MULLEWA, MORAWA - DONGARA/PORT DENISON

It turned out that there were no (at least very few) wildflowers around Mullewa, evidently due to lack of rain, but Mullewa did have a very nice, well equipped caravan park.  A fellow camper had spent the day searching the countryside around for flowers, especially the rare wreath flower, so he was able to give us precise directions to their location.  Next day, with van in tow, we headed south towards Morawa.  The further south we went, the more flowers and flowering shrubs there were, though people who had witnessed the displays previously said they were nowhere near as extensive as usual.

Eventually, we located the site of the wreath flowers, but the flies were so thick, they made taking photos difficult.  They were the small, sticky flies that like to smother your skin and invade every facial orifice.  An American couple pulled up and they had the sense to be wearing head nets.  We haven't used ours so far on this trip but I should have got them out for the viewing of the wreath flowers.

Because it was so hot, we decided to return to the coast and set up camp at the beach at Port Denison.   The next morning dawned cool, overcast and the gale returned - wouldn't you know it?

We've both just read David Marr's Quarterly Essay about Tony Abbott and we thought it objective, fair and reasonable.  It actually improved my opinion of the Mad Monk, perhaps because it gave me a multidimensional and nuanced picture of the man; it made him seem more human.  So it was surprising to hear Dennis Shanahan's quite hysterical reaction, which the ABC have been playing over and over.  It's interesting to observe how our biases/prejudices influence our perceptions.

Before we left Geraldton we were lucky to have the oppotunity to visit a replica of the Dutch ship Duyfken - lucky because it had arrived in Geraldton two days early, probably blown in by those winds.  I reckon WA has enough wind to power half the globe, the other half could be supplied with solar power from WA's sunshine, but I digress. The Duyfken is credited with being the first recorded European ship to land on Australian shores, at the Gulf of Carpentaria in 1606.  What a tiny ship to be sailing the world's oceans!



Replica of Batavia's longboat which was sailed to Jakarta and back to rescue survivors


DONGARA / PORT DENISON

I liked Dongara; it didn't have the seedy look of some of the towns further north.  Dongara has a number of attractive old buildings made from a type of limestone.  The main street is lined with huge, old Moreton Bay figs.  Local volunteers have done a good job of creating and maintaining the museum, housed in the old police station/lock up/court house.

We were camped by the ocean at the sister town of Port Denison:

During our first night there, a storm rolled in from the Indian Ocean and we copped quite a bit of rain as well as the usual strong wind.  It's on occasions like that when we appreciate being snug and dry in the caravan.

A drive north took us to the historic village of Greenough (pronounced Grenuff) where many old buldings - churches, halls, homes, gaol and a school - have been preserved and are open to public viewing.

School

Inside the school

In the dock

Wind blown tree



KALBARRI

Leaving the highway and turning east towards the coast and Kalbarri, we were pleasantly surprised to see green rolling hills - more like Gippsland than what we've seen of WA so far. Sheep in some paddocks and crops (wheat and canola) in others.  Nearing Kalbarri, we were amazed by the sheer quantity of flowering shrubs lining the road.

Kalbarri

In Kalbarri National Park we trudged around a number of gorges - all spectacular - carved out by the Murchison River over previous eons.  In the park, again the wildflowers were prolific, though the banksias had finished.  I took lots of photos of shrubs and plants, but it's impossible to capture the sheer scale of the efflorescence.  As Eric said, if he hadn't seen it, he wouldn't have believed it. 

The next day was overcast and much cooler and we had the scenic cliffs of the coast to explore.  Several whales could be seen blowing offshore.  And, of course, there were the ever present flowering shrubs.

A number of Dutch East India Company ships, including the Batavia, came to grief on reefs along these shores in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries.  The latest edition of the local newspaper reports the discovery of another wreck.  Divers are hoping to recover chests of silver coins, though this may be an optimistic notion.  It may be more likely that the coins have been scattered far and wide over the past three hundred years.

French explorers were also active along these shores, hence the number of French names of geographic features - Cape Leveque, Francois Peron National Park and many more down south.

One thing they have plenty of on this coast is wind.  Not gentle zephyrs either, but gusty full strength blows. We have seen a few windmills.  Coral Bay had four and there were a number at Kalbarri.  Driving south to Geraldton, we battled a head wind from the south.  Today the wind has swung around and is blowing just as vigorously from the north.

South of Kalbarri on the outskirts of Port Gregory, and just before the turnoff to Prince Leonard's Hutt Province, is the Pink Lake, "a naturally occurring phenomenon that occurs when algae 'blooms' and produces beta carotene – a pigment that has become a lucrative aquaculture crop."

 

After a couple of days in Geraldton (I can get Classic FM - civilization), we'll head inland and follow the wildflower trail through Mullewa, Pindar and Mingenew before returning to the coast.

CORAL COAST, WA

WA's Coral Coast seems to extend from Perth, or at least Cervantes, to Exmouth, a distance in excess of one thousand kilometres.

CORAL BAY

South of Exmouth is the small tourist village of Coral Bay, consisting of a couple of caravan parks, a resort and a few shops, strung along a road running parallel to the beach.  Its main attraction is the closeness of Ningaloo Reef to the shore.  Cross the road and you are on the beach.  A short distance from the shore is the reef, different from the Great Barrier Reef, but still amazing.



Coral Bay

 Photos of the reef through a glass bottomed boat:

CARNARVON

Claimed to be where the central desert meets the sea, Carnarvon was a place to stock up with supplies and get some chores done. Carnarvon is situated on the Gascoyne River which appears to be dry but the water is located under the sandy river bed.

Waiting for me at the Post Office was a box of books from Readings - very exciting as there hadn't been a book shop since Broome.

'One Mile Jetty', Carnarvon (now less than one mile)

OTC dish

The Overseas Telecommunicatios Dish, now decommissioned, played a role in the US's space program including the Apollo landing on the moon.

A drive north to Quobba Point to see the blowholes produced the added bonus of a pod of whales frolicking and breaching offshore.  Wild flowers lined the road.



Salt lake on way to Quobba Point

View of plain from lighthouse

Quobba blowhole

CARNARVON TO SHARK BAY

Where the desert meets the sea

 Lookout off highway south of Carnarvn

HAMELIN POOL

The further south we travelled, the greater the profusion of wildflowers.  Carpets of daisies, sometimes yellow, sometimes white or pink lined the road and into the surrounding area as far as I could see.  My head was on a swivel as we barrelled down the highway, but as Eric was towing the van, we didn't stop for photos. 

After turning west off the highway towards Shark Bay, we overnighted at Hamelin Pool to see the stromatolites.   These look like lumps of rock but are actually an ancient form of life created by colonies of cyanobacteria (a single-celled microbe).  They are credited with having a major role in the production of oxygen and hence the creation of Earth's atmosphere.  The world's other significant site of living stromatolites is in the Bahamas.



Stromatolites - living rock

Carpet of stromatolite

Hamelin Pool also features an old coquina quarry.  Coquina is cockle shells bound togethere with calcium carbonate.  In the early days coquina was used as a building material.

North of Hamelin Pool is Shell Beach

DENHAM

A pretty, small coastal town devoted entirely to tourism, but windy.  Evidently 'blows' are frequent on this coast.  We had two nights of battering when 'strong winds' were forecast.  We were glad they weren't talking about gale force, but you could have fooled us.




View from our camp site



Denham is the closest access point to Cape Peron in Francois Peron National Park, a one and a half hour four wheel drive along a narrow, sandy, somewhat corrugated track.  But what a fantastic place - absolutely gorgeous - and flowers everywhere.  From a lookout we saw two turtles, a shark and a manta ray.



The road



The cape

MONKEY MIA

From Denham we crossed the peninsula to Monkey Mia on the eastern side (much more sheltered from the wind) so that we could watch the dolphins being fed at 8 o'clock in the morning.