Shark Bay Trip. Day 1.

Early Saturday morn, 2.30ish to be exact, I awoke to get more ready for my tagalong role on the husbands fishing trip.  It was the 1st of June so awhile back now and I figure it's passed time that I told you all about it.

I expected to have a coffee, do some last minute packing, a quick tidy-up of the house...Instead I heard what I thought was a hose that I must have left on.  I go out to see which one and turn it off but what I see is steamy water pouring out from the hot water system..  That can't be good!  I yell for husband and he gets up, comes out, calmly swears, turns off the gas, turns off the water, says are you ready yet...Yep, 2 minutes and we leave to pick up daughter and her fella.   Fifteen minutes waiting for them and we are off.

Husband drives first on this 10 hour drive so we other 3 snuggle up with our pillow and blanket and go back to sleep.   We stop at Enneaba for a coffee and though the suns rays have reached the road it is COLD!!  So cold!!  No lingering, we get moving again.   A rest stop at Cataby, petrol stop and change of driver at the 440, petrol top up at the Overlander and drivers change over again, we are at the turnoff for Shark Bay, only a couple of hours to go before we get into Denham.

We all wanted to call into Shell Beach on the way in and I like the Stomatolites s talked them into going there first.  I have been to Shark Bay once before, around 10 years ago, the daughter the same, her fella never.  Husband used to go every year so for him seeing the places that we wanted to aren't much fun.  He remembers the whole area from when he started annual fishing trips, 30 years ago, before it became popular and touristy.  He liked it all better before people became too involved with it all, way back when it was just a fishing destination.  But for us he went again.

Stromatolites 
I'm pretty sure, going by all the mocking comments, that I was/am the only one that finds these living fossils interesting.  They are not rocks, they are alive, they grow...not much but hey, it's still something. 

I see you with that camera.

On the way in from the carpark T and J went off chasing some wild goats.  They managed to get quite close but couldn't catch any.

Shell Beach.    This beach doesn't have sand, it is made up of small shells.  In the old days they used blocks of these for buildings in the area.  Nowadays you can buy bags of it for shell grit for poultry.

Mega millions if shells.  So different to the sandy beaches that I usually go to.

 Washing his hair with Shell shampoo

What goes up...

Must come down..

After a bit of playing around we continued on our way to Denham and the Shark Bay Cottages where our fisher people usually stay when they are not out the Big Lagoon.

By chance we were in the same cottage that we stayed in 10 years ago when I first went here.
We bags a room, empty the car then have a coffee before walking down the jetty to see what's happening down there.  There is what looks like fresh squid ink on the wooden jetty so they put squiding on the nights to do list.

Of the dozen or so people on the jetty that night while we were there only one bloke caught one squid and that was before we arrived.  

Once I saw that nothing was being caught I started throwing a line in too.  I'm not very good.

Very tempting to give this bloke a little push but we didn't want to end up wet ourselves so we resisted.

It was a long drive to get here but fun too, interesting seeing the countryside change as we headed North.

What will Tomorrow bring...