In The Beginning

there were stromatalites. These are the beginnings of life on this planet. These things are bacterial carpets but look incredibly like rocks. Believe it or not they introduced oxygen to the atmosphere and once upon a time there were a lot more of them – like 4 billion years ago or so….

We are at Hamelin Pool at the bottom of Shark Bay, far west coast just below Denham. Stromatalites exist in water that is beyond salty – nothing else survives. But, a little further up the coast molluscs survive the salt  in their billions – so much so that the entire beach is comprised of tiny shells….

Well these are the remains of molluscs that clearly didn’t survive and apparently the beach has a history of establishment over just some 8000 years. It is spectacular in a tiny way. These shells do appear on the beaches of other parts of the Shark Bay area but not to the extent that they make up the entire “beach” at Shell Beach.

Kalbarri was to be our next contact with nature. As we generally head south back to Perth we work our way down the coast and so Kalbarri National Park and Kalbarri township was in the way….

The National Park was once again quite stunning. I say “once again” as most of the parks through this trip have been spectacular. I never imagined we could get so excited about rocks – such natural beauty and intrigue.

Kalbarri itself is a pretty little seaside township, surrounded by parkland….

and some stunning landscapes…..

And then there were the wildflowers…

Then there was Prince Leonard and Prince Graham of the Principality of Hutt River. Prince Graham signed our visas but Prince Leonard (ret.) was our most illustrious host…

Princess Shirley passed away a couple of years ago so Jude offered to take her place but she was a bit too small for the chair, nor did she understand (nor did I for that matter) Prince Leonards mathematical formula for religion (I think it all boils down to 91 not 42). We didn’t buy his book on the subject. He was nonetheless bloody interesting, even more so for a 90 year old. We had our visas stamped and traded our Australian currency for Hutt Province paper money.

And then there were more wildflowers…

We parked up for a couple of nights in an out of the way campground with no power or water  cos we needed cheap…

but there was a great view if you could brave the wind and the flies.

On our continuing southbound trek we spotted a lake of different colours…

Around the Pink Lake which is a commercial source of beta-keratin a food colouring we travelled to Port Gregory, a nice little seaside shanty/holiday village…

with a very safe beach.

At this point we are just above Geraldton, about a days drive from Perth. We do want to see Geraldton so we found a “free camp” about 12 k out and then spent a day touring town. Nice town, quite a bit of interest….

A busy port handling iron ore, talcum, grain and miscellaneous other primary stuff, and a magnificent memorial to the sailors of HMAS Sydney II.

The old gaol and hospital are fantastic old buildings, as is the art deco 1935 build RSL hall…..

but, by and large it is just another seaport small city.

We are of course in WA at this time to experience the famous wildflowers so from Geraldton we decided to explore the wildflower trail that took us back inland. In also seemed appropriate to sus out some parts of the state that we weren’t necessarily planning to see at this time. So, tune in for the next edition of Tales when we elaborate on floral abundance (and other things).