One adventure at Shark Bay was to explore the 4wd tracks through Francois Peron National Park. The tracks are all on sand, and in some places very deep sand. I teamed up with three German tourists who had a similar vehicle to mine. We decided to travel together as if you get bogged in the area it is extremely expensive to be towed out. At the entrance there are air hoses so that tired can be let down and then pumped up when leaving. This allows driving on the sand.
The drive itself was pretty exciting but not difficult or dangerous. At the end we found terrific beaches with very clear water. In the water, close to the shore there were dugongs, turtles, sharks and rays. On the beaches were a number of seabirds and yellow crabs.
The tracks also led to other beaches and lookouts. At one of these I cooked lunch for all of us and chatted with a family who were camped there for a few days. On the way back we were delighted to find a thorny devil lizard. It was photographed by everyone before removing it from the road.
I also visited Shell Beach. This is a beach composed entirely of small shells. The shells were being mined as building material and there were some houses in Denham made from bricks cut from the beach. There was another caravan park closer to the entrance to the Heritage Area. It was called Hamelin Pools Telegraph Station. Nearby there was a walkway so people could view stomatolites growing at the waters edge. Stomatolites are described as 'living fossils'. They are rock like in appearance but have been built by microbes (blue-green algae). They are 2,000 to 3,000 years old.
