Roadtrip 2009 - Denham

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On our third day of roadtrip we decided to stop in Denham, which is only half an hour down the road from Monkey Mia. Our thinking was that I'd be able to have a day off from driving and when we left on day four we would be closer to getting back onto the Great North Western Highway.

Denham is the main town in Shark Bay, but it is very small, and pretty much all along one stretch of road. There wasn't really much to do in Denham itself so we headed out for the day to various lookout points and places of interest in the area.

Our first stop was Hamelin Pool, which is a marine nature reserve and is one of the few places in the world where you can see living Stromatolites. It also is home to the historic Hamelin Pool Telegraph station. To be honest we weren't really impressed with Hamlin Pool, it sounds much nicer than it actually is. The area where the Telegraph Station is located also has a shop and post office but nothing really of interest. The stromatolites were slightly better, a pier had been built so that you can walk out over them and get a really good view. Stromotalites are basically layers of micro-organisms and are thousands of years old, but at the end of the day they just looked like a load of rocks to me and if I was in Denham again I don't think I would bother doing the 1.5 hour drive to get to them.

After leaving the Stromatolites we went to Nanga Bay. There was nothing really much here except for a motel, and a white sandy bay offering views back across to Denham. The one thing that made it worth visiting was that unlike the beaches of Denham or Monkey Mia, Nanga Bay was deserted.

The final place we visited whilst in Denham was Shell Beach. This was stunning and definately worth the drive. The beach is over 100 kms long and as the name suggests, is made entirely from shells. Apparantly there is only one other beach like it in the world. Because of the amount of shells, it was so white and clean looking, and the water was also crystal clear and dead calm. What made it even more magical was that even though the beach stretches for miles, we were the only ones on it.

In hindsight I think we probably would have been better staying in Monkey Mia another day as there was more to do there and we didn't really save on any driving. I would definately recommend that people visit Shell Beach, but would suggest doing it on the way back from Monkey Mia.

Total Distance Travelled = 1093 kms

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