​Shark Bay World Heritage region  14-16 August 2017

These are the cardiid cockle shells. They are tiny and so delicate. Seems a shame to walk on them.

The Shark Bay Heritage region is unique for a number of reasons - the tiny Cardiid cockle shells for instance. They have been deposited on these shores for over 6000 years. Through the magic of chemistry they become glued together forming huge deep banks up to 9 m think of soft limestone they call coquina. This was once quarried and used as building material but is now protected.

Here Lindsay is walking out in the huge expanse of sweeping Shell Beach on L'Haridon Bight - the entire shore is made up of those same cardiid cockle shells. The beach is a series of deep banks of compressed shells. The reflection of light off the shells is dazzling.

This looked like an archeological dig but the foreshore of Hamelin Pool was once the quarry where blocks of coquina was cut to built houses etc. the only blocks of this soft limestone that is quarried here today is for the repair and maintenance of historic buildings in the immediate area.

The shorelines around the northerly facing fingers of land which form the Shark Bay region are also piled with low, slowly shifting dunes of those tiny cockle shells with a few larger shells poking out here and there. These little creatures continue to thrive here, albeit not growing very big, because the high salinity of the waters means they have few natural predators. Those same conditions were also ideal for the survival of the Cyanobacteria which built the stromatolites.

Our faithful beast resting on the beach while we explored.

The shell banks are like sand dunes and like sand dunes they collapse as you walk on them. Quite a phenomenon!

The surrounding water is twice as salty as the sea, UV is extremely high and temperatures soar. So what survives has adapted to these conditions in strange forms and with weird flowers and fruiting mechanisms. Even settlers managed to adapt to the harsh conditions. In the late 1800s and early 1900s camel trains brought wool from pastural leases to Flagpole Landing where it had to be rowed out to small sailing boats which then took it a further 200km to ships moored outside the Bay. You need to see the distances to really appreciate what that must have meant.

The scrub around Hamelin Pool looks rather desolate but when you step in and peer into the plants and flowers it is fascinating. No more pix of flower throats for now though!

But maybe this one!? A samphire of some sort. What a curious-looking scrap of natural beauty it is.

And this chenopod found poking out of the cockle shells. Only a mother could love those spikes! But it has interesting little seeds. Sorry for the blurry pic - it gets so that I simply cant bend low enough!

Bore water and dodgy electricity notwithstanding, it was an amazing place full of fascinating things related to both man and nature. We followed the call of the chiming wedgebill which seemed to beckon you into the bush and photographed plants we've not seen before. A truly special unique part of Australia.