Hamelin Pool.

Little Hawk at Hamelin Pool.

 Sunday 17^{th July}

Woormel Roadhouse, halfway to Hamelin Pool, sold the most delicious Danish pasteries. Fresh from the oven; nice with morning coffee.  When we left Carnavon it was cloudy and cool and raining lightly. We tried to book into Shark Bay, but because it’s school holidays we have to wait three days.

Hamelin Pool is 30klms off the road into Shark Bay, only a caravan park and a shop, but it has an attraction, here the largest and oldest living fossils dot the shore of the pool in rocky lumps, named Stomatolites. We arrived before lunch, expecting to see water, it is a short climb up steps to a lovely water view, not as lovely today, it was cloudy and starting to rain. Plastic chairs are all in a row at the top; this would be the most amazing place to see a sunset.

The Stromatolites are an hour return walk, rain set in for the rest of Sunday, John and I will do the walk tomorrow.

An historic telegraph station is also here in the park, sadly a small grave of a baby who died in 1898 is here.

I got fish and chips from the store for dinner and used the free public phone. We won’t have any mobile or internet service for the three nights we are here, the public phone needs repairing but in the meantime it’s free. The young French couple is having a great time, ringing home for free.

Historic telegraph station at Hamelin Pool.

Monday 18th July

Stromatolites

the boardwalk.

It rained through the night, the morning was dull but looked promising. The sun was out by late afternoon. John and I walked to the Stromatolites, passing an historic shell quarry where blocks of shells were cut out of the ground and used in many of the old buildings in the area. Some are still standing, one being the toilet block here at the caravan park. We walked along a path made up of tiny shells, they are everywhere here, we carry shells on our shoes into the motor home. We walked to a board walk, where there are signs explaining the living fossils found here. There are only two places in the world that have stromatolites, Hamelin Pool and Bermuda.

John on the boardwalk.

John cooked a barbeque for lunch, we watched a dvd in the afternoon, then walked up to see the lovely sunset at the top of the hill.

Tuesday 19th July.

A quiet day at Hamelin Pool. We leave for Shark Bay tomorrow. John and I went for a morning walk, talked to some of the other people in the park and had a lazy afternoon. We had dinner at the tea room in the park.

Another lovely sunset.