Moving on through a Changed Landscape

Hello dear blogsters.... great to have some of Nic's friends following along..... Nic was really happy to hear from Anne via the blog.... good to know work is coping without her!

Well, as usual, this blog entry starts with us getting up, having breakfast and packing up. I think it has become a bit of a competition between Mum and Dad and Uncle John to see who can pack up first. Of course they would both deny it, but I did hear Mum muttering something about needing to get up even earlier next time after the Stuart clan got a jump on the Johnson clan this morning!

We called in to Denham to buy some goodies from the bakery (lovely bread) and the post office to send some cards and a parcel - then off on our merry way again. We had planned to visit Eagle Bluff and the Stromatolites - however the roads were all closed after the rain! Just a word about those stromatolites - they are these blobby things made out of a heap of single cell organisms clumped together. They live in the sea and are just as they were millions of years ago. When the earth's atmosphere was still a mix of gases poisonous to us all... the stromatolites developed and started changing the gases into oxygen. They changed the atmosphere, enabling new life to develop. Amazing huh! Having told you all this... we couldn't see them because the roads were closed!

The road to Shelly Beach was open and we called in to see this interesting beach. The beach is deep in tiny white shells. The shells come from some bi-valves which live in the very salty water here (it is 1.5 times the salinity of the rest of the ocean). We crunched around on the beach for a while (Paddy quite enjoyed this) and enjoyed the warm (well hot actually) sunshine.

After this we went to have a look at the varment-proof fence. This huge fence has been erected right across the peninsula as part of Project Eden. There are a number of incredibly endangered mammals living in the World Heritage listed Shark Bay National Park and the fence has been erected to keep predators and threats such as feral cats, dogs and rabbits out of this area. We stopped at the fence and had fun with the sensor which causes a sound of recorded dog barking if you go too close to the fence. Dad kept cocking his leg and making it bark - kept him amused for ages!We drove just a few kilometres further and then pulled into the Nanga Homestead. We set up camp and then wandered down to the beach. Nic and I enjoyed some snorkling in the bay (very brave of me, considering it is called "Shark Bay"). We saw some beautiful schools of fish and some nudibranches (probably spelled that one wrong). Dad and Uncle John jumped in and had a go too, and Mum retained a lady-like pose on the beach!The water was quite nice - but the wind was brisk to say the least when we got out! Just as well there was a beautiful hot artesian spa to jump into next. We really enjoyed a good soak in water which was pumped up from an artesian basin deep below us at a temperature of about 35 degrees.

After a good feed, we went off to fed, lulled to sleep by the dulcet tones of the HONKING GREAT GENERATOR which runs 24 hours a day to provide power to the camp ground. The diesel fumes weren't half bad either.

We woke up this morning and wished Dad a happy birthday... the old fella is now only a year off 70. We packed up and headed off.... treking towards Carnarvon. The weather was beautiful - sunny with clear skies. Uncle John managed to find a lovely birthday present to give to Dad, a muddy old hub cap he picked up beside the road. Mum protested loudly, "I'm not having that bloody thing in the car"... but she had to give in because it was Dad's birthday.

We drove on through a majorly changed landscape.... quite unusual to be driving through a desert which looks like it has been painted green overnight. We had to drive through flood-waters over the road several times and there was water everywhere. The lady in a roadhouse we stopped out told us they had had over 140 ml of rain when the storm came through (that's almost 6 inches in old terms).... this is more than they sometimes get in a whole year! The water certainly transformed the landscape.We arrived at Carnarvon at about lunch time and set up in a lovely caravan park. We spent the afternoon looking around Carnarvon.... and enjoyed a walk out onto the mile-long pier. A section of the pier was destroyed by fire last year (about 70 metres) and it is quite bizarre to see the rail line just suddenly plunge off the pier.We also had a look at the little museum out by the pier - it had some really interesting stuff, including one of the lifeboats from the Kormoran (the german boat which sank the Sydney). The lifeboat washed ashore here at Carnarvon with some German survivors on board.Nic organised a yummy dinner of tacos for us and we had a few drinks and a chocolate cake to celebrate Dad and Uncle John's birthday (we missed his 70th a month or so ago). We were entertained by a heap of Vietnam vets who are staying in the caravan park. Their singing and general merriment kept us amused all evening! Tomorrow Bronwyn arrives and then we head off toward the Ningaloo reef.