Another windy day today, but I was planning on heading to Monkey Mia to feed some dolphins. I actually quite liked Carnarvon, a smallish town but it had a nice climate and it looked interesting for things to do. Two things against it though, the water tasted crap, not as bad as Mt.Isa but not nice and the wind was hellishly strong. The locals say the normal westerly stops in March, not good for coastal fishing! While at the campsite I had met a Ulysses couple who are still making their way home from the Townsville AGM, this is Jill and Keith riding a BMW 1200RT with full trailer. They are not planning on being home until it warms up in Sydney in December, way to go 🙂

Off I head south and as you can see I have to do a U-turn and head back north after a while, but there are things to stop and see on the way

I did not get far at all before I had to pull over and put the waterproof liner in my jacket, the wind was strong and quite cool. The first place to visit was the Hamelin Pool, this is a telegraph station on the coast and there is a bit of a museum and a different type of quarry

As you can see in the last photo, the blocks are made up from shells that have stuck together like concrete after the calcium carbonate dissolves out during rain and acts like glue. Even the wild flowers like the shells

Then it was onto the boardwalk to see these STROM atolites

They have built a boardwalk to stop the damage to them. They were rediscovered in the 60s and thought to have been extinct for millions of years. They are a bacteria type thing so they are alive and grow very slowly in the protected salty waters in different ways, they are strange.

Then off down the road a short way is another stop, this one is called shell beach, it is made up these tiny cockle shells that are constantly being washed up onto the beach. So, they mine the shells and sell them for chook grit to harden the egg shells, it is a renewable industry.

Next stop on the way was on the west side and it is called Eagle Bluff, a dirt road leads in but it is very well maintained and fast, road bikes would have no worries here

This is a sandy beach being formed. The dark water areas are full of seagrass which filter sediment and sand etc. As it does so it builds up and up until the grass is exposed and dies leaving the beach behind. The light areas near shore are very shallow waters on sand and grit.

Just off the coast is Eagle Is, which is slowly being restored after the guano miners back in the early part of last century cleared the whole Island off.

And a bit of nice coastline

I got into Monkey Mia in the middle of the afternoon and quickly set up camp and looked around. The Monkey Bar was closed due to the liquor act and the only other option was the restaurant, which was very expensive. By late afternoon and having seen a DVD of dolphins in the visitor centre I went back to my tent where I found the wind had changed around and was now coming from the east, this meant the tent was more exposed. I spotted this spider braving the wind and building a web between two trees, I wonder how long it will last?

I lazed around until it started to rain and got very cold all of a sudden, it must have been the cold desert breeze, and anyway, I holed up in the tent and read a book. I had to break out extra coverings during the night, it was cold, brrrrr!! I can’t believe just last week I could not sleep because I was sweating, go figure and the week before suffered from heat stroke, I hope frostbite is not on the cards next week! 😉

Day – 385km
Trip – 10,536km
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