Shells & Sharks 9/10/15

  We wake with the birds today , ignoring them we get up at 7:15 . Packing up with our usual ease , we chatted to Bruce & Robyn from Broken Hill for a while , then headed off again , on the road at 9am . Another shortish day , only 100klms to Denham , in the heart of Shark Bay .

 The road was taking us over sand dunes and coastal scrub , the views of the bay were a treat after all the desert like scenery .

  First stop today was Shell Beach , which as it's name suggests , is made of shells - no sand , just shells !! The Fragum Cockle Shell is the contributor to this beach - there can be over 4000 cockles in one square metre !! The beach is wide , the water is very salty and we also passed more stromatolites on the way today . There were many more shells here , but they have been harvested / mined and still continue to be ! The harvesting area is further down the beach now . The beach used to be much deeper in shells - up to 10m deep - that's a lot of shells , especially when you consider how small they are .

  After a walk down to the water and back , we were starting to get hot again , the temperature was up to 33 already !! Back to the ute , we headed off again , finding a bit of a lookout near Goulet Bluff . It gave us views over the water to the most westerly point of Australia - Steep Point - we are too far away to see it , but may get out there in the next few days .

  There are still wildflowers on show down here , so makes for an interesting drive .

  Continuing on , there was an errant emu that decided , he or she would like to walk out in front of us, fortunately it didn't like the sound our horn makes and left the road for us . It's mate decided not to bother either !!
 Without any other bother we arrived in Denham , found our destination and set up . The views weren't bad either , we are up on the 2nd level with views over the Shark Bay Marine Park .

 Not such a bad view from the side of the RV !!!
After lunch we drove out to Little Lagoon , which was once a land locked Birrida ( gypsum pan ) - it was inundated by the sea , and is now linked to the sea via a tidal channel . There are several others that are still land locked , supporting their own little microcosm of life .

 With all that activity out of the way we headed back for a long cool drink , the heat over the last couple of days has been oppressive - different from further north , where it didn't seem to burn into you , now however , we are noticing it !!
 We had a quiet couple of beers with the new neighbours , Terry & Robyn , who are our age , and are on a short 3 week break away from home - Perth .

 Thats today over , here's a map link :-https://www.google.com/maps/d/edit?mid=z1G8gwwxwyYo.kmBesHCKhJuQ&usp=sharing