Hamelin Pool - Denham

We wanted to break up our journey from Coral Bay to Denham and knew we wanted to look at the stromatolites at Hamelin Pool on the way, so after looking at Wiki Camps we decided to stop at Hamelin Pool Caravan Park. We really didn't need to and probably shouldn't have, as it certainly didn't live up to the glowing reviews it was getting! The water at Hamelin Pool is spectacular.. so incredibly blue and clear. You can't swim there as it is prohibited in order to protect the stromatolites but it would be very interesting to, as the salinity is 2-3 times higher than in normal sea water.

I wanted to stop and see the stromatolites as they are unique... not very pretty or anything... just unique. They are rocks formed by sediment and blue-green algae. The reason they are so unique... there are only 3 lots of living stromatolites in the world that people can visit; the ones at Hamelin Pool WA and 2 lots in the Bahamas. There are others but their locations are kept secret for a variety of reasons, which I think has a lot to do with possible oil or some other resource. There are a lot of 'dead' ones and they are all believed to be liked back to the days of dinosaurs, so geologists apparently get quite excited by them. The day was very windy and the water in Hamelin Pool was very choppy so, while we could see them, it wasn't under ideal circumstances. Regardless, they just look like boring rocks. Greg and the kids weren't particularly enthused by them.

About 15-20 minute walk away is a shell stone quarry, which was interesting to see. The beach is covered in the shells of the Cardid Cockle, which were deposited on the beach over the last 6000 years, and are up to 10m deep in some places. Small amounts of the calcium carbonate in the shells dissolves in the rain and then dries to become a crystal that binds the shells together into a solid material that can be used for building. It is no longer used for building material, although it has been used to make repairs and restorations to some of the buildings that were originally built from these blocks, including a restaurant and the Anglican Church at Denham. The saw marks and "steps" left behind from the days of quarrying are still very visible. We visited the church at Denham. Actually, we attended the church in Denham,, but I thought it would be good to include a picture of the church here with the quarry pictures.

The next day we moved on to Denham. It is a nice town with a very beautiful view of Shark Bay. It isn't a big town and is primarily geared towards tourism. They are currently working frantically to finish of restoration and beautification of the foreshore in time for the 400 year celebrations of the landing of Dirk Hartog on Dirk Hartog Island. When it is finished there will be  an awesome playground and very lovely facilities on the foreshore, but much of it was fenced off while we were there.

We went to the Anglican Church on Sunday and met the minister, his wife and kids. They are very lovely people, doing a very tough job. We enjoyed spending time with them and decided to invite them to dinner the next day. We had a lovely dinner at Little Lagoon with Steve, Tamara and their kids. It was great for our two to have some other children to play with and it was nice to spend time with some other adults, rather than just us.