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.

Cape Range National Park to Hamelin station

Day 167

We had only planned on staying a couple of nights but a week later it is time to pack up and bid a fond farewell to Ned’s campground. Head into Exmouth for a brief stop to do some shopping and hit the road south. A long 200KM later and we arrive in the picturesque town of Coral bay with its 2 campsites, a pub, a shop and a beautiful beach.

Coral bay lies on the southern end of the Ningaloo marine park and so shares the same reef as we have been snorkelling on for the past week. After setting up it’s time to put some washing on and try as we might (We didn’t try too hard) the washing machine will not take our money but proceeded to wash our clothes anyway (Bonus!).

With our new found wealth ($3) we decide to blow it all on a beer at the pub and as we all know the best tasting beer is the free stuff!

Straight into ‘Coral bay Eco tours’ and book our places on a boat for tomorrow to go swimming with the manta rays. Coral bay is one of the few lucky places in the world where the manta rays come to breed so you are almost guaranteed to see them and we are both excited at the prospect.

High with anticipation we decide to fulfil another dream and head next door for a Fish and chip supper, only to have those dreams shattered with a tiny piece of fish and overcooked chips (it was still pretty nice).

Day 168

Up and out early for our ship sails at 8.30am, well it was supposed to but by the time we have all been kitted out with our gear and the bus has arrived and taken us all to the jetty it must be gone 10 o’clock by the time we hoist anchor and set sail (it wasn’t a sailing boat BTW).

First stop is an introductory snorkel on the outer reef and the first thing that strikes us as we dive off the boat is the huge range of different coral, lots more types than we have seen before, truly a coral garden.

As we paddle around amazed by the diversity of the living coral beneath us Carmen spots a turtle swimming around and so we do our best to follow him for a while before he gets bored of us and motors off into the deep blue.

Back aboard and after a warming cup of tea it’s time to find the manta rays. You would think we would just sail about for a while in the hope of seeing one but oh no this is more like a military operation. The spotter plane soars overhead and we get the coordinates of at least one ray and so (with the aid of GPS) set off. It’s not long and we have found him and then it’s all hands on deck and we are all getting back into our gear as quickly as possible and are in the water before you know it.

We swim along beside him (her actually) and you get pretty close to them and can duck dive down even closer. It’s a size as well, probably 3 or 4 metres across and it is amazing to see it gently flapping its wings.

As with the turtles they don’t mind or else they would be off and we all take it in turns to swim about with her and after a while another one comes along which is apparently a male (longer tail) and is probably hoping for some mating action! She is having none of it though and the male swims off.

After a spot of lunch it’s off tour third snorkelling site back over the reef and another chance to be amazed by the range of different corals and fish.

It all seems to be over far too quickly and we are motoring back to the shore before we know it, cold, tired and hungry but amazed at what we have seen today and money well spent.

Day 169

After a bit of a sleep in (tiring all this snorkelling) time for some more washing and this time not only is it free but the last person to use it has left their 3 dollars in the machine so we are actually getting paid for doing our washing now!

Head down and set up for a day on the beach and some more snorkelling. The coral is just as impressive and even though the wind gets up in the afternoon to near cyclone proportions (maybe) we have a lovely, relaxing day and even bump into some of our neighbours from Ned’s.

Day 170

Time to pack up and move on and a couple of hours drive south we leave the highway and head back to the coast to see the blowholes. This is where the sea forces itself up through holes in the rock and shoots up into the air. The wind certainly hasn’t died down and if anything is stronger than before and the coastline here is rugged and a bit scary and there is even a sign telling you that ‘king waves kill’ (certainly not getting the surfboard out here then).

Just around the corner however is the sheltered ‘blowholes beach’ and a (basic) campsite which resembles a deserted fishing village with lots of little rundown shacks (apparently privately owned as holiday homes). We pay our camping fees ($5.50) and park up right on the edge of the dunes before taking a stroll along the beach to Point Quobba and an area known as ‘the aquarium’.

I don the snorkel and mask and as soon as you are in you can see where it gets its name from. Hundreds of fish swim around in the rocks and the shore is littered with more clam shells than we have ever seen in one place.

Back at the van and whilst Carmen has a snooze I decide to take a stroll up the hill to have a look at the lighthouse. I say ‘stroll’ but by the time I am up there it has turned into more of a route march through the wind and soft sand. 

It’s a pretty good lighthouse though and from this vantage point you can see miles along the coast and back down to the point we were at earlier.

Thankfully the return journey is much easier and we settle in for a windy night in the van (so windy that we end up sleeping with the pop top down!).

Day 171

A short drive away is the home of the ‘lunchbox banana’, Carnarvon. Something like (and don’t quote me here) 70% of the winter fresh fruit and vegetables in Western Australia come from this region and so we both thought that this might be the place to do a bit of casual work and earn ourselves a bit of pocket money. We have a good look around town only to find it’s not quite harvest time and there isn’t really any work available and in fact all of the notices we saw were people advertising that they were available for work. Cutting our losses (it was actually a relief as we are not quite ready for work yet) we do some shopping and head off towards the Shark bay world heritage and monkey Mia.

Not wanting to drive too far we decide to stop short of our next town and pull in for our fist station stay at Hamelin station for the night. For the European readers out there (I know there are one or two) a station is basically a big farm and this one is in fact half a million acres and is home to 60,000 head (plus the bodies) of sheep! Now I thought this was pretty big but apparently this is a small one and the neighbouring station is three times the size!

As if to prove it is a working station not long after we set up we hear the sound of pounding hooves and a herd of cows run past being mustered by rugged looking men on motorbikes.

The set up here is great though with a brand new amenities block and a full kitchen complete with pots, pans and cutlery (and an oven) at your disposal and we can’ t believe we haven’t stayed at one before (there have been plenty of opportunities). We make full use of the kitchen and cook a beautiful lamb curry for dinner and vow to stop by here again on our way back past.