Shark Bay
Shark Bay
After another night sleeping in the car, I got up early for the daily pelican feeding on Kalbarri beach. One problem, the pelicans didn’t show up. No I’m not kidding. After that laughable event, I headed North towards Shark Bay which is full of green-blue water, several strange geological phenomena’s and one place where you can get up close to the wild dolphins. The 350km drive up there was even more boring than the driving the day before, flatter and less vegetation for the most part.
A couple of the interesting sites in the shark bay area, the stromatolites (some very simple organism millions of years old thought to be one of the original forms of life, apparently) in Hamelin pool which is a very shallow part of the bay due to a large salt bar. I don’t know much about geology but these things looked pretty cool in the shallow, crystal clear water.
The next stop en-route was shell beach. Literally, a beach made up of tiny shells. There’s actually many of them in this region, but this one is actually called “shell beach” and hey, it’s not half impressive.
Then the day took a downwards twist, I got to my campground or, “resort” as they have named it. Before I continue I should add that this is absolutely in the middle of nowhere so at least it’s somewhere to camp with facilities (kind of). Unfortunately this place seems to have hit it’s prime a few decades ago, it’s rundown and not impressive in any regard. I wont use the ‘kitchen” and there’s no hot showers at the moment either… I’m blaming Easter, that’s why everywhere else is booked full. I didn’t even know when Easter was this year until a couple weeks ago, I have paid that little attention to calendars, they just aren’t relevant to hardly anything I do. Damn holidays getting in the way of my holiday!
I was going to spend the afternoon at the “resort”, but once I saw it I drove to Denham, the only actual town around shark bay. There I found a pay phone that took coins (omg!) since my phone has had no reception since Kalbarri and made a booking and some enquiries about the coming days. Then I practically ran to the beach (another one made up of shells) and went for a quick dip (it was another hot and humid day)before laying there on the beach for a while, something I have found myself doing more here on the West coast than anywhere before. Usually it’s been because there’s not much else to do, outside of Perth it really is remote. After that I headed off for fish and chips since my refusal to use the kitchen at my campground would have resulted in my eating a cold can of soup for dinner. The cafe I ended up at advertised wireless internet but I was told it couldn’t be used after 5pm. Normally, in most places, such a statement would have had me confused, angry and asking more questions. However this is Western Australia so I just plainly accepted it, frankly I didn’t expect to see any internet in this area at all.
It becomes painfully obvious out here in WA, how nice and easy being other places is. Having phones that work, internet access, supermarkets readily available and not having to constantly be thinking about making sure you have enough fuel to get to the next possible fueling station. So far, most of what I’ve seen out here has been secondary, stop along the way sort of attractions, the main reason I’m driving up North is to go to the Ningaloo reef near Exmouth. That’s not to say the stuff I’ve seen isn’t nice, but it’s not stuff I would normally go far out of my way to see. This is one area that seems overly hyped in lonely planet.
After dinner and the 50km drive back to my campsite I took a cold shower, lovely, drank some wine I picked up in the margaret river region, listened to some music and saw the nearly full moon rise. I’ve been listening to music a lot the last week or so, mainly as something to do while driving or laying on a beach. It’s nice, at times when I’ve been busier sight seeing I’ve missed the simple pleasure of my ipod. Of course that means I want to play a guitar now more than at any time on the trip so far…
Tags: Australia, Travel
Adam
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