Day 61 – Monkey Mia to Hamelin Station

Today just 103km

 

SO we leave Monkey Mia, achieving what we wanted to achieve, which was seeing some dolphins up close, with the added bonus of the boys feeding them! We drop passed the dolphin area around 0900, but no one is home. The morning interaction was only at 0830 (a bit later than normal – after all, dolphins don’t wear wrist watches!) and we do however see a Turtle in the “Dolphin Interaction Zone”. Max remarks that, whilst cute (he loves turtles) that he shouldn’t be in the Dolphin interaction area, and perhaps they should set up a turtle interaction area as well!!!

 

We drop into Denham and pick up bread and some dinner meat (awesome IGA snags and rissoles) Memo Coles from us: Your sausages are rubbish! Just saying. IGA ones are heaps nicer!

 

Shelly Beach - no sand here!!!!!

We wander to the Hamelin Station Stay. Hamelin station is a working Sheep station on 250,000 acres, running 20,000 head of sheep (at the moment, this number fluctuates depending on conditions). There are 2 reasons for stopping here. 1. Stromatalites at Hamelin Pool and 2. To break up the drive to Geraldton (which would be 420km direct or 550km if we went through Kalbarri NP (which was our initial plan)

 

 

Stromatalites: Be thankful they are here......
for the last 3.5 BILLION years!

Firstly: Stromatalites. What the hell is a Stromatalite? Well, if not for these 3.5 BILLION year old life forms, we, humans, may not be here! Stromatalites are a form of Cyanobacteria which combine with rock and sediment to form a reef like structure. They produce Oxygen from surrounding elements, namely Carbon Dioxide, and thrived in the environments around the time of the formation of the earth, when Oxygen was scarce. Due to such favourable condition, they thrived and made so uch oxygen, that the Oxygen level, compared to other gases (Nitrogen, CO2 etc) gradually changed over 100’s of Millions of years to close to what it is now (21% Oxygen, 78% Nitrogen, 1% the rest!), and it was this change which is thought to have prompted certain animals to seek an existence outside of the water and on land. It is these animals which are our earliest evolutionary relatives.

 

So, you may ask, what’s so important out these Stromatalites at Hamelin Pool? Well, there are only 2 known “deposits” of Stromatalites in the WORLD. Here, at Hamelin Pool, and another in the Bahamas. That’s it!

 

Because they are a lot like coral they are easily damaged and take YEARS to repair. In fact you can see tracks in the Stromatalites here made during the late 1800’s and early 1900’s when wool wagons were pushed/pulled over them to load ships in the bay here. Those tracks are still visible, over 100 years later!!!

 

Cant knock these sunsets..........

And the other reason we are here is Hamelin Station Stay. Brilliant. The owners have done a great job building an immaculate amenities block, beautifully maintained. They have cabins, rooms in the old shearer’s quarters or unpowered camp sites. They are large and level. The Price? $36 a night for all of us!!!! We’ve stayed at other stations (Mabel Downs comes to mind) with facilities that are down right 3^rd world compared to these, also unpowered, and paid $45!!! 

 

So, what is there to do at Hamelin Station? Nothing! That’s the beauty of it! You can see the Stromatalites, wander around their lake, watch birds or do NOTHING!!!! Its not a resort, with planned activities and a pool and the like. But the facilities are first rate.

 

The camp kitchen and BBQ areas are brilliant. Large and spacious, they are well equipped. When our host, Julie, took us through, I through she’d walked us through the station kitchen! It had a commercial type cooker hob with Oven, full array of frying pans and saucepans, and 2 separate eating areas, the larger enclosed by café style vinyl blinds! Staff and owners are brilliant, and we had a good chat to both, just shooting the breeze and learning about the place. Just a great place to stay. Also some pretty nice sunsets.