Shark Bay seems to be an appropriate place to spend Election Day. We fail to understand the preferential voting process for both the House of Representatives and the Senate, and suspect many people are in the same situation. Well over six million voters make their choice well ahead of polling day, so it’s possible not as many Democracy Sausages hit the BBQ as one might hope. To quote Wikipedia, because God knows we have no idea what the hell this is, a “Democracy sausage is the colloquial name for a sausage wrapped in a slice of bread, bought from a sausage sizzle operated as a fundraiser at Australian polling places on election day, often in aid of the institutions that house the polling place.” I’m sure you are desperate to know the history of this fair dinkum tradition, so here’s a link , and, I kid you not, leading up to the election there is an interactive map so you can find your sausage.
You will know by now that Albo gave the elbow to Scotty from Marketing, who was last seen out the back of Kirribilli House choking down a Democracy Sausage as he fled into the night with his ego packed in a black plastic garbage bag..
We are staying in Denham (pop 750) which sits on a broad sweep of bay with nothing but the Indian Ocean between here and Madagascar. Denham is the western most town in Australia and the only town servicing the Shark Bay area.
We spend a day on a four wheel drive adventure through the scrubby desert and along birridas – salt and gypsum claypans – to the tip of Francois Peron National Park, which forms the western arm of Shark Bay World Heritage area. This is a magical patterned landscape of red, white and green with the blue of the sky, and when we reach the top, the colours of an angry sea.
Yes, the day is windy, and walking to the lookouts or along the beach results in an involuntary exfoliation of all exposed flesh.
Before hitting the sandy road we stop, along with a bunch of other vehicles, to let the tyres down. I notice we are the oldest people there by about 35 years. This doesn’t mean much at the time, but later I am able to make the scientific correlation between age and being in a hurry. We are not in a hurry. Why are they? Their whole life is ahead of them – but possibly not if they drive like this on the open road. We are day trippers, surfing the corrugations and sandy drifts for 40 kms to the point where beach sand and blue ocean waters touch the rust-red desert dirt. I am so chuffed with my new 4WD skills I feel ready for the Paris to Dakar; mind you, there’s no chance of doing a Mark Thatcher here, the roads are obvious.
So, Shark Bay. Not the most inviting name I am sure you agree. We can blame English explorer William Dampier – he writes in 1699: “Sharks we caught a great many of, which our men eat very savourily….Among them we caught one which was 11 feet long”. Indeed there are 28 shark species here and a trip to the Ocean Park Aquarium introduces us to a few of them, along with many of the other ocean dwelling creatures that inhabit the area.
As a UNESCO World Heritage Area, Shark Bay is one of only a handful of places to achieve this level – there’s several reasons including the presence of threatened species, evidence of ongoing evolution (not always obvious in the human population) and not least, the Stromatolites at Hamelin Bay. While on an adventure in the Pilbara last year, I write about the amazing geology and the stromatolites which kicked off life itself – amazing, I know, and even more amazing if you remember the blog. Last September when we visit Hamelin Bay, the viewing walkway over this delicate area had been decimated by Cyclone Seroja in the previous April, so we saw nothing. This year, however, we see stromatolites at Cervantes, further down the coast. I have to tell you, for something so important in the creation of life they look no more interesting than great big cow pats.
What we do see both at Hamelin and Shell Beach, are shells – millions of them. Shell beach has no sand, but tiny Hameln cockle shells 10 metres deep and stretching for 60 kms. Over years and years the shells become hard packed and there are historic buildings in the area where the construction material is shell brick. The photo below shows Scott in a shell brick quarry.
One of the main attractions in Shark Bay is Monkey Mia on the opposite side of the peninsula. It is famous for the bottlenose dolphins which visit the area daily. There is a “dolphin experience” every morning which they say depends on the dolphins, but I know if you offer me food at the same time every morning I’m likely to turn up. We elect to drive over one afternoon and have our own dolphin experience watching a small pod of 5 or 6 swim up and down the beach. It is a beautiful spot and the day we are there it is glass calm.
For those who need a map or two
The larger picture – Shark Bay is 750 kms north of Perth.
