Stromatolites to Space – Shark Bay Part 1: Carnarvon and Hamelin Bay

Having fun - not half!!

We left lovely coral bay and had a relatively short drive to Carnarvon which is located at the top of Shark Bay in WA.  It felt like the wind had died a bit so we decided to camp at a caravan park.  As we set up our tent the wind picked up again and we had a very interesting time getting the tent up in a mild gale.  We achieved this through the strategic location of belongings (or more commonly known as chucking our stuff in the corners as quickly as possible) and children (put them in lying down across the diagonals) and super quick tent pegging.  This was by far our best campsite yet – it finally feels like we know what we are doing (we may of course be totally delusional).  We picked up some fish and chips locally and were eating them in the front of our tent on chairs and a table tucked in as far as possible to get out of the wind when our neighbours (from the cabin metres away) stopped on their way in to wish us all the best for the night and hoping we would not get blown away.  Well we didn’t but it was terribly windy and hence very loud.  No-one slept in this morning and we were glad to commence our sightseeing with an indoor location.

Carnarvon Space and Technology Museum

 

Mr C describing how a rocket works

Did you know that Carnarvon played a major role in the manned space program and hosted Australia’s first television broadcast with Britain.  Nup, neither did we.  Good thing the people of Carnarvon have built up a really beaut little museum celebrating Carnavon’s role in all things space and telecommunications. The museum centres around the Carnarvon Tracking Station which was built to support NASA’s Gemini, Appollo and Skylab programs and the OTC Earth Station which was used to transmit the first pictures live via satellite to London from Australia (you can watch the recording on an original TV sitting on period furniture).

Rocket Launching by Mr C

When asked by the guide if the boys knew how much fuel was used to get a rocket into outerspace, this is what Mr C replied: There are stages 1 and 2 and other lots of bits and pieces.  Stage 1 helps the rocket push up but doesn’t last very long and only helps get the rocket out of earth’s gravitional pull.  Then stage 1 falls off and burns up in the atmosphere.  Then comes stage 2 which boosts it out of the atmosphere and then that falls off too sometimes it continues floating all around space.  Then comes the four last bits, the first one boosts the rocket halfway to its destination, then the next one takes it to its destination.  Then there are only two.  One of those is only the little little tip of the rocket and the astronauts are just below in the next part.  Then the rocket has to get back, the little bit boosts it back into the atmosphere.  And the little tip burns up leaving the small part where the astronauts are.  At which the guide replied, well that’s done my job then.

Our boys loved the space centre museum.  They especially loved being dressed up as astronauts and the Apollo takeoff simulation.  Much of the original equipment has been kept so kids can twiddle knobs and dials and play mission control to their hearts content.

'Ground control to Major Tom, come in Major Tom'

The first stage of the museum was opened by Buzz Aldrin in 2012 and Andy Thomas opened stage two in 2014.  The museum was staffed with enthusiastic and helpful volunteers.  Being from Canberra we have the luxury of visiting the working deep space tracking station at Tidbinbilla which also has a great display.  But we were really impressed with what Carnarvon had done here and spent several very pleasant hours here.

One Mile Jetty

Losing our caravan has changed our eating habits (unfortunately not the better me thinks).  Without a fridge handy we are eating out more often.  So today we decided to have our lunch at the One Mile Jetty Interpretive Centre Café.  The centre hosts a range of material both on the history of the jetty (which was originally built in 1897 to ship wool and livestock to Fremantle) and on the WWII battle between HMAS Sydney II and the German raider the HMS Kormoran which took place off the coastline here.  I was surprised and pleased to find that the boys remembered about this battle from the exhibit at the Australian National War memorial (which is a lights and sounds display and obviously stuck in their heads).  It was great to make the link between the War Memorial at home and the actual sight of the sinking of the Sydney here.  

After our lunch we decided against a walk along the jetty opting instead for a ride on the very quaint and fun Coffee Pot train (this was a no brainer actually as we have sons who love their train rides).  As it was a weekday and low tourist season the train only runs on demand and we were the only demand so we had it to ourselves.  This meant we had fantastic attention from the lovely train driver who let the boys blow the horn and at the end of the ride fill it up with fuel.  The jetty has long since been abandoned for commercial purposes and is showing its age.  But the ride was heaps of fun and it was good to know that by participating in it we were helping to support the conservation of the ‘longest jetty in northern WA’.

Toot, toot, chugga, chugga, off we go!

Thar she blows 

 

After our trip out onto the ocean we then went up the coast.  Carnarvon has some spectacular coast line with impressive rock formations which look fabulous with the waves crashing over them

This was where we wished we had more time to further explore the northern coast line more fully instead of the quicker trip we could do.  We did however ensure that we were at the blowholes close to high tide and were well rewarded with a continual display from the best blowholes we have ever come across. The noise, the water contributed to the sight of the blow reaching over 20 metres or so.  It was a spectacle that all the family were truly spellbound by.

 

 

Hamelin Bay and the beginning of life.

 

Walk back in time 3.5 billion years

If Carnarvon had been all about industry and space our next destination at the bottom of shark bay was entirely different.  Having left Carnarvon and on our way to Denham we stopped at Hamelin bay for here you can see the very things that made our life on earth possible, stromatolites.  Hmm I think  I hear you say – haven’t heard much about stromatolites.  Well they really aren’t that much to look at – pretty much resembling ugly, bumpy rocks.   

 

But the story of stromatolites well I think Mr L says it best:

Mr L on Stromatolites

You see Mum you need the Stromatolites to make the oxygen that makes the plants and fishes grow in the water, and then the fishes moved onto land and became the dinosaurs, and then the dinosaurs become the megafauna and the megafauna became the nowadays animals and then the monkeys of the nowadays animals became the humans.

  

So there you can see it, just how important Stromatolites are.  Oh by the way stromatolites are mats/colonies of bacteria that existed 3.5 billion years ago when the seas were warmer and saltier (which they are still in Hamelin Bay) and yes they made the oxygen that we of course still love breathing today, but I prefer the way Mr L described it.