Thurs. 13th Sept., 2012 - Carnarvon to Denham

The wind had dropped to a gentle breeze as we set off for Denham just after 8am., a journey of about 340km.  We'd heard that the terrain between Carnarvon & Denham would be devoid of anything of much interest & this turned out to be the case, as the land stretched ahead of us, flat & covered with scrubby bush.  Just seeing an occasional sheep, cow or crow, was a major event!  Anything more than that created real excitement.  A few wild goats & a large emu with two little ones, were the highlights of the journey.  Even the vegetation gave up the ghost in some areas & we began to see a lot of bare patches.

We crossed the 26th Parallel, which took us out of the north-west.  As we left the Shire of Carnarvon & entered that of Shark Bay, some wild flowers & flowering bushes began to appear, heralding what I hoped would be masses more as we moved further south.

At the turning towards Denham, we commenced a World Heritage Drive into Shark Bay, which sounded very promising.  We were really looking forward to exploring this area.

Our first stop was at the site of the shell walls, where blocks of solid shell were once cut & used as building material.  Apparently, the shells had been washed into the bay & trapped there for thousands of years, finally becoming compacted together in a solid form.

Shell Wall

From there, we moved on to look at the stromatolites, which are living fossils that are 2,000 years old, but similar to organisms that existed 3,500 billion years ago.  They didn't seem very "lively", nor were they particularly sensational in appearance, but it was incredible to realise that we were looking at such very early forms of life (I guess we'd all be a bit jaded, had we been around for that long!)

Stromatolites

We also saw an historic telegraph site & an old post office - what a remote spot for the early settlers to have lived in (the grave of a 7 month old baby boy hinted at the hardship they endured).  However, boats did arrive to transport wool & some pearling took place, so it may have been busier than we imagined.



Old Post Office



Hamelin Pool



Denham proved to be charming, having an attractive beach front, lined with palms.  Our caravan park was at the far end of the town & we were delighted to be allocated a spot at the park's highest level.  For the first time, we had nothing behind us to block our view & were able to lie in bed, looking at the ocean & the boats.  Our lofty position was windy, but worth it for the lovely outlook.

Denham

Having settled in, we called at the Visitor Centre, had a look at the town & went to the supermarket where we met the couple from the caravan next to ours.

Denham has two buildings made entirely from the compacted shell material that we'd seen earlier - one is a church, which we haven't seen yet, & the other is a restaurant, where we booked a meal for the evening.

The Old Pearler Restaurant

What a good thing we'd booked a dinner table, as people were turned away later, when the restaurant was full.  It was a quaint little place - cosy, friendly & welcoming.  Our food was superb - Bob had Surf & Turf & I had Red Emperor Fish (the catch of the day), which was to die for - fresh & succulent!  We chatted away to a pleasant couple next to us & had a very good evening.