Day 73: Carnarvon to Denham (Shark Bay)

 

After an enjoyable 2 nights at Wooramel River Retreat it was time to move on. Also the sky is looking a bit angry with a possible morning storm forecast, so we are happy to be moving South towards slightly more settled weather. Light rain is also forecast for Shark Bay.

It is the usual long straight roads, but now much more scenic as the wildflowers are beginning to bloom and there are carpets of predominantly yellow wildflowers on either side of the road. Patches of pink and purple also occasionally appeared.

Soon we were at Overlander Roadhouse, just past the turnoff to Shark Bay, but we needed a comfort stop and a coffee break. Once all of that was catered for, we tracked back to the turnoff and headed towards our destination, Denham. 

There are a few recommended sightseeing opportunities along the way and we opt to see them on the way into Denham, rather than making a special day trip back, or calling in on our way out of here. The first is Hamelin Pool, the site of stromatolites, microbialites and microbial mats.  Stromatolites are layered rock structures built by tiny microbes, primarily cyanobacteria, that are some of the earliest forms of life on Earth. Sadly when we walked down to the waterfront to view the Stromatolites, we discover that the boardwalk which goes out over the water allowing you to view them, is closed having been damaged by cyclones earlier this year.

A sign at the turn off would have saved a 5 km trip to see nothing.

Information boards invited us to enjoy the viewing from behind these barriers which was impossible

The damaged boardwalk

The Pied Cormorants had the best view of the Stromatolites

A bit disappointed we continued on our journey on to to the next stop, Shell Beach. This was quite amazing, a beach composed totally of tiny cockle shells. It is another amazing first for WA. It all revolves around the Fragum Cockle which able to sustain life in a saline environment that is one of the World's saltiest. They can survive in an environment where most other species can't, hence, without competition, they have multiplied unhindered by predators.

The beach is huge and amazingly firm under foot, covered by these very small cockles, which are up to 10 metres deep. It is a very different beach to a sand beach seeming a lot more stable and showing a lot of wave influence.

Shell Beach covers a big area at the bottom of the L'haridon Bight.

Salinity of the water here is roughly twice that of normal seawater.

The fence below that extends from the land right out into the bay was constructed to keep predators out of the conservation area. It has virtually eliminated foxes from the area and greatly reduced the feral cat population. The conservation area is massive covering 105,000 hectares.

This shelter is basically an information booth where much of the information on the origins of thgis beach is explained

The surface of the beach looks like this

There was a walk from the beach to a sea shell quarry, where previously the cockles were used to manufacture building blocks for construction. Whilst this is no longer practice the is a restaurant in Denham, made from these building blocks. We checked it out when we got to Denham.

We move on to Denham. There are lots of sirens and we see fire rescue vans and ambulances heading back towards the highway. We found out later that there had been a major accident, just South of Overland Roadhouse where we had coffee. The accident closed this major highway after what is reported as being a head on collision between a car and another towing a caravan. We have now heard there were 2 fatalities and 2 others in critical condition.

Denham is in our sights and only a short distance now, around 40 km, and are seeing some light rain, but just a drizzle. We arrive in town, which is very small, and find our caravan park which is close ton town. There is little space to park entering the park to register, but we squeeze in. It turns out the people ahead of us in the queue are travelling with another van which has to park in the street. The other participant, parked in the street, rushes in to register and jump the queue. I patiently waited until we got our site allocation, blocking their access. They gained no advantage by pushing in.

This place once again has very tight access sites. I am glad we don't have a 20 foot plus van.

Amazingly the substrate of all of the sites, is cockle shells like the ones on Shell Beach, for which there were strong penalties for removing shells from the beach.

Wedging our van into our site and doing a basic set up, we were ready for lunch so headed into town. The only option after 2 pm was the bakery, so we bought a pie and enjoyed it overlooking the water front.

It is a very attractive coastline with crystal clear water, and a couple of jetties where hopeful fishermen were out in the middle of the day, hoping to catch something. By the look of the squid ink stains all over the jetty maybe squid jigging at night could be more successful.

An old pearl lugger "Galla- Cuci" part of  the regions history and now owned by the WA Maritime Museum

The Old Pearler Restaurant in Denham was built from the Cockle Shells.

A visit to the visitors information centre left us with a pile of brochures and potential things to do in Shark Bay. We are off to a good start, as Shell Beach and Hamelin Pool are on the list.

The collection of wildflower photos also grew substantially today.