series of bays and is most famous for being the first known area of the Australian mainland to be visited by Europeans in the early 1600's. The coast is very rugged and is the site of many shipwrecks. The coastline is very beautiful with crystal clear water that varies from light to dark blue and is dotted with many small islands. We then paid a visit to Monkey Mia but were too late to see the feeding of the dolphins as this now happens at about 7.45am only each day. Some of the dolphins still come back in at approximately 12.30pm but they don't get fed. We saw some of them but they don't stay very long when they realise they aren't getting any food. They played around in the shallow water for quite some time and then moved back out into the deeper water to feed.

Denham is a small seaside town, very popular with fishing enthusiasts.

Saturday, 30 June 2012

Murchison River, near Kalbarri, WA

We left Hamelin Station Stay and travelled south to Murchison River Rest Area where we found a very pretty area on the bank of the river. This proved to be a great place to take photos as there was a billabong and as the sun began to set we got some great shadows and reflections.

Kalbarri, WA

Kalbarri, WA

Kalbarri, WA

Nature's Window, Kalbarri, WA

Kalbarri has some spectacular gorges and rock formations, a pretty harbour area were the Murchison River meets the Indian Ocean and some beautifully rugged coastline. While in Kalbarri we also visited a parrot and bird breeding centre where we saw some very colourful and unusual birds.

Wednesday, 4 July 2012

Today we continued our trip towards Perth, our first stop being at Port Gregory. This is a very small fishing town with a huge salt lake which appears pink due to the beta carotene which grows in the salty water and is harvested for use in the food and health food industry.

Convict Ruins, WA

Pink Lake, near Port Gregory, WA

Northampton, WA

Banksia, WA

Sturt's Desert Pea, WA

A little further down the road we saw the remains of an old convict trading station used in the 1850's. We also visited Northampton, a quaint old Cornish mining town with a winding main street complete with many original shops. After a couple of roadside rest area sleepovers where we saw several wildflowers just starting to flower, we visited Gin Gin before completing our trip to Perth.