Packed up our gear after the three nights in the one spot, our longest stop yet. We had breakfast in the bakery waiting for the reception to open so we could get the key deposit back then were off. Rode out of Coral bay into the sand dune landscape and turned south. It feels like we had turned the corner and are now heading for home. We stopped at the sign for the Tropic of Capricorn for a photo crossing the line out of the tropics. It already feels cooler.
The terrain was a bit boring really, nothing but low grass on sand dunes. We rode down and joined the North west Coastal highway and shortly after this pulled into the Minilya roadhouse to fuel up. Meet another RT rider from Adelaide who has been on the road for 5 weeks going in the same direction as we are. He spent some time admiring our bikes, which are a newer model than his. He seemed impressed that we came from NZ to do this ride. Back into a steady ride along an unremarkable road through a desiccated landscape to Carnarvon. Carnarvon is like an oasis of vegetation in the dessert, where a lot of fruit is grown, presumably due to irrigation. We looked at stopping at Carnarvon for a coffee but the machine was broken so we just kept on riding to the next roadhouse at Wooramel. We pulled in here for a Coffee and short break. The family from the boat yesterday came in and we said a brief G’Day to them before saddling up again and heading on. Saw an Emu along the way, and then we stopped at a look out, which looked out to the sea at Shark Bay, but mostly looked at the scorched landscape. Turned right at the Overlander Road house and went to Hamelin Pond.
The purpose of stopping at Hamelin Pond was to see the oldest life form on Earth, the Stromatolites. Yesterday we failed to hunt down the biggest fish but today those Stromatolites were not getting away. We hunted them down on the foreshore at Hamlin pond. Stromatolites are made of single cell organisms Cyanobacterium that form rock like structures on the tidal line at Hamlin Pond. They were thought to be extinct until discovered here some time ago. They survive here as the water in Hamlin Pond has a high salinity due to the low flows of sea water in and out of this part of the bay and the high heat and evaporation. They are not that exciting to look at but they have been very important in the Earths ability to sustain life. They have been around for 3.5 billion years, and for 2.9 billion years they were the only life on Earth and spent their time making Oxygen which was scarce in the beginning, and eventually the bought the Oxygen levels up to 20% which allowed other life to get going, so while the Stromatolites look pretty dull they were so important to us that I felt we had to have a look. They are very fragile and slow growing that a walkway has been built over them to prevent people from walking on them. There are cart tracks through the Stromatolytes that were put there over 60 years ago, as this was a point that supplies were bought back and forward from boats. The Stromatolytes grow at about 1 cm per year and they have not recovered from the cart tracks yet. The tide was mostly in and so the Stromatolytes were under water, and with the eye of faith you could see bubbles of Oxygen coming off them, still working hard to oxygenate the planet.
This area has no tree or other building materials so the early settlers build the buildings with Sea shell aggregate that was cut from the rock at the beach, and the quarry is still very obvious although no more rock is cut other than for repair work. Interesting in that the small shells are bound together with the Calcium carbonate that leaches from the shells over time. The shell aggregate had been formed over about 6000 years, so this whole area is pretty old.
We had a Devonshire tea (with Coffee) at the shop, which was an old cottage, shop with shiplap construction, and lots of historic photos and nick knacks for sale. It was now after 3 so we headed back to the Overlander roadhouse and fuelled up and headed down the road for the last bit of safe riding. There are a huge number of dead Roos on the road around here so we are not too keen on riding close to dark.
We rolled into Billabong Roadhouse about 4.30 at it seemed like a good time to stop. Got a room at the Hotel/Motel and went for a halfhearted run as the sun went down. Went into the pub for a beer and dinner. The place is run by an elderly man who has written a book called "Cut the Bullshit (for men only)". Which is a book about his opinion on everything. I opened it up to read about the facts about women and menopause, crickey what is this book all about? I flicked through the pages a bit, there is his opinion about Justice, politics, work ethics everything. Might be an interesting read, no doubt a bit tainted by a life outback, and probably a bit red necked, but who knows. I did not by a copy to find out.
Spent the evening watching Toy Story movies on the one TV channel. Should have bought the book.
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