Stromatolites and stuff

We walked along the clay beach this morning.  We found a dead dugong, a few dead sea snakes, dead fish, dead crab, dead birds and a dead sheep with a little lamb hanging around.  Sort of a dead place to be really...

The wind has dropped off this morning, which makes it so much nicer to be outside.  The forecast was for the wind to pick up over the weekend, so we'll see how we survive at Francois Perron National Park down at the end of the cape that also has Monkey Mia.

We packed up with the usual frantic scramble, and had a final chat to Papa smurf.  He told us that the wind was very good at keeping away the flies.  That made Grant very happy. (Yes and the Mosquitoes which he said in summer with 45 degree temperatures make the place miserable – Grant)

After driving down the very corrugated 6km of road out to the highway, we crossed over and into the driveway of Yaringa station. they were all just gathering under their verandah for morning tea and were glad to hear about the sheep and the baby lamb.  it was probably their neighbour's, but they said they'd send someone down to get it.

Feeling much happier, we set off south.

A few hours later we filled up with fuel at the overlander roadhouse, and checked our emails and blog, then turned right and set off into the shark bay marine park.

A bit down the road we turned off to visit the old telegraph post of Hamelin.  We saw the old telegraph buildings, and walked past the flagpole that was used to direct the lighters (small ships) in from Dirk Hartog Island where they brought in supplies from bigger ships anchored there.  They then returned with wool and sandalwood from warehouses here.  There was also a shell block quarry, where they mined the cockle shells that had been compacted together into blocks to use for buildings.

In the shell block quarry

Thanks to Bruce who first alerted us to the very important marine life forms, the stromatolites, which are only found here in shark bay at Hamelin .  Apparently we are all related to these ocean critters that form rocks or mats at the edge of the ocean here.  The old horse and carts used to drive over them to load the lighters, but now we have a very nice board walk to walk on so we don't disturb these earliest of all life forms...not sure about that one.  The theory goes that they produced the oxygen that enabled us all to evolve.  Amazing that they're still here really.  We got a photo.

Stromatolites….

Driving on we passed Denham (Western most town in Australia) and Monkey Mia (where they feed the dolphins) and drove into the Francois Perron National Park.  There were lots of great signs about letting down the air pressure in your tyres to drive on the sandy tracks, and even two air pumps at the entrance for letting out the air in your tyres when you go in, and then putting it back in when you come out.  What service!

Letting down the tyres

We drove past the Homestead, through narrow sandy tracks with thick bushes either side.  Grant kept telling us all to watch for big tree stumps on either side of the track – it was a tight squeeze!  We made it into the Big Lagoon Campsite, where there was lots of nice soft, thick sand.  It took us over an hour to decide where to put the van, and then to try to get it there, because we kept getting bogged.  In the end we settled on the only campsite we could actually get into, and we're happy. (We had to drop to 15 psi tyre pressure to get out of the really soft sand - Grant)

Digging us out of the sand

It's very windy again, and apparently it's supposed to get worse tomorrow, so we'll see how we go.  We ate dinner inside tonight (which we'd cooked on the free gas BBQ that's here) as we kept getting  sand blown onto our plates.  It certainly feels like an adventure with weather like this.

 

We passed some more emus on the way in to Big Lagoon

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Vicki