Rick and Rae's Travels: Tues, 24th to Fri, 27th May

We drove out of Denham, having purchased a few food supplies first. We called into Shell Beach which is located on the road back towards the highway. This is an amazing white beach made purely of tiny sea shells (Fragum cockles). The shells extend 120km along the coastline and are thought to be up to 4,000 years old. Compacted shell was once quarried for building blocks.

Leaving Shell Beach we then called into the Hamelin Pool and the Shell block Quarry. Hamelin Pool is one of only two places in the world with living examples of stromatolites. The dome-shaped structures are formed by tiny, single-celled organisms called cyanobacteria that can tolerate the highly saline waters of Hamelin Pool. Some of the structures are about 2,000 years old and if damaged or disturbed can take many hundreds of years to recover, if they recover at all.

We were finally back onto the highway and a new stretch of road to us. We stopped at a free campsite that was situated on top of a plateau in the middle of nowhere and had our lunch. Much further down the highway and after about 9kms of dirt, we called into two free camps, one called New Beach and the other Bush Beach. We decided that Bush Beach was the better spot and set up camp. We had to be very careful where we set up as it would be easy to wake up and find ourselves in sea water with the king tides that arrive here. We were advised by other long-term and local campers that there weren't any king tides expected during the next short period. The water is very shallow for a long distance but sand whiting frequent the area and I managed to catch three during the afternoon. The sunsets here can be spectacular. A fellow camper was taking photos of the sunset in the afternoon. He makes and sells calendars and had just finished a photography camp with a well-known photographer (Ken Duncan I think he said) and was on his way home. He took a photo of me fishing with the sunset in the background and was kind enough to email it to me.

On Wednesday we rose late and after brekky we re-rigged our rods properly for whiting fishing. Rick had yesterdays catch of whiting for breakfast. After brekky I caught two fish and Rick caught one. Later a cool breeze came in so we went for a long walk on the beach. We were closing up things for the night when 'The Wrecker' shut the tailgate of the vehicle and snapped his nicely re-rigged rod in half. Fortunately, we have two rods each.

The next morning we slept in again and then drove in to have a look at Carnarvon. There was not a whole lot to look at but we decided to walk the one-mile jetty ($4.50 for the privilege). A good part of the jetty is over land first and then it heads out over very shallow water for a long way. It is in very poor condition, with holes in it almost big enough for a child to fall through. Some of the planks were only fixed on one end and were almost rotted through. We discovered that you can't walk right to the end as it has had a fire on it and so it was closed off. Just in front of the closed off area was a local guy fishing ... dropping his line down between the planks. He had three nice sized fish and he assured us he could pull them up through the gaps. He liked to fish like this as the fish tend to hide below the jetty in the shadows, and next to the pilons. He said that once he caught a huge Mulloway and just had to cut the line as it was way too big to get through the gap. He referred to Mulloway as 'rubbish' fish as there are so many of them. We left him and his little dog to his fishing and walked back. On the walk back, yours truly managed to trip on one of the many rough planks and fall face down. Luckily I only received some bad bruising on my knee and several nasty splinters.

Friday was a lovely day and after a short time of unsuccessful fishing we headed in Carnarvon again, clicking over 12,000kms in the process. We went in to purchase a huge external aerial, brackets, leads, etc. which will allow us to receive a stronger mobile and internet connection. We haven't had either since arriving at Bush Beach and have had the same problem at a lot of other places. We were able to purchase most of the components with the exception of a cable for Rick's Samsung phone. We tested all the connections when we got home and it has boosted our signals, so hopefully I'll get some updates done on the blog. The 'midgies' were around today ... they cause sores like sandflies but we've been told they are different to sandflies. The flies here are horrendous too, so while we were in town we bought ourselves nets to fit onto our hats ... not very attractive, but effective!

On Saturday morning, after looking at the external aerial to see how best to install it, Rick decided that it would need a slight modification, so he headed back into Carnarvon.