Monkey Mia

Wonderful day today.  Things started rather disappointingly as we were hoping to get onto a boat cruise out to Dirk Hartog island. We had wrestled with the $275 pp cost but decided to go ahead. We rushed down to the jetty hoping to get on but it didn't come by. We should have booked!  So we decided as a consolation prize to do a 3 hour sailing boat cruise for the afternoon followed by a sunset cruise. Good decision.  We drove to Monkey Mia and encountered 2 very slow emus on he road. They had no intention of hurrying and we had to wait while they trotted along. 

  We had a look around and ate our sandwich before boarding the large catamaran.  We took off and cruised around looking for dugong and dolphins and turtles and sharks. We spotted everything except the sharks. 

  Geoff went for a swim off the boat. I was too scared of sharks out in the middle of the ocean and didn't want to get all sticky for the evening cruise. He said it was beautiful in the water.  We had about half an hour between the 2 cruises, just enough time to get some beer and cheese and bickies. The sunset cruise was under full sail and the temperature was balmy and the sunset magnificent.  

Such a lovely day .

Denham

We were woken up early by inconsiderate neighbours crashing and banging around. It was the same van which ran its air conditioner late into the night which was extremely noisy. It's certainly hard to relax back into a deep sleep with the noise. This is the first time we have experienced a crowded,noisy park. They had run out of toilet paper by the morning.  So we left as early as we could and headed north again. We were disappointed that we couldn't spend the day exploring the many gorges around here but we have a long way to go today.  We did go to one Gorge lookout. The level of the river is quite low. It is very hot today and there are an abundance of flies.

We are really back  to outback country. The ground is so red and the trees are quite stunted.  We called into Hamelin Pools to see the stromatolites.  Hamelin Pool is home to the most diverse and abundant examples of stromatolites in the world. Also referred to as 'living fossils', stromatolites are living representatives of life over 3500 million years ago when there was no other complex life on Earth. Supposedly these are our 'forebears'. 

A 200m boardwalk at Hamelin Pool provides excellent views of the stromatolites, microbialites 

  Nearby is the Old Hamelin Pool Telegraph Station which was built in 1884 as part of the communication line between Perth and Roebourne. 

  Then it was on to the final leg of the journey to Denham.  We scored the most amazing camp site right on the beach. 

Gentle cool breeze coming in our window. Much more peaceful an last night!

 

Geralton

Today we had a few jobs to do. First we dropped off the van to get the fridge fixed. While this happened we visited the memorial to HMS Sydney. It is quite chilling in a way. Years ago before they found the wreck a memorial was built with the lifelike statue of a woman looking out to sea with a look of such yearning and sadness it is unnerving. In 2008 when they found the wreck it was exactly in the direction she was looking. 

The metal dome is actually made up of birds, one for each soul lost. 

Next we spent a couple of hours in the museum. Had a tour of the shipwreck room. Very interesting.  We had lunch, did the shopping and then picked up the van. Fridge was fixed thankfully.  Heading north again. Stopped briefly at Lynton which was a convict hiring depot in second half of the nineteenth century. It is being restored. 

  Then it was the Pink Lake. The colour is due to a bacteria Dunaliella Salina, trapped in the salt granules; this provides a rich source of Beta Carotene which s harvested from small ponds. The water level was low and it was quite pink. 

Then as we approached Kalbarri we saw the most amazing cliffline at Eagle Gorge. 

It was this beautiful red from the setting sun.  We stayed until it was set. Still strange to see the sunset over the ocean!

 

Geoff at the next beach

It was dark by the time we got to our campsite in Kalbarri. It is soooo crowded here. And noisy. 

Port Dennison

As we were staying in the overflow area rather than in the caravan park there was no pressure to get packed up and gone so it was a more relaxed start to the day than usual. A bit concerned by the lack of accommodation here we thought we should book accommodation for the rest of the school holidays. As we are having trouble with the van fridge when it is on gas we will need to stay on powered sites until we get it fixed. It took us a while to get the next few days hooked up.  So it wasn't early when we got away today.  We drove for a while and then took a detour into the Lesueur National Park. Apparently It is a Laterite Landscape  The ancient sedimentary rocks of the Lesueur-Cockleshell Gully area have been distorted by a series of major faults and their surfaces partially laterised (a process of weathering that results in a crust of brown gravel). Drainage lines further dissect the country. Mount Lesueur itself, 2 million years old, a near-circular mesa that is a remnant of extensive erosion of the surrounding lateritic plain, is the area's highest feature. To the west lie sand dunes, swamps and low limestone ridges similar to those of the Swan Coastal Plain near Perth. Even now at this time of year there is an abundance of flowers. It must be just amazing in Spring. 

 

We did a few Km walk around Mt Lesueur. 

Great views over to the coast

We had lunch and then got back on the road. Geoff was determined to find a nice secluded beach for a swim but we went to three which had been recommended and each was covered with yukky brown sea grass. We haven't been very impressed so far with the beaches over here despite all the hype about them being beautiful and turquoise.