Day 2 - Kalbarri to Denham (340 km)

Surprisingly, we didn’t wake up until just before 9 this morning. Obviously the curtains did a good job of blocking out the light. We packed up the bed, put everything away and headed out to start our next day on the road. After filling up, we drove out on the main road and tried to go to The Loop for a walk but the track was closed because they must have had so much rain recently. Instead we drive to one of the other lookouts and walked down to the Murchison River banks to have breakfast. The river was really flowing and the contrast between the bright red cliffs and the green gum trees was gorgeous. We found a quiet spot and enjoyed our breakfast before wandering around a bit longer then heading back to “Bessie” (the campervan).

We hit the road with Ross driving this morning. We tried to put some km’s under our belt before stopping at the Billabong Roadhouse for a break and some lunch. We picked up a tacky stubby holder with Aussie Sheila sayings on it for our friend Elyse who we are meeting in Monkey Mia tomorrow (she’s American).

I drove in the afternoon and we made great progress along the highway. Not much to see, just plenty of straight road! We turned off to the west to head out to Denham where we would spend the night. On the way, we stopped in at Hamelin Pool to look at the stromatolites. I had seen them on one of my geology field trips years ago and just thought that they were amazing. It is the only place in the world where you can find living stromatolites and the ones in the Hamelin Pool area are around 5000 years old. They are made up of cyanobacteria that has been on the Earth for 2.4 billion years and these bacteria helped to produce the oxygen in the atmosphere which allowed animals and plants to evolve. OK- I am a bit of a geek but that is pretty cool!

There is also an old quarry at Hamelin Pool where they mined cocquina, basically they cut out building blocks of shells that had been stuck together by calcium carbonate that had dissolved from the shells. A lot of the buildings in the area had been made out of this material.

From Hamelin Pool we drove another 100km into Denham. We turned up at the Blue Dolphin Caravan Park about 3 and after some confusion we found our spot and set up. We took a bit of a walk along the foreshore and picked up some snags, onions and salad to have for dinner. Back at “Bessie” we cracked open a beer and played a few rounds of shithead before starting dinner. I made gin and tonics while Ross cooked the snags and onions on the gas stove.

You can’t beat snags with onions and sauce in fresh bread and it was nice to have some fresh veg again. After dinner we packed up our stuff, did the dishes and set up the bed. We walked into town (500m down the road) and headed to the pub for a beer and to watch the Ashes and AFL. We also played a couple of rounds of pool and watched the locals for a while – what a place! We can’t wait for our friend Elyse to join us to experience true Australia!

We headed back to Bessie and as usual had a cup of tea with some chocolate while listening to the cricket on ABC radio until we went to bed. Another great day on the road.