Hamelin Station and Steep Point (Dances with Ray)

Winter time in WA! Steep Point and Hamelin Station.

We seem to have been so lucky with the weather?  Each time we check the weather our current location has been warmer than the other capitals and we seem to have fluked windows between systems with nice days, cool nights and no head winds when driving (which is a big deal with 3.5tonne behind you and a boat on the roof!).

This is your typical road side 24hour rest area (free camp).  They have a dump point to empty the toilet which with 5 pax gets filled pretty quick!!  They are all well maintained with lined bins and crow/fox prevention lids, toilets with paper and very popular with the flood of migrating southern nomads heading north for the winter!

Always meeting new and interesting people.  Jessie's new friend was kind enough not to poo on her favourite flanny!

Sunsets are always spectacular and the temperature plummets as soon as the big disc drops.

We camped at a spot called Hamelin Station which was the cleanest and best laid out stay so far.  The shell grit from the coast quarry on the station used to line the roads and camp sites was a beautiful contrast to the surrounding paddocks of gnarly trees and a myriad of bird life!  I photographed (very poorly) a magnificent white winged fairy wren (another tick in the book) which is one of the prettiest vivid blue birds I've seen.   The old sheep station has been converted as most of the stations have to accommodate the tourist flood and easy money.  This site for example we have no power or water and it was $42 a night to camp up.  The facilities although were 5 star with an indoor fire place, BBQ's etc.... Top spot! 

Kacie leading the charge by the fire playing her ukulele with the Chilvers kids and some new kids met in the park.  The iron wood timber is abundant and burns hot and a shame we didn't get out the camp ovens and have a cook off!

She's a born leader.....God knows what game they're playing......?

Here's one for the budding bird watcher.....what bird is that!  Hint it's a Robin of sorts and the name may or may not include a colour.......?

Hamelin Station has it's own shell brick quarry.  How easy is that....!?  Not need to make horrible mud and straw; just cut out uniform bricks of shelly sandstone like block and you've got a fantastic house that from the building we saw can withstand time and tide.....!

The stromatolites of Hamelin Pool...the following photo will explain the phenomenon:

Cool huh?  This area of the coast is also where they loaded big punts with wool to be transferred to boats out in the bay. The wagon wheel ruts are still visible in the stromatolite bay.

We left the van at Hamelin and drove up to Steep Point the most western mainland point in Australia.  About 2.5hours of which the last 30 km of 4wd sand dunes and tracks was great fun (for the driver).  At the tip (this shot) they have installed a photographic pole with the screw in doovalacky like a proper tripod.  Me good english!

The blow holes on the West coast of the steep point on the way back.  What was amazing was that these are about 200 feet above sea level......?

Looking south at the blow holes where we stopped for lunch.  When I took this shot a huge humpback whale breached behind where the blow hole is gushing. I thought I may have got it in shot but was a split second early?

Same spot but a nice shot of the coastline and every surging sea.

On our way back to Hamelin on the eastern side of Steep Point we came across this friendly white pointer shark.  The girls insisted on hand feeding it a slab of the dolphin I hand speared at Steep point.  Jessica was lucky not to loose her hand when the shark got a bit frenzied and took the whole bloody dolphin in one bite! We estimated the shark to be about 7 metres in length and had a huge chunk out of it's left pectoral fin.

Now the real story..... we chanced two beautiful Manta Rays feeding on a current of krill and plankton right next to the 4wd track. Not to miss an opportunity like that we all stripped to our undies and snorkelled with them for about 40 minutes as they kept lapping back and forth through the cloud of plankton and krill which you can see in the next underwater shot:

Awwwwsommmme!

The pair of them kept on lapping up and back and all we had to do was wait in the same spot and they would swim straight past or around us....Gold!

After this we returned to Hamelin and the next day headed south for Geraldton and Perth...more to come as we finally catch up with the blog.......love to all..x