Day 74 Denham

Today we drove to Denham in Shark Bay. Much of the distance we travelled was awash with white, purple and yellow wildflowers. When they are contrasted against the red soil it makes such a dramatic and beautiful scene, which is very welcome along these roads with little to see.

Shark Bay in Western Australia hosts the largest and one of the most diverse seagrass beds on Earth, covering roughly 4,000 square kilometres of the sea floor. It is home to the colossal Posidonia australis meadow—recognized as the world's largest individual plant clone stretching 180 km—and supports over 10,000 dugongs.

The hypersaline water here is twice as salty as normal seawater, which keeps predators away and lets the stromatolites thrive. The Stromatolites of Hamelin Pool at Hamelin Station Reserve may look like a cross between gigantic cauliflowers and rocks, but they're incredibly important as modern examples of the earliest known life forms on Earth. Stromatolites – Greek for ‘layered rock’ – are microbial reefs created by cyanobacteria (formerly known as blue-green algae).

Stromatolites are the reason why we’re alive today! Before cyanobacteria the air was only 1% oxygen. Then, for 2 billion years, photosynthesising Stromatolites pumped oxygen into the oceans (like underwater trees, before trees existed). When the oceans’ waters were saturated, oxygen was released into the air, and with around 20% of oxygen in the air, life was able to flourish and evolve. There are only two well-developed marine Stromatolite areas in the world: in the Bahamas and at Hamelin Pool in the Shark Bay area.

We stopped at a lookout on the only hill for as far as you could see.







We crossed the 26th Parallel which means we have left the North West behind.









Hamelin Pools to see the Stromatolites and the telegraph station was our next stop. Built in 1884, the station provided a vital link between Perth and Roebourne, until closure in the 1950s.







We had lunch at shell beach, a famous natural wonder in Western Australia's Shark Bay World Heritage Area. Instead of sand, the 70-to-100-kilometer shoreline is made of billions of tiny, white Fragum erugatum cockle shells, small burrowing mollusc, packed up to 10 meters deep. One of only two beaches in the world to be made entirely of shell.










Our last stop of the day was at Eagle Bluff Lookout. There is access to a boardwalk from which there are very nice views of the sheltered bay from which we were able to see 5 stingrays and a shark swimming in the clear turquoise waters.