Carnarvon, WA

From Denham to Carnarvon
12th to 16th July 2012

Leaving Denham at around 9.30 (instead of the planned 8.00am), we were driving along towards Shell Beach and Ah!  dear, forgot to put the big mirrors on again - Greg asked me to remind him to put them on at Shell Beach for the rest of the trip.

Arriving at Shell Beach, we left the vehicle and headed out to have a look at shells.....shells, and even more shells.

Greg is walking across shells which are estimated to be about 8 metres deep

And he has made it to the top of the shell hill *lol*

View from the top of the rise out into L'haridon Bay.



These are the cockles that make up the beach in close up.

Leaving Shell beach, we headed towards Hamelin Pool to see the Stromatolites here.
Ooops!  forgot to remind the driver to put the mirrors on the doors so he can see for the rest of the trip!!!!
 

 Yeah, yeah, I know, but sometimes it's fun to be a kid again!!!!!!

The Stromatolites are the largest and oldest living fossils in the world, and are colonies of micro-organisms that resemble the oldest and simplest forms oflife on earth around 3.5 million years ago.

So then we walked out along the board walk built to help keep the Stromatolites from being damaged.

(obviously very old, and no longer able to feel the water sweeping over them)

 These are much newer colonies though, being only around 3,000 years old.  These ones growing in Hamelin Pool because of the extreme salinity of the water, the occurrence of calcium bicarbonate and the limited circulation of the water.  Just like the ones we saw further south, they are very unique and these at Hamelin are completly different in appearance to the others we saw earlier in the month.

The marks you can see here were made by wagon wheels used to transport goods to and from the boats back when the boats dropped off or loaded supplies for the islands of the bay.










We had lunch at a spot overlooking the bay (almost exactly opposite Monkey Mia across the bay) at a place called Rememberance Rock Lookout.

 The tablet states that anyone is welcome to place a rememberance item/letter here,but to please not take any away!  It appears that this request is very nicely respected and the souls remembered here have a beautiful view out over the land from their memorial.

I believe it was around 3.15pm when Greg quietly mentioned that he had not read or heard anything about Carnarvon Gorge and was wondering whether it was near the town or a fair distance out.  (I quietly mentioned back to him that perhaps is was quite a distance out of Carnarvon since it was in Queensland and not Western Australia! or was it NSW?!!!!  Well, we know it definitely is not Northern Territory,  Tassie or Victoria *lol*)

We arrived in Carnarvon, found Carnarvon Caravan Park and settled the van in before having a quick look about to see where the supermarket and fuel depots were so we would be right for tomorrow ........