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Today only a short trip to Geraldton, the only city on Western Australia's centre coast. But before that, we visit the beach north of the town Port Denison. We wondered at the sea side camping why nobody was in the sea and the sea was rather brown. Then we saw the reason: brown river water made the blue ocean murky. On the horizon you could see the blue ocean.

The weather was very nice ad windy. Around Geraldton there are many lying trees, which look to be blown in one direction by the prevailing winds.

Today Mariska was for the first time in a swimming pool. It was not exactly warm water, but Mariska had great fun. We had special swimming pool baby nappies, they were very handy After taking the pictures, we left the camera case but no problem, next morning it was at the office. That was nice as the expensive spare battery of the Nikon was in the case. Nice people, Australians!

Today's trip is again only 162 km and Kalbarri is the destination. But first we visit the Western Australian Museum. A stunning, modern museum with enormous amount of well presented information about geology, paleontology, biology, history, the Aboriginals and much more. You come short in time to acquire all that information. A major part of the exhibitions goes about the Batavia, a Dutch ship en route to Batavia, now Jakarta, which was wrecked against the Abroholhos coral islands. The story is long and complex. Tragedy was the mutiny, after which 125 men, women and children were murdered. This tragedy cast a light on a dark episode of Dutch history, with all elements as heroism, treason hope and fear in place.

It was difficult to leave the Museum but en route the landscape varied from dry plains, rolling terrain with b bizarre forms and the plants were ever stranger. We even saw plants which completely of thorns consisted.

Slowly it became dryer ad we even passed salt lakes with a distinct rose color, cause by micro organisms.

The landscape changed continuously and we drove slowly not to miss anything. We visited the prison of 1853, it was left again 3 years later due to the harsh local conditions.

Upon approaching Kalbarri, the landscape changed again. It looked like an easy rolling terrain covered with low coastal shrubs, but at sea it changed in huge cliffs. Hard, 480 million year old sand stone was eroded by the sea till impressive cliffs and even in the form of an arch. The upper layer of the cliffs was younger and softer sandstone of 60 million years old. It eroded visibly faster.

Kalbarri was a small holiday resort wit all the facilities. When we made a walk through the village, we noted that it has lots of modern facilities for tourists and it was really a centre of tourism.

During the morning run I went to see and saw an extraordinary phenomenon: the murky water of the Murchison River flowing in the clear Indian Ocean. It has a sharp boundary between brown river water and clear ocean water. For some reasons it was unique. First of all the Murchison river was normally dry in summer and it was full of water now. But it has been dry for a long time here. The reason is that the Murchison river and its branches, drain an area of more than 80.000 square. km, more than The Netherlands, Belgium and Luxembourg together. Somewhere in this big area it must have rained recently and then the river fills suddenly. Never camp in a dry riverbed: someday a wall of water will come thundering in, even when you are in sunny weather. Many early settlers were drowned this way.

The sharp boundary between river and ocean water is due to the strong southerly wind, which causes the upper layer of the water flowing North. Normally the water flows South and that is unique in the world. All The other continents on the Southern hemisphere have on their west side a northerly flow. For Western Australia means that no nutrient rich water is flowing in, so a very limited fishery industry can be sustained, incomparable to the millions of tons of fish landed from Africa and South America. It concentrates on lobster, here called crawfish. It has other consequences as well: the reefs extend far south. Even the Australian south coast has -much to my surprise- reef building corals.

We try to surf and the only place looks the Jake point. When we are there we see lots of high waves, but reefs as well and no surfers. Probably too dangerous, and we do want to try it out. The waves break in reef and you may wreck the board and yourself. Later we will have more chances or surfing, hopefully as Carnavon seems to be good.

Today we plan a short trip of 162 kms, to somewhere along the road to Shark Bay, First we visit the Kalbarri National Park. It has 2 nice lookouts over Gorges, cut out by the Murchison river. The first look out over a layer of 480 million years old sandstone covered by younger, softer stone of only 80 million years. The lookout was fully wheelchair accessible, so you did not have the feeling to do a real Livingstone type discovery. The second lookout required a more challenging walk, over lose boulders. Not easy with a baby.

After the trip to the Gorges we set course direction Shark Bay.

The landscape changed continuously, bet we declared it uninteresting. It was very interesting of course, but if you like to see everything you will never arrive at destination. So sometimes you just have to carry on, even if it is tempting to stop for interesting things.

Of course we always make a study of our next destination. But Shark Bay puzzles us. Lots of stories about friendly dolphins, sea turtles, shells and sea weed, but no reference to sharks. Is the movie Jaws still not forgotten? If you are on Monkey Mia, when you are booked in, you get a warning about sharks.

We stay the night in Billabong, a roadhouse, the area full of flies. They become ever more aggressive and we now have to wear our mosquito head net. It is really a paradise for people who like flies.

It is hotter and hotter. We drive only with the air-conditioning , which gets the temperature down to a comfortable 35ºC. We avoid being outside and as soon as we are hooked upon the power, the air conditioning is running on full power. Every time we have left the campervan a few flies sneak in and it cost usually half an hour till the last is killed. We do not like to see the flies on Mariska.

Next day we leave for Shark Bay. En route we visit Hamelin Bay where the famous living stromatolites are visible in the sea shore. Before we reach the beach we see a shell stone quarry and the tools to form them. On the beach there are huge layers of shells. The calcium carbonate in the shells is dissolved by carbon dioxide in water and crystallizes out in the form of crystals in deeper layers. This glues the shells to a solid but light type of stone which was used by the early settlers for building houses. In the quarry it was cut out in big blocks.

We get lots of information about stromatolites. They were discovered only in 1954 and considered living fossils. Everywhere on the world stromatolites fossils can be found, but world-wide they survived alive only at 2 tiny locations in Australia, we have seen them both. They reigned 3000 million years in this world, supplying the atmosphere with the 20% oxygen we presently have. In sunny weather you can see the oxygen bubbles from the stromatolites. Further they have formed enormous amounts of stone-type material, which have been transformed in various kinds of rocks. The stromatolites in fact paved the way to other organisms and they were the victims of their own success, as they could not compete with other organisms, their descendants and the other species for which they have created the circumstances to be able to live. Only in two tiny spots on the world they could survive; here in Australia we were lucky o see them and who knows, they will once again conquer the world in a distant future. In Hamelin Bay various kinds of stromatolites could be identified. They could survive here as the sea water is extreme salt, so few other organisms can survive here. About 100 km away there is a barrier with small canals, which effectively shuts of the bay. The water evaporates and the remaining sea water becomes more salt and the stromatolites were able to adapt. and survive other creatures. The stromatolites are a world-wide top attraction and of high scientific value, but few people take the opportunity to see them. The stromatolites here are all more than 3000 years old and the many fossils remaining here as well are much older, dating from the Ice Age. Some have strange red color. They are on higher level of the coast. The water level was higher then, in the Ice Age period, is the very logical explanation given. Strange, in Europe the present fairy tale is that the sea level was lower in the Ice Age period, as mammoth bones are found in the North Sea. During our many travels we noted stories about changing sea levels so often, but surely there will be a day that the scientific world will understand that the sea level stays the same, only the land masses go up en down. If the sea level rises, it rises all over the world and the volume of the earth would increase drastically and that's impossible of course.

The high salt content of the sea has other consequences as well as we saw in Shelly Beach. Here is as far as eye can see, more than 145 km shell beach, hundreds of meters wide. The shell layer is 5 -10meters thick and formed of the tiny cockle shells (Fragum Erugatum). It is mined for agriculture purposes, for cement production and as a feeding supplement for the poultry industry, to get strong eggshells. The shells are still produced in full by nature and the mining is there for considered exploiting a renewable resource. You see everywhere nice pathways with fine crushed shells.

Arriving in Denham we noticed that on Sunday the village was closed. It was nicely located at the undeep seashore and we will pass it again when we come back from Monkey Mia, a resort at the end of this road.

It was a national Park as well, so you had to pay an entrance fee and then we arrived at the resort. A combination of hotel, motel, camping, shops and facilities to make a holiday guest happy. The main attraction was the dolphins. There are many thousands in the bay, some 14.000, but a few come daily, at their own discretion, to the shore, to get a few fish. The mothers learn it to the calves, to get that easy catch. They all have names. The first one was Holy. Normally they can live 45 years but Holy was found dead with a sting from a stingray in hear heart. So not only sharks are dangerous here but you can die from stingrays as well. A few pelicans participate in the feast as well. It is all strictly regulated by rangers of the CALM, the Conservation and Land Management of Australia, which controls the many National Parks in Australia. We were lucky, normally there are some 7 dolphins, this time 9, patiently waiting for their fish and swimming around, heavily sniffing air from there breathing hole behind, on the top of the head. They can see well under water, but above the water surface as well. It is interesting to see how they, with smart eyes observe people on the shore. What will they think? 'That stupid people give me fish for doing nothing? those people are too old and big for a snack?

Mariska did love to see the mammals swimming. A few of the visitors are invited to participate in feeding the dolphins. Hang the fish in the water by the tail and keep your hand out, just to avoid confusion.

Sometimes they join a swimmer or try to be good friend with someone. But you have to look out when they hunt in undeep water. Some fish hide desperately behind an object and when the object is your leg you get a high speed 120 Kg dolphin smashed against you and that is no fun!

It all is much more organized than at Tin Can Bay on the East Coast, were we saw and fed dolphins 5 years before, but still very nice, interesting and the information in the visitors centre was very useful.

All dolphins have marks from sharks teeth, it is called Shark Bay here, isn't it? People are advised to look out for tiger sharks here, a frequent guest in these waters, and they like juicy visitors! Monkey Mia is well equipped with a nice tennis court, swimming pool, hot tub (is that nice in 40 degrees C?) Three big emus are roaming around. It is a father with 2 chicks, In the emu world the daddy is taking care for the kids, while mother emu is making fun.

I booked a dive safari for the next day, but when I later returned to the dive shop they told me some guests did cancel, so it's not sure that it is still on. He explained he burned 240 dollar of fuel and it need 8 guests to break even, but with 3 he would go.

Now it's time to snorkel with the fins we bought earlier. Now we have to buy another snorkel set (this one will be thrown away or put in the box 'snorkels', where we put the snorkels we yearly have to buy.)

It was a good moment to try the new Sea an Sea 7,2 mega pixel underwater digital camera. It was however a surprise that no one was snorkeling. Was it dangerous or uninteresting? I wanted to try it out myself. The snorkel trip went uneventful, at least initially. There was a strong current which was stronger than me and it went into direction of the sea as well. It caused quite a lot of energy to come back near the shore again. When I came back I saw 2 stingrays, that dangerous animal that killed dolphin Holy. Before retreating I decided first to make a picture of the stingray, which had a nice camouflage pattern that blended perfectly in the colors of the bottom, so difficult to see and you better do not step on them. When I was at a safe distance from that dangerous animal a big dark shadow passed me from behind at a distance of half a meter. Before I could realize if it was a dangerous tiger shark, much to my relieve I saw the horizontal tail of a dolphin, almost touching me. Unfortunately the dolphin was disappearing in the water when the camera was ready for a picture. I saw the dorsal fin moving away on the surface. It was enough for today and when I talked to a Swiss man he told me he saw yesterday a one and a half meter long sea snake. All sea snakes are venomous and since this afternoon I understood why much more people were swimming in the swimming pool than on the beach. Maybe it's better to ask first but then you miss exiting experiences!

)Mariska did like it a lot in the swimming pool. She has a kind of swimming band in which she is safely strapped, so she can learn to kick. It was lovely for the girls to cool off in the pool at the outside temperature of 42 degrees C.The emus keep roaming around and were not at all shy.

Next morning we hear that the dive trip is cancelled and we directly decide to go. and leave for Carnavon. An interesting type of grass was .locally abundant. But is no grass, it consist of pure needles. As it grows bigger, it dies in the middle and forms a protective ring for lots of small animals.

The blue lagoon near Denham is deep blue an has a small canal which connects the lagoon with the sea. Of course the salt content will be higher and without any doubt unique flora or fauna will be in the lagoon. Wherever you search in this country you find unique creatures.

Denham is a special well developed tourist centre with a nice boulevard. The undeep shore is light green, the deep ocean behind is deep blue.

After Denham, the rolling terrain changes to have a low bush type vegetation. here reigned the flies. Seconds after you leave the car there in a fierce competition between hundreds of flies who can creep in your ears or nose. They are so persistent that even if you hit them they will go on.

At Goulet Buff we see a stunning white stretch in the see. Is it a salt, or limestone? No time to sort it out, we have to go on.

One of the plans was to visit a salt lake. It has very specific circumstances and unique vegetation.

The shell beach in the distance is an unique phenomenon, created by the salt Hamelin pool.

The Nanga Bay Resort is fine located on the west side of the Shark Bay. We bring there a short visit

After that we visit a dry salt lake and see the special vegetation

Now we are en route to Carnavon, further in the direction of the tropics. The trip is uneventful, after Billabong a long straight trip, this day our truck travels almost 400 km. The wind which blew us so nicely to the north has changed and blows with gusts from the side, making the campervan unpleasantly unstable. Half way there are hills which offer a fine lookout over the salt plains, with the sea in the background. At the end of the afternoon we arrived in Carnavon and though it is closer to the tropics, it was cooler but moister and a normal amount of flies. Nobody here with a mosquito net. The air had that tropical smell and cycads were singing around. Carnavon is famous for the banana, mango and other tropical fruit plantations, but the price of these products in the shops is still twice that of the price I pay in Holland or the same product. Finished February 22