When in Roam

Shell Beach Shell beach, as the name suggests is a beach of shells, not sand. It looks like pristine white sand, like all the other WA beaches but it is billions of tiny white cockle shells. Apparently the shells are up to 10m deep in places. It happens in this area of Hamelin Pool because of very high salinity levels in the sea water making it uninhabitable for any of the cockles natural predators to survive. So naturally, they flourish. Billions and billions of tiny white cockle shells, pretty impressive.  Shell Beach. Hamelin Pool Hamlin Pool was something we drove past on the way to Denham but we decided to pull in there on the way back past as we were heading back towards the North West Coastal Highway. We were very glad we did call in to see it too. The Stromatolites are a creature that looks a bit like coral and have been around for 3500 million years, well outdating any complex life on earth. Hamelin Pool's Stromatolites are one of the biggest known col...

The bulk of driving was done over two days. Free camping south of Carnarvon. Monkey Mia was also just an afternoon drive from Denham one day. Learmonth Operation Potshot memorial was quite interesting. Lots of interesting WWII history from Learmonth.  The Learmonth Jetty is also a popular fishing spot. The wind prevented us from bothering with it but a few other people were there and trying their luck.  Coral Bay Coral Bay didn't do much for us, an amazing place as far as the beaches and water go. Just too touristy for us. We drove in, looked around for a fishing spot, didn't find much so we moved on. The boat ramp and marina area look fantastic but there is a no fishing zone.  Carnarvon We got into Carnarvon late in the day. We wanted to find a place to fish but there was a gale blowing and couldn't find anywhere to get out of the wind enough. We grabbed some take away for dinner, fuelled up the two hunj and skipped town. We made it about 30kms out...

 Our lunch break on the Exmouth Gulf was pretty amazing. Would make a great free camp spot, ~15kms south of Exmouth. The big prawn at Exmouth, WA. Well, we had 3 nights in Exmouth at the Big4/RAC caravan park. We spent a day and a half in the Cape Range National Park and Ningaloo Reef World Heritage Area snorkelling, taking photos and sight seeing. It is fantastic. It is about a 30 minutes drive from Exmouth around the tip of the cape around to the National Park Entrance. Along the way you can see the military antenna installation, Vlaming Head Lighthouse and lookout with the old WWII radar installation and the wreckage of the SS Mildura which hit the reef at the north end of the cape in 1907, 3 years later the lighthouse was built.  We hired snorkelling equipment from the Exmouth Visitors Centre, it was $10 per day per person which was pretty good value I think, and saves us buying cheap stuff and then having to find room to carry it with us.  A...

While we were in Karratha went out to the Burrup Peninsula to check out some of the ancient aboriginal petroglyphs (rock carvings). The Burrup Peninsula and Murujuga National Park were amazing. Both of us were completely blown away at the sheer number of art pieces scattered all over the mountains of loose rock. It is believed that there is between 50,000 and 100,000 individual petroglyphs on the Burrup Peninsula. Some of these art pieces are believed to be between 25,000 and 30,000 years old dating all the way up to about the 1860's. Some sort of small animal, probably now extinct.   I believe these are Emu footprints, but I am most likely incorrect.  One of our marsupial friends. Because the petroglyphs are so old, some of the animals that are depicted in them are now extinct. The best case of this is the thylacine or "Tasmanian Tiger" that is clearly drawn in petroglyphs at Burrup. We will be going back to try to find one of the tigers as we don...