Shark Bay - from Lisa

From the surfing enclave of Gnarloo we continued to head down the coast. The sudden cooling of the weather and ocean as we travelled southward was refreshing but not an entirely welcome surprise.  We are now layering up more at night and the ocean swims less frequent. I was no longer feeling so smug listening to stories of the cold Sydney winter.

We first touched the eastern inland point of Shark Bay at Hamelin Pool.  Hamelin Pool is an inlet populated with stomatolites, the most ancient of life forms formed by bacteria in very salty waters.  They look a lot like small rocks in a bay but are apparently geologically very exciting (so Chris tells us...).

Stromatolites gone wild!

We camped at a Bush Heritage property, Hamelin Station which was previously a sheep station now restored as a historical site and for land conservation.

Hamelin Pool was the first of many surprises of Shark Bay.  To be honest I really only knew of the dolphin feeding at Monkey Mia before we visited.  But as we ventured into the area the discovery of Shell Beach, a beach entirely made up of small white cockle shells and crystal clear water and the view of sharks, fish, stingrays and abundant sea life from Eagle Bluff and then the remote coastline of Francis Peron National Park which make it a special place.

Who gets the fish?

Our early morning visit to Monkey Mia for the dolphin feeding wasn't so much a disappointment but more managed than I expected.  After decades of feeding dolphins with buckets of fish each day it turns out us well meaning humans were doing more damage than good.  The dolphins were losing their hunting skills and the young dolphins were not surviving.

Are you sure thats a dolphin behind you?

A small crowd of 200 people turned up for the 7:45am talk and feed and Charlotte and Aurora were lucky to be chosen as one of the six to hand a fish to the two dolphins that came in for feeding.  It was  amazing to see dolphins cruising up and down the beach in reaching distance and in flat water but it was also all over pretty quickly.

We spent the rest of the day swimming, snorkelling, fishing and 4WDing the National Park which we shared with just a few other people and much much more wildlife.

Chasing fish in Shark Bay

The Pinnacles - nowhere near Shark Bay

Ningaloo and the NW Coast

Video Blog - click to play

We popped out on the Coral Coast at Exmouth and the North West Cape. I very different sort of town, originally built to support the defence installations, its now part oil town, part tourism and of course part defence. Camping under the Lighthouse we had an interesting view toward the huge aerials, and a huge stretch of Ningaloo Reef at our doorstep.
My first surf since the Sunshine Coast was is pumping waves at Dunes. A fast barreling left on a building swell was a heap of fun - until my last wave and my lack of surf fitness almost put me out of action. Pulling in a fast backhand barrel and my position was wrong and the lip landed on my head, instantly I felt a twang in my hamstring and I was left hobbling for days. Thankfully I was still able to surf the rights, albeit gingerly. Its a wild coast but the snorkelling off the beach is unbeatable.
Heading down to Coral Bay we enjoyed an awesome snorkelling cruise on a sailing catamaran. I have now recovered from my phobia of sailing catamarans and coral reefs and this one expertly avoided getting wrecked on the reef.
At Carnarvon we turned back north toward a less visited part of Ningaloo, Quobba and Gnaraloo are home to some of the most legendary surf breaks in Australia. Its an intimidating coastline, extremely remote with big powerful waves and an ocean full of creatures great and small.  I had a few surfs at Red Bluff and 3 Mile as my hamstring slowly recovered. But when the swell peaked with triple overhead sets sweeping down the reef I realised that I was not up for that just yet.

The lefts at Dunes

Ningaloo - the water really is that colour!

Red Bluff

The shorebreak at Red Bluff

The view from our camp

The Bluff Lining up in all its glory

Karajini and the Pilbara Video Blog

We knew that the Pilbara is full of iron ore, but we didn't expect how beautiful it can be when shaped by nature. The Banded Iron Formations are not what you expect, they are so dense and hard the rocks clink or ring like steel when dropped. This incredible hardness has meant the plateau erodes very very slowly, creating smooth, stunning red rock scales. The other unexpected feature of Karajini is its alpine nature. Most of the plateau is well over 700m and some of the peaks are over 1200m. It feels alpine, it can be very cool at night and the vegetation is almost like a heath.

After a few months of rock hopping and bushwalking, the girls were loving all the scrambling through the gorges on this wonderful hard rock. Aurora celebrated her 7th Birthday by completing the class 5 (hardest grade walk) through Hancock Gorge