North to Shark Bay

We were happy to head out of Geraldton and for the first time head north and not have to retrace our steps. There are beautiful places all along the coast and the trick is to decide which ones you are going to see. Kalbarri is very unusual with cliffs and wild seas that would have been very unwelcoming to the Dutch sailors almost 400 years ago. While we were there we saw a humpback and calf swimming very close to the shore. They were playing together with the associated tail slapping and jumps. The whales are as happy on this coast as they are on ours. Good to know.

Natural Bridge

Island stack

The wild winds mean that the vegetation is small and very resilient

Further north the coastline changed and we saw the start of the beautiful bays that we continued to see right along the coast.

The Kalbarri National Park has the mighty Murchison River running through it - this gorge was at the Ross Graham Lookout

Entering into the Shark Bay World Heritage Area our first sight of the unusual were these stromatolites - these living things are built up by single celled organisms - cynobacteria - which are a very primitive form of life dating back 3.5 billion years. They flourish here because the saltiness of the bay restricts the number of predators they have. This particular group are over 3000 years old.

Little fish live between their shapes

The wool wagons in ther early days were dragged over them to load onto a lighter which then sailed 3km out to sea to reload onto the ships to go south - the wheel ruts are still there after 60 years.

Shell Beach - this was made up of tiny white bivalve molluscs - the shells were over 5m deep in parts.

More of the beach, the beautiful bays and the pristine water

They even use the shells for building as the calcium cabonate exuded from the shells binds then together to make great blocks

In Denham - main town in the area - these boats used to drag up pearl bearing clams in the early days here - we have just read Shark Bay Days so were in tune with how things used to be

Little Lagoon - a breeding ground for many of the fish that abound here

More beautiful bays

We love the sun setting into the ocan so strange for us

We didn't think we would see Denham again after we drove out of it but along the track back to the highway we stopped at a lookout and saw some people we had been talking to earlier were stuck as their car had broken down . So after some manoeuvring we towed them out of the area and then the 40km back to Denham so they could be repaired. Such nice people. We are heading inland to Karijini National Park. We know it is another beautiful place and we may just escape the wind