Sat 3 Sep 2011 Denham to Kalbarri



0930 (14099 km) Had breakfast of toast. Left Denham.
1000 (14100 km) Filled up.

Shell Beach made up of tiny cockle shells < 1cm

1045 (14146 km) Shell Beach. The entire beach was made of tiny white shells. It was blindingly white. We had to go back to the car to get sunnies for everyone. The shells are from the 'coquina bivalve' who can survive the hypersalinity of the water in the area. Over time, rainwater and pressure glue and compact the shells below into hard rock-like blocks that are quarried.

At the very white Shell Beach




At the boardwalk above the stromatolites

1200 (14209) Hamelin Pool. We had a walk around the Telegraph Station. We went on the walk and saw the quarry where they used to cut blocks out of the rock hard shells and the blocks are used as building blocks for the buildings in the area. They used a cross cut saw to cut blocks to shape.

Further along we saw the stromatolites. They weren't particularly exciting to look at - just blobs of rock that look a bit slimy. They are from an ancient cyanobacteria that have been credited to be the first organisms which released life-giving oxygen into the air and thus life as we know it today exists. They are thought to have been in existence for 3.5 billion years, way before dinosaurs. These actual Stromatolites are probably about 3,000 years old. The stromatolites have a mascot, Stumpy, who looks like a stump. He explains the evolution of stromatolites and why they are found around Hamelin Pool on all the signs. The hypersalinity does not affect the bacteria but it deters the predators so the bacteria is safe. Had lunch of Ritz, tuna, creamed corn and chicken.



1345 (14209 km) Left Hamelin Pool.
1630 (14460 km) Hawk's Head, Kalbarri National Park. There was an interesting rock in the middle of the river. Assume that was Hawk's Head.
1700 (14464 km) Ross Graham. Saw some beautiful ring necked parrots. There were also kangaroos across the river. As boys do, the kids started building dams across the river.
1800 (14504 km) Kalbarri. Murchison Caravan Park. Site 33.
1940 (14506 km) Fishing at the marina. MJ caught an undersized Tarwhine. MH caught an undersized Mulloway, so had to throw them back.

Fri 2 Sep 2011 Denham

Very windy at Eagle Bluff
1045 (14046 km) Had toast for breakfast. Left Denham for a drive.
1115 (14071 km) Eagle Bluff. It was very windy. And I mean windy. The kids were at risk of being blown off. At some parts of the boardwalk, it was actually difficult to walk against the wind. We could see sharks in the water. Wonder if they were affected by the wind. Drove to Denham Lookout. Nothing much. Went to Blue Lagoon Pearls and bought the Water Cleanser. We will see how well it works when we get home.
1145 (14097 km) Caravan park. Had toasted sandwiches and pasta for lunch. It was very windy. The washing got dried quite quickly. Had a quiet afternoon. Returned the hermit crabs to the beach.
1800 (14097 km) Had salmon mornay and MH's Tarwhine for dinner. Yummy fresh fish.
2000 (14098 km) It was still very windy but we went to the jetty to see if we could fish again. Unfortunately, it was very windy at the jetty and water was very choppy. Other people that were fishing there were packing up and leaving, so we didn't fish.
2015 (14099 km) Caravan park.

Thu 1 Sep 2011 Denham

0740 (13988 km) Breakfast of toast. Left to go to Monkey Mia again - about 2o minutes drive away.
0800 (14015 km) Monkey Mia. Saw dolphins come in again, but only 1 got fed today. . We watched a movie - Dolphins, The Wild Side. It showed how dolphins were not always the friendly, playful mammal in the general view. They are really intelligent predators that will do whatever it takes to get a feed.
1030 (14015 km) Went on Aristocat 2 boat cruise. Went to Blue Lagoon Pearl Farm on a floating pontoon. They demonstrated how a pearl was seeded. We were also shown the other interesting shapes, like a heart shape, dolphins, jewelry, etc. and how they were made. We were also introduced to a water cleanser product that was used on the farm. Looks interesting and it could be used in the turtle pond back home.

A shy docile dugong coming up for a breath

1200 (14015 km) Left the pearl farm. Saw dolphins and they were swimming with the catamaran boat, one on each side. Quite impressive how they just keep in front of the boat. Saw a turtle floating on the surface and when it saw us, it dived under. Then we got to the dugong area where all the sea grass grew. There were a few dugongs in the area including a mother and her calf. The Shark Bay area houses about a tenth of the world's populaiton of all dugongs. Had sandwiches for lunch.


1245 (14015 km) On the way back, we went boom netting. We sat in a net on the back on the boat and the boat sped along, washing us in the net. Woo hoo!
1340 (14015 km) Left Monkey Mia.

Anyone seen curly fettucine before?

1400 (14038 km) Little Lagoon. More shells to collect. Had a quick look at the four power windmills. It generated 40% of Denham's power. Went to Visitor Centre and the kids played in the playground.

1515 (14044 km) Caravan park. Had early dinner of Curly Fettucine Bolognaise.




Ming Han's fishy
1900 (14045 km) Fishing at the jetty. We could see lots of fish and squid and even a sea star in the clear water. We saw a multitude of marine life that were caught by the various people on the jetty - fish, squid, shovel nosed ray, sea snake, stingray. MH caught a Tarwhine (silver bream) and it was legal size so we kept it for dinner the next night. Went to one of the many fish cleaning stations on the beach to clean the fish.

2100 (14046 km) Caravan park.

Wed 31 Aug 2011 Denham


0830 (13932 km) Had toast and Nutri Grain for breakfast. Left Denham to go to Monkey Mia.
0900 (13960 km) Monkey Mia. Saw the dolphins come in and the rangers gave a spiel on the dolphins. Only five specific female dolphins are fed, and only fed a snack - 4 local fish, about a quarter of daily diet. There were three main families that came to the beach. The Puck family, Nicki family and Surprise family. Puck and Nicki got fed but Surprise didn't come in for a feed.

Dolphins arriving at the beach
Coming up close
1130 (13960 km) Kids had fn playing in the sand. Had lunch of Ritz, Cruskits, creamed corn and tuna.
1245 (13960 km) Left Monkey Mia.
1315 (13988 km) Caravan park. Walked on the beach. Lots of shells and hermit crabs. The kids collected lots of hermit crabs and were allowed to keep them for the next 2 days while we were in Denham. The crabs had to be returned to the water when we left.
1800 (13988 km) Had rice and chicken for dinner.

Tue 30 Aug 2011 Coral Bay to Denham

0900 (13342 km) Had toast, nutri grain and muesli for breakfast. Went to buy photos of Manta Ray Tour.
0945 (13342 km) Left Coral Bay.
1230 (13585 km) Carnarvon. Went shopping.
1330 (13585 km) Bought lunch at Chicken Treat. Used the chicken carcass to go crabbing. However, instead of catching crabs, we caught fish in the net instead! Caught four fish and threw them all back since they were fairly small.
1500 (13593 km) Checked out the Seafood Factory. Small coral prawns were $7 a kilo.
1515 (13593 km) Left Carnarvon.
1530 (13600 km) Filled up.
1845 (13932 km) Denham. Site 145. Had chicken burger for dinner.

Mon 29 Aug 2011 Coral Bay

0830 (13342 km) Had toast and muesli for breakfast. Then got ready and packed to go for the Manta Ray Cruise. We brought some boxes with all our swimming gear, snorkels, fins, wet suits, dry clothes, etc. There was a lot to take. Got on the bus with 13 others (some divers, some snorkellers) and went to the jetty to get onto the boat. As we were going out to the reef, we saw two turtles mating. When they saw us, they quickly ceased their amorous session and promptly disappeared beneath the waves.
1000 (13342 km) The first stop was Asho's Gap. It was 11 metres deep at 23 degrees Celsius. Good thing we had wet suits. We swam to the reef and there was a gap. We swam through the gap single file. On the other side, on a large cabbage coral were sharks! It was a Reef Shark Cleaning Station. Reef sharks would sit on the coral and wrasse fish would clean them. Fortunately, the reef shark did not have humans on their menu. They are generally harmless to humans unless provoked. A bit further along the reef was a cave and in that cave lived a grey nurse shark. We were told we might have to dive down to look into the cave. Luckily for us, the shark decided to come out of the cave and had a swim outside so we could all have a good look. The following were in the area on that dive:
  • Grey nurse shark
  • Goat fish
  • Lizard fish
  • White tip reef shark
  • Flutemouth
  • Scorpion fish
  • Clarke's anemone fish
  • Gold spot trevally
  • Spangled emperor
  • Blue green chromis
  • Cabbage coral
  • Staghorn coral
At the end of the reef snorkel, we all warmed up with hot cordial.
1130 (13342 km) The spotter plane found a dugong, we saw it come up for air a few times. Then the plane found a manta ray for us to swim with. Since there were so many of us, we went in groups. It was magnificent to see the manta ray swimming around. The water was quite deep, about 7 metres and there was some murkiness so it wasn't totally clear but we definitely saw the manta ray and swam along with it.
1230 (13342 km) The spotter plane also found a whale. We went up to it and saw it was a mother humpback whale with its calf. Amazing! As we were watching, a large white shadow emerged from the depths and when it broke the surface, we saw that it was another humpback whale. We speculated that it was probably the father. It is marvellous to see these large mammals swimming, spouting, spy hopping (poking the head above the water to spy on surrounding area) and diving.
1330 (13342 km) Had lunch of "make your own" sandwiches.

Ming Kim and Chi Keen during the snorkel to Lottie's Lagoon

1430 (13342 km) As we boated to the second reef dive, we saw some turtles in the turtle sanctuary. In the second reef dive at Lottie's Lagoon, we actually saw a few turtles swimming around the reef. It was about 10 metres at 23 degrees Celsius. The reef wall was quite fascinating, it had lots of different corals and lots of marine life. There was even a four legged sea star. The area had the following:
    
  • Christmas tree worms
  • Giant clam
  • Clarke's anemone fish
  • Sail fish
  • Cat fish
  • Green moray
  • Flutemouth
  • Nudibranch
  • Lagoon ray
  • Fantail ray
  • White eyed moray eel
  • Stripey catfish
  • Gold spot trevally
  • Sea star
  • Green turtle

1615 (13342 km) Returned to caravan park.
1730 (13342 km) Went to find the photographer from the cruise to have a look at  the photos she took on the dive. On the way there, we saw a very tame bungarra (sand goanna) that lived behind the fridge of her place. We were very impressed with the huge reptile calmly walking in front of us as it crossed the backyard, totally ignoring us.
1800 (13342 km) Had dinner of Indomie, cous cous and meat balls.

Sun 28 Aug 2011 Coral Bay

Collected from the beach off the sanctuary,
so unfortunately couldn't add these to our shell collection,
so instead adding them to the photo collection
0930 (13329 km) Breakfast of toast. Went for a walk noth along the beach of Bill Bay to were the Reef Shark Nursery was. We climbed up the sand dunes to have a better look. Definitely saw a stingray. Possibly saw some young reef shark but we couldn't really be sure since the water was quite choppy.
1200 (13329 km) Bought some pies for lunch - yummy!
1300 (13329 km) Left caravan park to go check out some turtles that some people we past had mentioned seeing and fishing.
1330 (13336 km) Drove to Maud's Landing and drove along a very soft, sandy beach to Point Maud to see turtles. We had to walk for a bit and still couldn't see any turtles. So we went back to the car and guess what. The car was stuck in the sand! Oh! Oh! We got everyone to dig out some sand and try again. Still stuck, so took all excess gear out of the boot. Still no luck. Then, HM suggested we push the car. So, HM drove and MK and CK pushed. Moved a bit. Then we got MJ and MH to also push the car. With the four of us pushing, we finally got the car out of the sandy patch and away we went. Whew!
1530 (13342 km) Too late to go fishing so we were back to caravan park for fish feeding. MJ and MH got given some fish food to feed the fish. The fish really go crazy with the food. Amongst the Spangled Emperor, there were also Parrot Fish and Zebra Fish. HM & MJ snorkelled in the fish feeding area while it was on. Went for a snorkel after feeding the fish. MJ & MH getting more confident - not needing the noodle anymore.
1800 (13342 km) Had dinner of sausage casserole with mashed potatoes and cous cous.