Shark Bay

Today we drove the 380km North to Denham in the Shark Bay area. It was a very empty 380km - we didn't pass a single town along the way, only Kalbarri where we set off and Denham where we arrived! There were 2 roadhouses (service stations), a couple of campsites and not much else! We stopped at Hamelin Pool to see more stromatolites (even more impressive than those at Lake Thetis). We also had a picnic lunch at the campsite near there, where they still have the old telegraph station that used to relay messages across the remote West. The flies were bothersome in this area too, although the flies outside were a lesser evil than picnicking in the heat of the car - the temperatures are in the early 30s now! More attractive on the insect front were the many orange butterflies we shared our picnic field with (but they moved too fast for photos). We also visited Shell Beach, where the beach consists entirely of tiny cockle shells - it was unusual and we would have stayed longer but the pesky flies were particularly bad here... We had another stop along the way at Eagle Bluff, where we saw several sharks and rays circling in the clear turquoise water below the cliffs where we stood - pretty cool. We also saw wild emus for the first time today - some in the bush and others close to the edge of the road; they're pretty big. We arrived in Denham, Australia's Westernmost town, late afternoon and we plan to spend a couple of days here. We enjoyed the seafront sunset and a tasty meal and schooner (a beer inbetween the size of a half and a pint - apparently a full pint would get warm too quickly!) sat outside Australia's Westernmost pub.Read more