Shark Bay... Dolphins... and Shells

Its a long and tedious drive from Kalbarri to Shark Bay... and we didnt see any sharks!!! We drove up the highway on endless straight roads... each crest with possibilities of a change of scenary but never actually producing it... low bush and massive termite mounds as far as the eye could see.... and that was a long way across the totally flat landscape... for a short time it got almost exciting as very clear and quite big ridges appeared... some form of ancient geological formation that ran kind of parallel with the road- but they did last long and it was back to a hypnotic monotemos trundle along.

I will say at this point the van we hired is basic.. budget and a bit of a workhorse... it deliveres exactly what we need (except for the microwave... we have never used it) buts slow and noisy and the air con could be better...

But..so far we have got where we needed to be... and once in the World Heritage site of Shark Bay we pull up to have lunch and take a much needed wander to look at Hamelin Pool and the marine Stromatolites... this is one of only two places in the world where these formations made by the result of the earliest forms of life on Earth.

It was disappointing due to cyclone whixh had passed throuh the area 2 years ago the boadwalk was down and visitors were not allowed on or near the viewing platform... bit of a bad show really - World Heritage and 2 years on... anyway we moved on up to Denham - the main seaside resort in Shark Bay where we were reunited with the Castlemaine crew and we had a great catching up over a bottle of gin...

Denham offered little other than beautiful greeny blue seas and extremly windy weather - a reminder of another cyclone which was raging a bit further north of us... we were just picking up the very edge... the van swayed all night disconcerting but we were well tucked in a nook and neednt worry.

The next morning us girls got up really early and using the nice Castlemaine cruise mobile we went up Monkey Mia to look at the dolphins being fed... alongside a 100 other people... but we felt we we needed to do something to justify an almost 300 mile detour to look at the world heritage sparse offerings...

There was a nice discovery centre with a fab selection of skulls, bones, shells that had been found on the shoreline. It was well labelled and lots of interesting info available.

The dolphins come to be fed everyday - its a strictly monitered programme and designed to stop tourist interfering too much with nature and spoiling dolphin life... but on this dull dark grey day (cyclone residue) they werent playing out ... it took them ages to come in.. here we are in WA shivering on the beach waiting for uncooperative dolphins to perform...

Of course when they did come they were beautiful and the 'feeding' was quite low key so not a display as I had feared and it was quite pleasant. Also there were shells on the beach so at last some beach treasure... i picked up a stunning swirly affair shell and was holding it when suddenly i felt a sharp stinging sensation and it had 'bit' me... it had the desired effect - I immediatly dropped it!! Sore finger but no real harm done.

We still had a big drive to get to exmouth and we didnt want to do it all in one day so we left after lunch and went look at Shell Beach... the whole beach is just made up of mainly tiny shells - actually quite pretty - especially the clean white beach against a cloudless blue sky.

We drove on ... more monotomos endless staight roads... low bush... flat land and termites... stopping to replenish supplies at Carnarvon - no castle - and an overnight stop in a rest area with little light, a late rising moon so therefore amazing stars...

Only another few k's to our final most northern destination!

Scotland part 2

The second half of the week continued in much the same vein. We had one rainy afternoon which was actually quite nice to be holed up in the house with the rain lashing the windows. It probably wasn't quite so nice for the two visitors that came on their bikes but they're tough cookies - and its only water- but I did feel sorry for them having to cycle six miles back down the track in the wind and rain, but given Scotland, it wasn't as bad as it could be. The big quest for the 2nd half of the week was to find some deer antiers! The chap that owned the house dropped in to visit - he was a very friendly fella and was chatting about how this was the time of year when all the Stags lost their antlers (he collected them and sold them) so after that we were on the serious lookout. It's always been Fred's mission to find some dropped antlers.... The Monro baggers continued with the mission to bag the remaining three Monros... there is discussion as whet...

Vigo

We left the ship to explore Vigo. Its a much larger place then we expected... although tbh I hadn't given ut a lot of thought. Its a real mish mash of old and new and having got a map from tourist info we decided to follow the walking trail to the Monte Castro... the highest point of the town. Most of the town was pretty much as everywhere else... lots of traffic... lots of people... one or two interesting buildings and a lot of shopping. We headed to the art gallery - this has been a year of gallery visits so we we seen o reason to change now. The Museo de Marco is housed in the towns ex prison building and its very grand. In fact, I think that on this occaision the building might have been more interesting than the art.... Although the visiting exhibition by Susanne S D Themlitz was strangely compelling. It was a huge varied collection of eclectic items... found, salavaged, manipulated and arranged in lots of ways - weirdly inspiring - and mostly enjoyable to look at...

Funchal

So after three days at sea we finally hit Funchal in Madeira. An escape from the ship, and I have to say it was very pleasant indeed. First of all the weather is really splendid. Especially when you know that everybody else in the UK is suffering grim storms and vile winds.. Over here it is between 22 and 25 degrees is really quite warm. Funchal is a pretty city. It's built on a hill it with lots of lovely white houses with stunning red roofs. In order to get the best of it we walked along the sea front until we got to the cable car and we took it up the hill. It was a really good ride much longer than we imagined and it's quite weird because it goes right through the town - completely over everybody's house... So not only do you get a lovely vista of the bay but you can view the beautiful rooftops and get to look in everybody's gardens and to look at their picnic sets.. clean washing nice plants... scratty b...

Planet Ruby Starrs

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