Last night was terrible, a huge storm hit just before 10PM and woke us up for quite a while. The camper and car were rocking from side to side with the powerful wind gusts. I am surprised the fly did not get ripped off, tear or fail in some way! The car got a wash on one side from the driving rain. Things quietened down for a while and then another not quite so violent storm hit us but we still thought the camper was going to get blown off the truck. Not happy about the weather we are getting below the Tropic of Capricorn….

We layed in for a bit today (7AM) and then got up and made sure everything was still attached to the camper. Breakfast and a good planning session made us realise we have jumped the gun a bit going south. We were a few days to early going south and we should have taken the time to go into Coral Bay and Quobba for a few nights. Ah well it’s our first trip and we didn’t really have a plan after the Kimberly anyway. Depending on where we end up after crossing WA we may have time to pop up to the Flingers Ranges that we skipped on the way up. We have at least another 5,000km to go what ever we do.

Rest of trip plan (except for 8 unknown days)

We toyed with the idea of back tracking to the Quobba blow holes but in the end we chose “moving forward”, heard that some where before…. We continued on our rough plan to visit Denham (Shark Bay) and see where that led us. Denham is a bit of a detour at 130Km each way off the highway. First stop was the Stromatalites at Hamelin Pools. Stromatalites are a micro organism that produce oxygen and with out them it is thought we would not exist as over 2 billion years the Stromatalites gradually increased the oxygen levels in the atmosphere so air breathing organisms could evolve. Unfortunately the wind was still blowing 30Kn and it was difficult to even stand on the viewing platform. Close by is the shell quarry where millions of these small shells have bonded together and they cut them out to make buildings due to the lack of timber in the area. The quarry is still used for the up keep of historic buildings in the area. Down the road a bit it is mined for shell grit and for cement. The shells are still deposited today so they are a renewable resource.

Stromatalites viewing platform

Shell quarry

Close up, you can see all the shells

While at the Stromatalites we came back to see the bus we have shadowed around the place. We have not see it for a while. She is Australian made and has an interesting history and is obviously well looked after. We grabbed the chance to take a few pics of it.

Reading the info sheet on the side

On the back

We finally arrived at the Denham visitors centre and enquired about sheltered camping as it was still blowing a gale here as well. The only sheltered area was on the beach at the very end of the Francois Peron national park but this involved lots of sand driving and a very soft beach entry and exit that put me off a bit. Looking at the weather at the visitors centre there was no way we could do anything for several more days anyway due to the wind so we moved on. On the way out we visited this great 200M viewing platform high on a cliff that looks down into the water where you can see sharks, rays and Dugons. Unfortunately today we could hardly stand up with the wind coming up the cliff and it was low tide as well. Denham had been a big detour to see some shells.

Blown away, jumper on!

Island was mined for Guanao that was more valuable than gold in the 1800’s

We headed back out the the highway and got as far as a free roadside stop about 160Km north of Kalbarri. Weather looks bad tonight with only a short respite tomorrow before it turns again. We will see what we can get in with the conditions as they are. One interesting thing we did today was cross the 26th parallel not once but three times, twice going south and once going north into Denham.

I have just put a jumper on for the first time I can remember since the first couple of weeks of the trip!!!!!!!!