Shell Beach, Shark Bay (Denham) WA

Another must see is Shell Beach which is very close to the Stromatolites in the Shark Bay Region (Denham).  The beach is exactly as its name - made completely of shells.  Billions and billions of them.  There is no sand…. just shelld.  Anyone who has chickens here in Australia will no doubt have unbeknownst come across shells that came from this very beach because they are packaged here and sold commerically as ’shell grit’ a substance readily fed to chickens to harden their egg shells.

The shells are from a type of Cockle and all of them seem to be exactly the same size and shape.  Reading the information board I find out that the shells I am standing on is up to 10 metres in depth.  We walk out into the water, which is very shallow, and walk for about 10 minutes.  The water is warm and there are shells…just shells everywhere.

Stromolites

The Stromatolites at Shark Bay (Denham) are a must see for anyone travelling up as far as Coral Bay.  Most people around the work, but even here in Western Australia, would not even have ever heard the word before let alone know what they are.

Stromatolites are ancient rock like formations that are almost as old as time.  They are formed in shallow, salty water where grains of sand and micro-organisms/algae come together to make what looks like lumps of road tar.  Stomatolites are used as fossil record and chart life on earth more than 3 billion years ago although most ‘modern’ stromatolites only date back millions of years.  WA has several areas where stromatolites have formed.  These ones are located in the Shark Bay Reserve (Denham) Region some 900kms north of Perth inland from the coast.  The area is protection and a wooden walk way has been built out into one of the sections so you can see them up close and take photos without desicrating them.  Like most natural ancient formations (such as limestone caves, staligtites etc) humans can kill of  and and all but destroy millions of years work by just a touch of their skin.  These unique formations were very strange and standing there looking out at them gave you quite an eerie feeling when you thought about how long they had stood there quietly as the world went by.

Coral Bay Camping Oct 2007

In August 2007 we managed a week without kids and Cliff and I decided to go camping North instead of South.  I have always wanted to see Ningaloo Reef, which is Australia’s only fringing reef (where the coral starts at the water’s edge) which is in the Indian Ocean at Coral Bay, 1125kms North of Perth.  You cross the “Tropic of Capricorn” about 50kms shy of Coral Bay and pass a sign stating the milestone.  We decided to do the long drive in two parts with an overnight stay after about 400kms in Geraldton before continuing on to the more arid section of the trip.

Wedge Tail eagle eerie

1125kms is a LONG drive in anyone’s language particularly was the only scenery for most of this is long expanses of dead flat red earth, low scrub and the occasional tree.  Not the usual type of trees we see in Perth however, but scrubby looking specimens about as tall as a man.  Consequently the huge Wedge Tail Eagles in the area have to utilise any high perch they can manage to find and it was quite hilarious seeing an eerie on every old telegraph pole - just a haphazard pile of sticks plonked on top!

I have fond memories of the first time we camped ‘out bush’ far from water and electricity (about 8 years ago) and the shocked look on one of the girls faces when on asking where the toilet was Cliff handed her a small shovel a roll of toilet paper and pointed to the scrub!

I imagine making a journey of this length to be quite horendous with young kids with continuous toilet stops and chants of “are we there yet?”.  Without the kids we had great fun chatting, watching the scenery, spotting wildlife in the scrub, dodging roadkill, and our 10 hour drive was only dampened by the fact that the temperature was in the late 30’s and our 4WD’s air conditioner that broke down just one hour in.  The only man-made landmarks (other than occasion wire farm fences) during the trip were a couple of petrol station spaced about 500kms apart.  We were kept amused by continuous big groups of white, black and rough looking feral goats most with a bunch of kids in tow.  They must be as tough as nails because there is no water for hundreds of kilometres in this area, no grass or usual goat fodder but rather just scratchy, dry looking bushes.  The goats were all fat and healthy and obviously were thriving on this diet.

Glass-bottomed boat, Coral Bay

We arrived at Coral Bay around midday and made camp under a group of sheoks (the tallest trees we’d seen in 1000kms).   Amazingly there was a thin covering of grass giving the feeling of ‘coolness’ in such a hot, sandy place.  The Bay was beautiful (and like most of WA’s beaches) the sand is clean and white and the shallow water of the bay giving a blue/emerald glint in the sun.  We wore a short wetsuit while snorkelling as we find that, even though the water is warm on world standards, that your body gets cold after a few hours.  I’d seen photos and pictures of the reef so I had expected lots of bright colours.  In reality we found that the reef was very neutral in colour although the fish were just as brilliant as we had expected.  Being a fringe reef the coral started right at the edge of the water and you lost time as you snorkelled along the expanse looking for nooks and crannies where there were sea stars and

Looking through the glass bottom!

other strange looking water creatures.  We had been told that one side of the bay was a nursery for sharks and that huge “Green turtles” were currently breeding in the area and that they were best seen by boat as they were mostly on the outer reefs where the water was a little deeper.  We decided to take a trip on the resident glass bottomed boat.  We walked up the ramp and sat on one of the bench seats that were either side of the glassed area.  We headed out to the deeper water with a young guy on top negotiating his way through the higher sections of reef that reach up almost to the water surface.  It was quite amazing looking through the glass directly down onto the reef.  The water was crystal clear and you could easily see the bright reef fish and also schools of big fish that followed underneath the boat.  The boat guide said that when we stopped later one of them would use a brush to clean the underside of the boat and the fish would eat the bits of alge that came off.  We saw quite a few huge, slow, beautiful green turtles and they seemed totally unfraid of the boat even when we hovered above them.

When we reached an outer section of the reef where there were deep areas of water between towering coral formations we put our snorkel gear on spent half an hour swimming around with the fish and diving down trying to make it to the sandy sections between the rocks and coral.  We were glad for our wet suits as the water was quite cold lapping over the edge of the reef.