Perth to Broome - Day 3

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The plan for the day was to spend the day around Shark Bay and in the afternoon head towards Coral Bay were we would be spending the night.

There were quite a few interesting places to visit today though, one of them the famous Stromatolites.

The first stop of the day would be at Monkey Mia, this together with the stromatolites promised to be the highlight of the day. Monkey Mia is a place where wild dolphines go every morning (nowadays 2-3 times a day) to be fed by humans) so you can go there and feed the dolphins yourself...in theory, that is.

But as this was our third day I had half convinced our guide Murray to stop by any interesting road sign to take a picture. Initially he was a  bit relunctant and told me to go in the front and take the photo on the move... This is the sign for a Mallee Fowl

I think he noticed my dispointment after the first one and when we got to the second I've managed to convince him to stop which to my total surprise he did...and for his surprise, quite a few people got off the bus with me and took the oportunity to get their photo taken with the sign too.

Australian Road Signs are COOL!!!
And this is the result of my persuasion. :-)

I have no idea of the name of this rat like animal...


When we got to Monkey Mia it was quite early and that was so we would have a chance to see the dolphins before all the other tourists got there (bear in mind we are on Easter holidays over here). Which was a good thing, we managed to see a few dolphins lingering around waiting to be fed.

If you can see anything on the photos that were taken with my camera it means they were *really* close...like 1 metre away or so...othewise with my camera you would see a grey dot.

When the time got to feed the dolphines most of us had lost all the interest, the place was overcrowded and feeding them was quite dull. See the crowds below.

It was the perfect oportunity to take some artistic photos though. :-)

Then we went back to Denham where we stopped to do some shopping and a we spoted a wild lost Emu trying to get out of time.

Then it was time to go to what on paper looked like a rubish activity. Ocean park.

Amazinly enough, this turned out to be quite cool. You had to be careful where you stuck your fingers though.

We had a guided tour around the park while the guide was feeding fish, I would say that the shark feeding was the most impressive of all.

In these places, it's not easy to find a place where to get a coffee so there also have a sign for it! :-)

Then we went to a look up to take photos of shark bay which by the way is a world heritage site.

The road was not exactly a road...it was more like a dirt track

After this, it was Stromatolites time! For the ones of you who don't have a clue what I'm talking about. Millions and millions of years ago when there wasn't much oxygen in the atmosphere, cyanobacteria in the sea started to free oxygen as part of their feeding process, this bacteria over time can get to form rocks when layered one over another. Over millions of years they raised oxygen levels all the way to 20% which allowed other beings like humans to exist.

This is the only place on earth where you can still find the stromatolites (made up by the cyanobacteria). You can see it in different shapes and forms depending on the distance to the water.

These first ones have died to prolong exposure to the sun When the sea level receded.

Up to 60 years ago wool wagons used to go through here carrying wool this made the stromatolites (which take about 30 years to grown 1 cm) to grow as mats.

The following group grew red, it is expeculated this was due to the level of iron in the water before it receded and they died.

Depending on the distance to the water they grow differently, the close ones to shore grow flat and spongey while others deeper in the water tend to build up layers to form rocky towers.

Some scientists believe that the internal growth of the stromatolites provide information on local environmental changes during their lifetimes. The growth rings may even reflect changes in the length of days, angle of the sun and even the rate at which the earth rotated.

On our way to our night accomodation at Coral Bay we crossed the tropic of Capricorn
If you pay real close attention you may notice a shadow under the sign...that would be me. :-)

Today it was a good day loaded with a lot of interesting and cultural things but tomorrow will be action day!

Tomorrow we'll be spending the day at Coral bay with lots of activities to choose from. :-)


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