Good Morning Hamelin
Pool!
Low 6°c (43°F) – High 25°c
(77°F)
An absolutely terrible night’s sleep for me last night with the itching
of the mosquito bites forcing me up out of bed as I needed to do something to
take my mind off them and try to soothe them with some lotion. It was freezing cold and when I did go back
to bed I just couldn’t get warm and ended up having to get up again, heat some
water in the kettle on the gas stove and fill a hot water bottle. I finally got to sleep but then didn’t wake
this morning again until almost 7.45am.
We weren’t in any huge rush to leave as we were booked in at our next
stop, Nanga Bay, and it was only 40 km away so after getting everything packed
down we headed out the driveway just on 10.00am and arrived in Nanga Bay to be
set up a bit after 11.00am.
I was a little unsure about the reviews for Nanga Bay which weren’t all
complimentary. To the contrary it’s a
super little spot that does perhaps need a bit of TLC but it is unique and
that’s something we love about a campground.
The “Resort” is apparently owned by a 92 year old woman from Singapore
who staff say, since purchasing, has no interest in putting money into
improvements or to re-employ more workers to staff the restaurant which had to
close during Covid. Power is provided by
a large somewhat noisy generator on the outskirts of the camp, water is once
again bore water so no good for drinking. Dotted around the camp are thatched shade
houses that could do with some re-thatching.
A little work on those alone would lift the look of the place. The
buildings include a motel, units, and the shop and restaurant, as well as the
usual amenities plus they sell fuel which although expensive is probably utilized
by the boat owners in camp. The camping
areas are huge and widely spread out across the property and there is also
beach access and a boat ramp. It’s
obviously very popular with boating/fishing enthusiasts as every second van has
an accompanying boat. It’s another good
example of a property that someone once had a vision and love for, and then
sold, that really needs someone to love it once more to reassume its potential -
but for us it’s perfect for our needs right now.
After lunch and a coffee we set off to have a look around the area with
the intention of mainly getting to Denham, a little town further north to get
fuel, but ended up going all the way to Monkey Mia – more on that later. I must admit I’m feeling more and more guilty
about disturbing Kitty, as she gets settled on our arrival and we’re off again
for a drive around. She really isn’t
enjoying the travel as much as she used to – well I mean she used to sleep as
soon as the car started and now she’s more unsettled travelling. We’ve done all we can to make her comfortable
with the whole back seat to herself, a dog bed, pillows etc but increasingly
she is making it clear she isn’t loving it.
We’ll just continue to try to find a balance between giving her time to
relax and travel time – after all we’re all on holidays here and if she’s not
happy, neither are we.
There are lots of lookouts and beach access spots all along the coast
of the peninsula. Shell Beach in
particular was fascinating, aside from the obvious that it has cockle shells instead of sand, the
walk to the water is considerable (maybe around 250 metres) and across some
quite deep channels in the beach. Shane
stood in one channel and then up on the top bank of it to show just how deep
they are. Hamelin Pool and
L’haridon Bight are very rare in that they are part of one of the Earth’s saltiest
marine environments, because of a living barrier made of sand and seagrass
called the Faure Sill. The Faure Sill
allows seawater to flow into the bays at high tide but restricts outflow at low
tide. Evaporation in the shallow bays
and low regional rainfall makes the bays almost twice as salty as the
ocean. Few creatures can survive such
salty conditions but the Fragum Cockle is one that can. Over thousands of years their shells have
washed ashore creating Shell Beach.
The really standout
thing about all of the waterways here is the unbelievably clear water. Some of the water is quite deep at the shore
but even at more than a metre deep you can see the sand and anything else that
might be in the water as clearly as though you were looking through glass. And the wildflowers that are currently blooming,
so pretty. Hand in hand with the
wildflowers are the butterflies. We
haven’t seen so many butterflies in many years - hard to photograph but
beautiful to watch.
About half way up the
Peron Peninsula is the township of Denham which is a really pretty coastal
tourist town with a well appointed family oriented foreshore area, eateries,
pubs etc. As we drove into the outskirts
of town two police cars had a vehicle pulled over to the side of the road. We made our way past pulling off the road to
take a quick look at the entry sign and then as we pulled out onto the road
again one police car went flying past, siren blaring, lights flashing – we thought
it must have been something quiet serious.
As we rounded the bend into town there was the police car with lights
flashing and a 4wd towing a camper trailer at the foot of the hill just at the
start of the main street. Talk about
overkill when I’m sure a simple flash of lights would have done. He was probably more of a menace at the speed
he was going than the guy he was pulling over.
Just to be safe we were sure not to do anything wrong in town. Our main reason for stopping was to get fuel
and noted that while they had diesel, there was no unleaded fuel available at
the moment. Not sure if the other couple
of fuel locations had any but what a pain for people on school holidays that
needed it!
By the time you get to Denham, Monkey Mia is less than 25km further on
so we figured we may as well take a look. Just out of Denham we saw a man and a woman
riding bikes along the road. All of a
sudden an emu raced out of the bush, almost knocking the man off his bike, and
it darted across the road and into the bush on the other side. It must have given him quite a fright as it
all happened so quickly.
I hadn’t read up much about Monkey Mia before we left, but had heard a
lot of people talk about the dolphin experiences etc. I’m not quite sure what I expected but it
wasn’t anything like the reality. It is
basically a large caravan park with the dolphin attraction adjacent. You have to pay to access the park at the
gate which is essentially the end of the road – you either pay to access the
park, or turn around and go back. By
this stage we were stuck in a long line of cars, couldn’t turn out of the lane
due to cement dividers in the middle of the road and so we waited for our
turn. As it turns out the passes are for
24 hours so we purchased our passes so we could look around today, but the
dolphin feeding which is the feature of the place occurs at 7.45am each
morning. Now the dilemma – we are camped
an hour away and the advice was to get there at least by 7.30am to ensure we
made it in time. Driving in the pre-dawn
we would need to travel slowly due to the risk of hitting kangaroos and emus
(we’ve seen enough of them to know this is a huge risk) so over an hour to get
there and time to get ready in the morning would mean a 5.30am start!!!!! I’m not sure I was ready for that.
The park was well populated but there wasn’t much to see and most
patrons were in the restaurant/bar area so we browsed the gift shop and started
our trip home. Given we hadn’t intended
to go quite so far, we ended up getting back to camp right on sunset. Unfortunately heavy clouds had built up on
the western half of the sky and so there really weren’t any opportunities for
photos of the sun setting, but we did capture some interesting cloud formations
and the way the light beamed through an opening in the clouds forming bright
rays of sunlight which shone down like giant spotlights.
Back to camp, and it was a relatively early night in preparation for
stupid o’clock tomorrow morning.
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