Up before dawn this morning to catch the sunrise at the waterhole. Lovely colours and lots of birds.
We then headed off to Hamlin Pool and the Stromatolites. As mentioned before, the Stromalites are not as spectacular to look at as the Thrombolites at Lake Clifton but they are still amazing. Stromatolites – Greek for ‘layered rock’ – are microbial reefs created by cyanobacteria (also known as blue-green algae. That in itself is pretty amazing when you think of the trouble blue-green algae causes in our part of the world - and elsewhere for that matter). Stromatolite deposits are formed by sediment trapping and binding, and/or by precipitation activities of the microbial communities. The microbes are active on the surface layer of the Stromatolites, while the underlying build-up is a lithified remnant of former microbial surface communities, that could be interpreted as a trace-fossil. These deposits built up very slowly: a single 1m structure may be 2,000 to 3,000 years old. But the tiny microbes that make up modern Stromatolites are similar to the organism that existed 3.5 billion years ago! Considering that the Earth itself has only been around for 4.5 billion years, and that Homo sapiens have only been on Earth for 195,000 years that's pretty amazing. What’s more, Stromatolites are the reason we’re alive today! Before cyanobacteria the air was only 1% oxygen. Then, for 2 billion years, our photosynthesising Stromatolites pumped oxygen into the oceans (like underwater trees, before trees existed). When the oceans’ waters were saturated, oxygen was released into the air, and with around 20% of oxygen in the air, life was able to flourish and evolve. Even today you can see Stromatolites ‘fizzing’ underwater, releasing oxygen.
There's still a lot of water lying around from the storm the other night. The roadside stop welcoming us to Shark Bay was flooded. Apparently, they had a lot more rain here than we had at Hutt River. One of the caravan parks had one of its terraced areas collapse and the Francois Peron National Park and Edel Land and Steep Point have been closed. Hope that changes in the next couple of days.
Next Stop was Shell Beach. More Shark Bay Cockle. This beautiful snow-white beach is made up of millions of the tiny shells - up to 10 metres deep and stretching for over 70 kilometres. There is no sand, only shells! Shell Beach is one of only a handful of places on earth where shells replace beach sand in such a dramatic and picturesque way. The walk on Shell Beach is like no other.
A little further on, about 18km south of Denham, we called into Eagle Bluff. Eagle Bluff features a spectacularly high cliff that overlooks the Denham Sound. A pretty amazing boardwalk has been built along the cliff face with breathtaking views out across the water. If you're lucky you can apparently see dugongs feeding on the massive seagrass meadows below. We saw schools of fish and a couple of sharks but no dugongs. We're booked in for a cruise out of Monkey Mia this evening and in the morning. Hopefully, we will have more luck then.
On arriving at Denham we booked into our caravan park. We don't like crowded Caravan Parks but we did need somewhere safe for the camper while we did some exploring of the area.
Off to Monkey Mia for the sunset cruise on the "Shotover" A spectacular sunset and a nice relaxing cruise out into the bay. Saw some dolphins but no dugongs.
The sunset even hung around for the drive back from Monkey Mia to Denham.
