Hamelin station to Port Gregory

Day 172

Pack up and leave the station and head north along the Shark bay world heritage drive. Only a short drive and we pull into Hamelin pool and jump out excited by the prospect of seeing the world’s oldest living organisms, ‘Stromatolites’.

These living rocks have been around for about 3.5 billion years and for 2 billion years (give or take) were the only life forms on earth. They quietly capture carbon dioxide and burp out oxygen and singlehandedly managed to raise the oxygen levels in the atmosphere to about 20%, which allowed more complex organisms (you and me included) to develop.

We were understandably excited and raced down the beach to the boardwalk.

Not exactly much to look at and with the sun beating down (and the flies having a field day) we quickly walked around staring hard at them waiting for something to happen which of course it didn’t. I guess you don’t survive for over 3 billion years by showing off! But As Bill Bryson says ‘it’s not the sight of them but the idea of them which is exciting’.

Next stop along the coast is shell bay, where literally millions of tiny cockle shells are washed up to create a beach of sorts, up to 10 metres deep in places (Apparently they grind up the shells and feed them to chickens to make their egg shells hard!) Not really much to do here but have a sit and start counting. I think we got to about 54 before the wind got too much and we headed back to Polly to continue.

Arrive in Denham which is the most westerly town in Australia. The most westerly point is further up the coast but is 4WD only and in retrospect our most westerly point would have been at the blowholes and point Quobba a few days ago! Basically Denham is just a stop for people heading further up the coast to Francois Peron National Park and Monkey Mia (and the famous dolphins), there are a few shops and a pub and what looked to be a thriving fishing industry but there was nowhere to buy fresh fish and even the supermarket only had the frozen and crumbed kind!

We did our shopping and drove on to Monkey Mia and arrived at the entrance to the park. Now we both had expected that our National Parks pass would actually allow us entry into the National parks but oh no, it seems the government have realised there is money to be made here and so we had to pay for a day pass to get in!

Checked into the resort (camp site) and were actually quite lucky with our site. A beach front site is $50/night and were all exposed to the wind and sun but we were one row back (shaded by the trees) and only had to pay $37. Set up and turned in for an early night so that we could be up early for the dolphin feeding first thing.

Day 173

Up early and straight down to the beach to see the famous dolphin feeding. Dolphins have been coming to the beach every day since the early 60’s and in those days you could buy a bucket of fish and feed them to your heart’s content. Nowadays of course they have realised that this is probably not a good idea for wild dolphins and the feeding is strictly controlled. So you all line up along the shore and the ranger (plus helpers) come out and pick out a few lucky punters to feed the dolphins half a dozen fish each. As soon as we arrive you can see them all swimming about in the water looking hungry and the ranger duly comes out and gives you a sort of safety briefing (No going in the water, no touching etc) before the helpers appear with the buckets of fish.

There must be 7 or 8 of them there and even a little baby one there with its mum and when the buckets appear they come right up to the shore and some of them even start posing (a hangup from the old days apparently).  

Carmen gets picked out as one of the lucky feeders, wades out and puts the little fish in the dolphins mouth, which it takes very nicely (leaving all fingers intact).

Once all of the fish have been eaten the dolphins head back into the deeper water for a bit, but not for too long as they get up to 3 feeds every morning. We hang about on the beach for 10 minutes or so and they come back again for their second go. We all get the same briefing again and stand on the beach watching as the lucky few present the dolphins with their fish. The rangers know the individual dolphins and have given them names (Carmen fed Nicky). We hang around again and sure enough after 10 minutes or so they come back for their final feed.

In the afternoon we decide to go for a swim and a snorkel in the sea and as luck would have it the dolphins are still hanging about and do a semi-circle right past us to have a look (they probably recognised Carmen from feeding this morning)! The snorkelling is not really any good but I guess we have been spoilt by spending a week on the reef which would have been hard to top.

Day 174

Time to leave monkey Mia but call into the National Park proper for a look, it’s mostly 4WD and so not accessible by us but we get to the ‘heritage precinct’ and station homestead and stop for a look at the historic sheep shearing buildings (rubbish) and have a paddle in the 40deg artesian hot tub.

The whole park is part of ‘Project Eden’, in which they are trying to eradicate feral animals and reintroduce the native animals. This area is on a peninsular and at the narrowest point they have built a fence and have set up speakers playing the sound of barking dogs to scare off the feral dogs and foxes and it appears to be working.

Call in at Denham (more backtracking) again to pick up some supplies and head back up the world heritage drive to spend another night at Hamelin station.

Day 175

Time to head further south and no sooner have we set off than we manage to hit 2 birds in first 2 minutes! Stop for fuel and check but luckily they haven’t left any mess on Polly and so we continue carefully on.

Head along the highway for a few hours (and a few hundred kilometres) and turn off through Kalbarri national park to Kalbarri, a lovely sleepy little fishing village on the Murchison river mouth.

Set up in a great little spot overlooking the river and have a walk around the bay to the ocean and call in at the local pub for a drink on the way home.

View from our lounge

Day 176

Up in the morning and jump on the bikes (it’s been a while) and along the cycle path to the southern beaches. Stop at a few beaches along the way, which all seem to be sheltered by an offshore rock shelf but the foreshore is also rocky and so we don’t attempt a swim.

Come to the end of the line and a surf beach with a healthy looking point break. As we get closer though the surf is huge and most of the surfers who are attempting it have helmets on so I think this is probably not the time to show off my skills and leave it to the locals instead (Plus I didn’t want to show them up on their home turf).

Head back and spend the afternoon relaxing around the campsite and enjoying watching the world go by.

Day 177

Head back out through Kalbarri National Park and stop to admire all of the wild flowers which the park is famous for. Even though we are at the end of the season there are still hundreds of them in bloom in a rainbow of beautiful colours and we spend a happy few hours strolling through meadows of pinks, yellows and oranges.

A bit of a side track and we find ourselves in another country! The Principality of Hutt river seceded from Australia on 21^st April 1970. Basically Prince Leonard, a wheat farmer wasn’t happy with the governments’ quotas at the time and so decided to make his farm into a principality!

As we arrive HRH prince Leonard himself, an 80 something year old man comes out to greet us and gives us a guided tour of his principality. Consisting of Government offices, a post office, an interdenominational church and some farm buildings It’s not much and has never been officially recognised by the government (interestingly it has by the tax department) but he really is king of his castle! (www.principality-hutt-river.com)

Royal roller

One of the sons (another prince) appears and before I know it I have been roped into work helping him bail up some sheeps wool! It takes us just over an hour to do 2 bails and although I am knackered by the end of it I am always happy to help out a royal where I can (My dad will be proud) and he even gives me $20 for it.

We go back to Prince Leonard and get our Visa for the day and even get some money exchanged before heading off back into Australia to continue our journey.

Down a pretty good gravel road for what seems like ages (about 50KM) and we thankfully hit the tarmac again and come across the ‘Pink Lake’. Coloured by very high levels of Beta carotene (the stuff in carrots) the lake really does appear bright pink when the sun hits it.

Around the back of the lake is the tiny village of Port Gregory, with a shop and a caravan park there’s not much else to it but with we check in and stroll down to the charming beach with its calm waters protected by an offshore rock shelf and enjoy an evening stroll.

Day 178

Woke up to another beautiful day and decide to go for a stroll along the beach. Plenty of people fishing off the beach and as we walk along people seem to be catching fish left, right and centre so head back to the van to get the rods out.

Set up the tackle and it’s back down to the beach to try our luck with a range of lures. Just as we pick our spot the people next to us hook a huge fish and encouraged by this we tentatively cast in.

2 hours later and not one bite we decide enough is enough and head back to the van, slightly disheartened.

As soon as we do get back the campsite owner approaches us and tells us that some people are booked into our site for the weekend and we will have to move! More than slightly annoyed (they had told us to park where we like when we arrived) we throw everything into the van, leave the pop-top up and the solar blankets on and drive through the campsite to another spot on a grassed area where we spend the rest of the afternoon reading and relaxing.