Ok, we’ll get it over with. This is a spider. What it’s sitting on is more interesting though. More later when we get to Hamelin.
So - we headed off towards Hamelin Pool which is the first ‘town’ on the spur out to Shark Bay. Shark Bay is supposed to be pretty and interesting with loads of trips available to see whalesharks, dugongs and so on, but for us (well, me actually), Hamelin Pool promised to be fascinating.
The road there wasn’t without its highlights. Loads of road trains.
Overtaking trucks with bizarre loads.
Calling in for fuel at The Billabong Roadhouse only to find it empty apart from the landlady giving her partner a haircut in the bar.
The gorges were beautiful, and a lizard come out to have a look at us.
Hamelin Pool is a very special place. So special in fact that while we were there, a university trip of a couple of dozen international students turned up to stay a couple of nights and study the local geology.
The bay is relatively small and is also fairly closed off with only a narrow opening out to open sea. This means that the waters in the bay are very salty due to evaporation. This in turn means that crabs and other algae eaters don’t visit, allowing the cyanobacteria to thrive, replicating fairly primeval conditions. The end result is that stromatolites grow there, whereas elsewhere they can only normally be found as fossils. Cyanobacteria, for those who have forgotten their geography, are what oxygenated the earth’s atmosphere several billion years ago, so finding these ‘living fossils’ was quite exciting.
Primordial soup comes to mind.
Apart from that, the bay was eerily quiet, totally windless, and gave fantastic reflections of the storms that were breaking all round us - but not on us.
Another strange feature was that the beach was made of billions of identically sized tiny shells. Within the dunes these shells had stuck together enough to make a sort of builing material that could be sawn out to make blocks. Odd.
The place had been a wool port and a telegraph station at various times but was now just a fuel and camping stop over. A lovely ‘retired’couple - Pam and Terry - were there working for a few months and wer very kind looking after us.
We spent a lovely evening with Zuza and Nicole (Polish and German) who were working their way round Oz for a few months. They’re heading up north too, so we may well catch up with them.
Happy days.
Leaving Hamelin, we met up with 4 biker girls from Sydney who were doing a long trip around Oz. The other 2 were changing a tyre somewhere.
Next stop was Coral Bay, a really beautiful holiday destination, and another place for snorkelling, diving, whale trips and fishing. We stayed for a couple of days to relax after the riding. It was just a stop for a relax on the beach and to get our breath back.
Not another deserted beach with clear blue waters?
This might sound a bit whimpish, but the journeys take it out of us with the heat, winds and long, long roads with nothing on them.
Apart from the roadhouses, one of the few distractions was the termite nests. These are Spinifex termites that eat only Spinifex grass, and their nests can be up to 100 years old, with tunnels dug down to underground water.
Next stop Exmouth. It’s on a leg off the main highway meaning a 100 mile detour, but we hoped it’d be worth it. It was. We even spotted a family of whales swimming off the coast.
That evening, Anita caught a lizard that was under her chair by using the Paul Hogan hypnosis technique. The local blokes all seemed scared when she offered to pass it to them. Despite that, once Mr Lizar was set on his way, a couple affered for us to join them and we had an interesting evening chatting with them.
We camped near to a couple - Dennis and Kim - who had sold everything to buy a converted coach towing a box trailer big enough to carry their 4x4 and Triumph bike. 70 feet of wagon!!
Dennis used to be a mine worker by necessity but was a prospecter by choice. He showed us this nugget that he said was worth around AU$30,000. Nice.
Dennis took us out fishing one day, and we caught a couple of rock cod which we ate that night, and he gave us a snapper that he’d caught to supplement our supper. Unfortunately, when I caught a fish, Anita got so excited that she slipped on the rocks and gashed her leg on some oyster shells. Silly girl. The news as I write this several days later is that it’s healing well.
While we were stood by the bike when shopping in Exmouth, a lady (Ann) parked by us and started chatting about the bike. Her husband (Graham) was an ex bike racer, and she ended up inviting us round for dinner. It was a magical evening and an honour to meet them both. I hope that their moving plans come off ok.
It’s getting hot. The roads are getting longer and straighter, the road trains aree more frequent, and the carnage on the road is getting worse.
Watch out for the roadtrain Skip. Skip, speak to me……
Ghost gums?
At our next stop - Fortesque roadhouse - we met up with the four lads that we’d met in Exmouth. They were 3 lads from Rotherham and 1 from Denmark who were jobbing around Oz and heading north. They pulled in with tales of blown tyres and a poorly van. I’d done what I could with advice about the throttle linkage but I’m sure that they’ll make it somehow, and we actually saw them from a distance a day or so later by a repair shop in Karratha.
The Fortesque river. Could do with a bit of rain maybe.
The night at Fortesque roadhouse was uneventful, and was just camping on a patch of grass at a truckstop 200 miles from anywhere. We chatted to a road train truckie who’d pulled in for a couple of beers (!) and we went to sleep full of stories of what it’s like on the road at night.
In the UK, no-one really thinks twice about driving or riding at night. Out here in the bush, it’s fairly suicidal unless you’re in a big truck with big bull bars. Even then, we heard a story of 2 cattle getting under the wheels of a road train back trailer and tipping it over. The cattle are dark brown and impossible to see until you’re on them at night, and the kangaroos, emus, goats and so-on run all over the road after dusk.
Setting off in the morning the road had a fair amount of fresh corpses scattered around, and long lorry skid marks heading off on corners where I’d guess drivers had fallen asleep. It was like a battleground and had me shaking my head in wonder.
This is Mount Minnie, in case you were wondering……..
We made it to Point Sampson, a sheltered bay near to Karratha where we’d tracked down a new rear tyre. It went on a lot easier than I’d hoped. I had to be a bit quick though, as the caretaker would’ve kicked us off if he’d seen me. ‘Strictly no vehcle maintenance’ was one of the dozens of rules. We’ve got a new front tyre reserved in Darwin, so I’ll look forward to fitting that in 100 degrees F and 90% humidity.
It rained during the night, but we managed a short walk on the beach to check out the tortured rock formations.
The next day saw us heading off in wet weather gear, and we actually saw a bit of rock! Up ‘til then it’d been flat as a witches whatsit. We ended up at Eighty Mile Beach, which was…erm…….an eighty mile long beach.
The campsite was along a 10km dirt track which had Anita squeeking while the bike squirmed around, but the site was fine. They even had a bloke singing country and western, but we were too tird to even take the mickey out of him. The campsite seemed to have an even higher percentage of OAP’s than other sites, and by 9.30 the whole place was silent. We slept like babies with the sound of the surf in the background.
Talking of old fogies, there’s a huge number of oldies in big 4x4’s towing ‘rugged’ style folding caravans around Oz. I think without them, most of the camsites would close.
The trip to Broome the next day was livened up when we met these guys at Sandfire Roadhouse.
They were the W.A. Panna bikers, I think based originally around Pannawonica. Nice guys, doing a charity run. Not the usual UK style run, but several thousand kilometers. Hardcore.
We also came past Port Headland and marvelled at the trains that are measured in miles, and at the size of the trucks that were everywhere. Port Headland is one of many mining towns in the north west, and is part of the multi-billion dollar mining industry. It’s mainly iron ore bound for Japan but is also diamons, gold, copper and so on.
Broome is a great place. It’s an old pearling town started by Japanese pearl fishers, and is now not only about pearls, but is a laid-back California style town. We’d met up with bikers Jeff and Greg at a roadhouse and rode into Broome with them. After a refresher, we headed onto the beach and decided to do a bit of nude riding on the beach. We’re not sure if it was a nudie beach, but it sure is now.
Cable beach is famous in Oz, and the sunsets are very popular.
As are camel rides on the beach. Clothes aren’t optional apparently.
Boab (baobab?) trees grow in the town, and frilled lizards are common. This one was living under a static caravan.
Jeff had stayed on the campsite the 2 nights that we were there, and listening to his tales was fascinating. He’s a tour leader for Globebusters.com and was doing Sydney to Perth via the centre and top to scout out a trip that he’d lead next year with 1 dozen or so bikers following.
We said a sad goodbye to his and the french students company and to the town of Broome and headed off to Fitzroy Crossing. Things were going to change from now on as we’d be inland and away from any cooling breezes or sandy beaches. Fitzroy was due to be 40 C that day, but more of that later………
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