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Heres looking at you...
Look closer into her eye, what do you see? 3295km
After a brief stop at the Telecentre in Denham to upload the last blog, we headed on our way further south. We made a few stops before hitting the main highway again.
First was at a place called Eagle Bluff, a view point overlooking part of Shark Bay. We didnt see any eagles, neither did we see the suggested dugongs, sharks or dolphins. The dugong are apparently off towards the mouth of the bay where the water is warmer, cant blame them really, the water here is pretty chilly. There were plenty of sea grass meadows though, which are very attractive to them.
Next was Shell Beach. This is a long stretch of beach along the L'Haridon Bight in Shark Bay made up of 'coquina bivalve' shells several metres deep. Due to various factors, the sea there is higher in salt than normal and this high salinity has allowed this cockle (Cardiid Cockle Fragum Erugatum) to grow unchecked, with few if any natural predators. They have lived there for thousands of years, then washed ashore after death. There are billions of these small shells along the beach, and out
to sea. Over time, the shells compact to form a type of limestone they call Coquina. Blocks of this lime stone were mined and used for buildings in the area. Now that the area is part of the Shark Bay World Heritage Site, the blocks are only mined for repairs to those heritage buildings. The shells are collected, under license, for poultry feed (calcium) and fancy mulch for gardens. Our chooks would probably like the change from oyster shell grit!
The water looked so tempting! A brilliant aqua marine blue, with the white beach in front, beautiful! But we knew how cold the water was, and it just took the edge of it all 😊 We only had a brief stop as Marlyn was still complaining about the cold, even though sitting on the beach we were right out of the gentle breeze blowing. (Not sure why she's in Australia as she is constantly moaning about the weather, the flies or the cost of things, or our favourite - having to clean up after herself instead of the maid doing it!)
We also stopped at Hamelin Pools to have a look at the stromatolites. These rock like structures
are actually living creatures, primitive one-celled organisms called cyanobacteria (blue green algae) that grow through the sand and sediment, binding the particles together, increasing in size slowly, layer by layer, until they eventually do turn into rocks. The stromatolites at Hamelin Pool, one of the few places in the world where they still grow, have been linked to life on earth 3.5 billion years ago. Competition dramatically reduced stromatolite populations most places on earth about 500 million years ago, but the highly saline nature of the water here provided at natural haven for them. Some stromatolites are spongy mats (shallower water) and some are rocky towers (deeper water). Through photosynthesis, stromatolites produce carbohydrates from carbon dioxide and water, in the process liberating oxygen into the air. The cyanobacteria that build stromatolites first appeared when oxygen on earth was scarce. As the original colonies expanded, they released more and more oxygen into the atmosphere, eventually raising it to 20% of atmospheric gases, leading the way for air breathing life forms to develop. So in many ways, we owe our existence to these creatures.
There was a loop walk through a coquina quarry down to the shore and a board walk
over the stromatolites. We walked over and past the mats and towers, watching bubbles of oxygen rise out of the water, looking at the damage caused by wagon wheels many years ago (they grow so slowly that it will take hundreds more years for that damage to heal).
We made one more stop, apart from the usual toilet and driver change stops, before getting to Geraldton. But before that, we have an update on our furthest travelled without turning a corner. Our previous 30-40km was pretty lame, and we knew that, but we hadn't been measuring long. Our new record for straight driver is now 103km. Technically we did turn a few corners along this 103km as we pulled off into a rest stop to change drivers, but we're still counting the full 103km as a long, straight drive.
So, back to that last stop. After we had got to Kalbarri, I was flicking through the guidebook and found a brief and vague mention of some Aboriginal cave paintings off the road from Northampton to Kalbarri. Luckily they were at the Northampton end and we were going through Northampton on our way to Geraldton. So we made a
little detour. The guidebook we had was a little vague, and there were no signs on the road, but luckily we found a friendly farmer who was used to redirecting wayward tourists! Scrambling through long grass and between rocks - we made a lot of noise to warn the snakes we were coming! - we found a few overhangs in the rocks with paintings. We dont know how old they were, but we do know that they were added over many years or generations, with paintings overlapping one another. We could make out hand and boomerang "blow paintings" (sorry, dont know the proper name for these, but they are where you put your hand / boomerang / whatever item on the rock or paper and blow the paint over it), pictures of yams, boomerangs again, snakes and other things we couldn't identify. The paint was in natural shades of white, yellow, red and black. Pretty cool!
We had another CS host in Geraldton, a really friendly lady called Naomi and her dog Hazel. She had dinner ready for us when we got there - so welcoming! Its our turn tomorrow night...
Thursday 20th May 2010 - Geraldton 3340km
Quite a relaxing day with little driving, only the 15km into Geralton and back, and a little driving round some of the sights while in town. But first we parked up near the Western Australia Museum on a huge patch of semi converted waste ground. The WA museum was great! Heaps on the history, culture and biodiversity of the area, and a big exhibition of shipwrecks, focussing on the Batavia. We lost Marlyn here, she is not into museums and usually bails at the first opportunity (she doesnt know what she is missing, but I think we said that before!)
We also wandered round the old gaol, now looked after by a bunch of crafts people who have their stalls in the old cells, up to the HMAS Sydney memorial and to the cathedral. Meeting up with Marlyn again, we went to a small IGA supermarket for its Asian section. She wanted to cook something Indonesian for dinner, to go with the green salad we fancied. A slightly eclectic, fusion style dinner! In the end, we could have got everything cheaper in the bigger Woolworths or Coles in town as all she bought was a tin of spam,
some tofu, and a packet of chinese soup mix.
We've got to admit that Karens green salad was the best! The pasta salad was nice too, but maybe unnecessary, and the soup was ok. Or perhaps we are slightly biased, or spoilt with last nights "made from scratch" dinner and a packet soup didnt quite cut it. Anyway, we had a great night of conversation.
Friday 21st May 2010 - Geraldton --> Fremantle We only made one 'tourist' stop on our way back to Freo, at the monastic village of New Norcia. It is a community of Benedictine monks formed in 1847 but a Don Salvado. The buildings are in a Spanish style, although some of them made us think of a rural Oxford, but newer. There are old boarding schools, a church, mill, bakery, wine press, hotel, museum and of course the monastery. You cant go in most of the buildings, they are still occupied and used by the Benedictine monks, who are involved in many of the towns enterprises - olives, bread, wine and ale.
We bought some yummy fresh bread for lunch then had a walk round the town. There were some very
threatening black clouds on the horizon, the wet season is on its way. They didnt unleash anything on us, but did look promising for those needing rain.
It didnt take long to get to Perth from New Norcia, but it took ages to get through the rush hour traffic to drop Marlyn off at her boyfriends house. (Does she not realise the hypocrisy in her comments last night about the Indonesian women who take on white boyfriends?!) We made it back to Pauli's house minutes before he left for work. We did have a key to get in, and there were other couch surfers there, but it was good to catch up albeit briefly. The other CS couple, Dougie and Katey from Scotland, were really nice and we shared all sorts of stories throughout the evening. They have recently bought a 4WD to go travelling in, and we were discussing converting it and what kit they needed to carry. It has become a hope of ours over this trip to return when the little monster within is a bigger monster without and get a 4WD and explore. There have been a few places we would have liked to have
been able to get to over the past couple of weeks, but they were listed as for "real" 4WD only, not all wheel drive and certainly not dinky 2WD hire cars that we werent meant to take off the tar seal.
Saturday 22nd May 2010 - Freo --> home 3833km
Thats the total km we drove over the past 12 days. Doesnt really seem all that much now!
We dropped the car off first thing to a grumpy lady in the hire company office. Dont think she wanted to be there on a Saturday morning, and we think our car was the only pick up or drop off of the day. They shouldnt offer weekend hours if they are going to be that miserable!
We spent the morning in another museum, in many ways the best so far. It was the Shipwreck Galleries, an offshoot to the Western Australia Museum focusing, not surprisingly, on ship wrecks. The remains of the Batavia were there, reminiscent of a drier (and newer) Mary Rose, along with relics from many of the wrecks off the coast here in WA. Well worth a visit if you are in Freo.
They also have a steam engine from a ship that has been on the bottom of the ocean for at least 100 years. They raised the engine (and other bits and pieces), replaced a few rusty bolts, cleaned it up a bit, and now it turns over. It wont be long before they reckon they'll have it going again!
We had a late lunch in the old market then wandered round some second hand bookshops before heading "home" to Pauli's. We wanted to give him time to sleep as he was doing night shift last night. he was up when we got there, so we sat and chatted with him, Katey and another CS, Joelle from Luxembourg. The amazing host that he is, Pauli gave us a ride to the airport on his way to work. It meant that we were there in plenty of time, but better that than take the bus!
And that was that, the end to our shortest holiday for a while. We left full of plans and ideas for a return to Australia with more time and a camper of some kind, and full of good memories of what we had seen and
the people we had met.
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Annette Owens
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Hate to Go Home
You two have had such an experience - I know you hate to end it now!! What pics and gorgeous terrain. Thanks for sharing.