With three weeks remaining on my work and holiday
visa, I learned that my Plan A (to extend my stay in Australia on a tourist
visa) wasn't going to be an option. So I
quickly scrambled to come up with a Plan B, which meant that I was to stop
working (and volunteering), that I had a couple of days to tie off some loose
ends (i.e., selling my car), and that I could have one last adventure before I
had to leave the country. For the
adventure, I considered the remaining states that I had not yet visited: Tasmania,
South Australia, and Western Australia. With
it being the middle of winter, I decided that WA was my best option. After all, the 10 day tour from Perth to
Broome would return me back to the warm tropics.
WA is the largest state, representing about one third
of the continent. Given my schedule, I
unfortunately had only one overnight in its capital, Perth. While Perth is Australia’s 4th
most populated city (1.8 million), it is quite isolated; the nearest city of
more than 100,000 people is Adelaide, SA over 2100 km away. I spend a few hours of the late afternoon and
evening walking around the city. I ended
up in Kings Park, one of the largest inner city parks in the world. Because it is higher in elevation (Mount
Eliza) than most of the city, it has some great views of Perth’s CBD and the
Swan River. It is also well known for
its Botanic Garden, which highlights many of the unique floral species of
WA. Southwest WA is internationally
recognized as a biodiversity hotspot with over 1500 plant species (most of
which are endemic)… just one of the many indicators that WA is quite different
from the rest of Australia.
The most direct route between Perth and Broome is 2185
km. Of course, we covered far more
distance to visit many of the highlights along the way – in other words, we (a
group of 18 plus one tour guide) spent heaps of time on the road. First highlight was the Pinnacles Desert in
Nambung National Park.
Here, thousands of limestone pillars stick out of the coarse
golden yellow sand. They range in shape
and size, some as tall as 4 meters. They
may run as much as another 4 meters underground. The exact formation mechanism for the
pinnacles is unknown, so a few theories float around. Generally, it is believed that the raw
material (calite) is crushed up sea shells, carried to the shore via waves and
inland via wind. Acidic rainwater dissolved
and leached the calcite, which precipitated as cement further below. Vegetation on the surface accelerated this
process. Cracks and plant roots helped
create areas where the rainwater would preferentially dissolve calcite. After the vegetation died and wind blew away
the sand, all that remains are the hardened pinnacles. With shifting dunes, the pinnacles have been
exposed, covered up, and exposed again over time.
It almost felt eerie, surrounding by pinnacles. It was weirdly quiet – only a few birds could
be heard off in the distance. Certainly,
the pinnacles have been likened to gravestones.
I read later about one of the Aboriginal stories: the pinnacles are the fingers of people who
had, despite warnings, attempted to cross the sinking sands of the desert. Their efforts were unsuccessful, as evidenced
by their fingers grasping at the surface.
After lunch, we headed to the Sandy Cape Recreational
Area on Jurien Bay to do some sand boarding.
As you do.
We passed through Geraldton on our way to our
overnight accommodations. Perth and the
southwest corner of WA claim 92% of the state’s population, leaving only
600,000 people spread out in the rest of the vast area (if WA were a country on
its own, it would be the 10th biggest in the world). Geraldton (or Gero) with a population of
37,000 is a big deal. Here, we saw our
last traffic light until Day 10 of the tour when we reach Broome (pop: 16,000).
With an early morning start, we visited Kalbarri
National Park and checked out parts of the gorge created by the Murchison
River. An unusual fog burned off as we
hiked to Z Bend. Some of the rocks have magnificent
orange coloring. It looked incredible
next to the white tree trunks, green leaves, and blue sky; despite all the
pictures I took, I never managed to capture that vividness in a photo. We did see one of the most photographed
features of WA – Nature’s Window.
After lunch, we drove up to the Shark Bay World
Heritage Area. Shark Bay is one of only
a few places that satisfy all four natural criteria for the World Heritage
List. It has enormous seagrass beds,
supporting 10% of the world’s dugong population, and sheltered peninsulas and
islands home to threatened fauna species that now only exist here. One of its most well-known features is
Hamelin Pool with its stromatolites.
Stromatolitic microbialites exists in only a couple locations around the
world (Bahamas being the other one), but here they are the most diverse and
abundant. Stromatolites are limestone
structures created by single-celled microbes called cyanobacteria or blue-green
algae. A bank prevents normal
replacement of Hamelin Pool with ocean water, making the salinity about twice
as high. Natural predators would not
survive long in these waters, so the stromatolites can thrive in the shallows. Because these stromatolites (aged 2,000 – 3,000
years) are living examples of the life forms that existed on Earth 3.5 billion
years ago (and dominated for 3 billion years), they are often referred to as ‘living
fossils.’ Over that time period,
stromatolites were responsible (via photosynthesis) for raising the Earth’s
atmosphere from about 1% oxygen to the 20% oxygen we have today. So they represent an extremely important
stage in Earth’s evolutionary history.
Alright, perhaps they aren't as impressive to look at
as I had imagined, but they are significant nonetheless. We also stopped at the appropriately named
Shell Beach before retiring to Denham, the westernmost town of Australia, for
the night.
In the morning, we headed to Monkey Mia, probably the
better known highlight of Shark Bay. I
have mixed feelings as they have been feeding ‘wild’ bottlenose dolphins daily
for over 40 years now.
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