Blogs from Denham, Western Australia, Australia, Oceania

To arrive in Denham you need to travel 128 kilometres to the coast from the Northwest Highway. Quite a long journey but worthwhile when the ocean begins to appear on either side of you. Lots of Emus to view and the odd Kangaroo. Denham or Shark Bay as most people know it, is a sleepy fishing village with just a pub, some boutique shops, a couple of caravan parks and a spectacular bay view. Yes, its main industry is fishing and there are about 200 or so locals. The big attraction is fishing and the Dolphins at Monkey Mia about 30 Kilometres up the road. Our spot in the caravan park was right on the beach and I had my first turn at backing in the caravan. A little stressful yes, but the park manager was ... read more

Shark Bay (Denham) and Monkey Mia were our next destinations stopping at the amazing Shell Beach on the way. 150 kilometres of shells (sand) and beautiful blue water. Once again stunning scenery. Riding and walking along the foreshore here kept us interested as there was always an amazing catch at the state of the art fish filleting benches. We saw a dugong just near the pier and this set the scene for our trip over to Monkey Mia. Arrived here early in the morning and at first we thought we would be only seeing/feeding a mother dolphin and baby but patience came through and we ended up watching about 7 or 8 play in the shallows throughout the morning. This also included a lovely buffet breakfast in the resort overlooking the beach. A beautiful day! Carnarvon ... read more

Geo: -25.9279, 113.534On the way to Denham (population 800) we took a detour to visit the Hamelin Pool which is a large shallow bay containing thousands of Stromatolites. They are some primitive life form which apparently scientists say helped create earth by increasing oxygen levels. They take hundreds of years to grow and you can still see the wagon tracks through them from when the farmers loaded wool onto ships.We pulled into Denham to find we had one of the best sights in the park (we thought so). Great view and large site with minimal traffic. What more could we ask for. Day one saw us out and about to view the local sights. We went to Eagle Bluff where you can see manta rays, sharks, dugongs, sea turtles etc. but like the camels in the ... read more

Geo: -25.9279, 113.534One of the charms we've noted about Australia is that the country, perhaps because of geographic isolation, seems somewhat behind the times (with the exception of their prices which are 20 years ahead of anyone elses). There can be a 70's and 80's feel to the place- there's probably too many men wearing the short shorts (I didn't know you could even buy those iconic three stripe Addidas shorts anymore) and Speedo's are worn without shame, neon orange and green clothing is something of a must-have closet item, mom-and-pop stores, cafes, and restaurants greatly outnumber the chain and big box stores (with the same uncompetitive pricing that set the table for the chain and box stores in North America). You half expect the Village People to show up wearing Crocodile Dundee gear and singing ... read more

Another picture postcard day in Denham. Blue cloudless skies, turquise water and so quiet. Overnight is still getting quite cool, or if you were to ask Sandy cold. With the clear mornings comes moisture on the tent which has a habit of dripping on the outside floor of the tent, which after a whilestarts sounding like a drum. Maybe this is the Denham water torture rather than the Chinese water torture ;). This morning saw the departure of Debbie and Steve who have headed for Carnarvon to seek professionalsad advice from a qualified autelectrician. Steve has a booking for 8:00 tomorrow morning. Hopefully they will get to the bottom of their flat caravan batteries and maybe even work out where Toyota have hidden the fog light relays. Today has been a very cruisy day for Sandy ... read more