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| A good example of the road ahead... for a few hours at a time! |
The scorching sun got us moving early this morning as we had
no shelter whatsoever. The initial
couple of hours heading north on Highway 1 was pretty dull but then we swung a
left towards Shark Bay World Heritage Area.
The peninsula boasts that it is one of the few sites in the world that
satisfies all four of the natural criteria to be a heritage area, namely
– natural beauty, Earth’s evolutionary history (Stromatolites - explained below!),
ecological processes (the largest seagrass banks in the world) and biological
diversity.
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| The areas of interest on the shark bay peninsula |
We started at Hamelin Bay with the Stromatolites. These are
rock-like structures formed from single cell organisms that were the first form
of life on Earth 3500 million years ago.
They’re basically our ancestors if you believe all that evolutionary
mumbo jumbo (like the ‘scientists’ with the ‘evidence’ do) or you can choose to
believe that a magical man who lives on a cloud made it all in 6 days… in the
dark. Anyway, I digress, there was a boardwalk supplied to provide views of the
stromatolites and the microbial mats that may grow to form them. There was no shelter there whatsoever and it had become very hot, so it
was a fleeting visit. Simon liked the idea that science has now proven that
‘ROCK!’ is in his DNA…
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| The Stromatolites, our ancestors - I never said they were attractive! |
Onwards to Shell beach, unique because the beach is made up
of shells from just one animal, the Shark Bay cockle (Fragum erugatum) which is
a burrowing mollusc enclosed in tiny bivalve shells a few millimetres long. What struck me was, why here? When other beaches around appear to consist
of sand and or stones? This is one of only a handful of places on earth where
shells replace sand in such a dramatic and picturesque way over a 120km stretch
of shells up to 10m deep! (fact fans) The answer lies within the water itself –
due to being trapped in the bay by the Faure sill and concentrated through
evaporation from the intense heat, the water is 50% more salty here than normal
salt water. This mollusc is able to tolerate
the high salinity of this environment where most other organisms cannot, leaving
it to dominate this niche habitat.
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| Okay, it looks like sand but trust me, this beach consists entirely of tiny white shells |
There are vast swathes of the national parks here that we
can’t access without a 4WD vehicle. In
fact, that would be a top tip of mine for anyone considering exploring Western
Australia. If you want to be able to
access every last unmade road you will need to hire a 4X4. Otherwise, like us, you won’t be able to
reach Steep Point, the westernmost point of mainland Australia, amongst other
extremities. Although, really, we
wouldn’t have time to have done all the off-roading anyway, so it has helped us
‘select’ which areas to visit!
A bit of unmade road wasn’t enough to deter us from visiting
Eagle bluff. Listed as one of the twenty
things to see and do here for free due to the boardwalk which allows you to
watch sharks and rays from above. We
persevered down 4km of bumpy, uncomfortable, sandy track whilst others sped by
in their 4X4s and found ourselves in what must have been the SECOND windiest
place on Earth (after that kite-surfing place on the southern tip of Spain,
Tarifa, I told you about before). We had
a close encounter with an emu!  |
| Eagle Bluff |
And
the views were amazing, but whether we could identify the dark ‘blobs’ we saw
from 80m up through squinting eyes I just couldn’t say…. It was worth a
shot, we reminded ourselves as we bumped the 4km back to the main road pleading
for the camper van to hold itself together! Top Tip – Take POLARISED SUNGLASSES
with you. These will take the surface glare off of the sea and enable you to
see through to what is swimming underneath the surface!
Onwards to Denham, the main ‘town’ on the peninsula and home
of the Visitors Centre and Australia’s most westerly hotel.
The VC did what they do best – supplied us
with free WiFi for a bit and stopped us wasting time by driving to Monkey Mia
tonight by telling us that the campsite there was being completely revamped and
so is shut at the moment. Instead, we
checked in to a very nice campsite in Denham itself for two nights, taking
advantage of our 10% off fob from Travellers’ Autobahn as it was a ‘Top’ camp
ground. Right by the beach, we took
advantage of the laundry, spacious showers and the internet supply in the camp
kitchen. It was the place to be. Most people ignoring each other by staring at
their electrical equipment (like I was) but also enjoying a glass or two of
wine and conversing about the places to see up and down the west coast. As with the rest of our new neighbours, we
will be getting up especially early tomorrow to go and see the dolphins of
Monkey Mia, so it was not a late one at all.
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