Denham. Only twenty four hours from Tulsa but foggy.

On Monday May 20th we left Perth several tonnes lighter and headed north.  Also, after quizzing some experienced Grey Nomads, I had put a lot more air in the tyres, so our fuel consumption was much improved.

We stopped for a night at Jurien Bay and then at Horrocks Beach before reaching our first significant stop at Denham in Shark Bay where, on the first night, we fell asleep to the croonings of some slightly intoxicated fishermen.  The words; “I wuz only twenny-four owwers frum Tulsaaahhh!” are still ringing in my ears.

The next morning we were awakened before sunrise by what sounded like a jet engine with a faulty silencer.  Initially I thought it was a plane getting ready for takeoff from Shark Bay airstrip.  The noise got louder as the minutes passed and eventually the birds gave up their silence and made an early start on the dawn chorus.

When it was light enough to see, I wandered through the campsite towards the noise which seemed to be coming from the sea front.  It turned out to be a road sweeping truck slowly making its way along Denham’s main street.  My first thought… no, second thought was why?  OK, so Denham is the most significant settlement for about 200 kilometres in any direction, but New York it is not!  Denham does go to sleep (well it does after the fishermen have run out of steam), and there is no morning gridlock on its roads.  So why on earth does the road sweeper need to start at night?  Why not start after everyone is awake?  Anyway, that day was spent pottering around Denham and doing some school work with Emily and Oliver.

The next day we were informed that Denham was to be “Fogged” in the afternoon and that we should zip up our windows and doors.  “Fogging” is done periodically to kill the mosquitoes.  So after lunch, we zipped everything up and went for a walk at “Little Lagoon” which is just a few kilometres drive out of Denham.  As we drove back to Denham we could see the clouds of “fog” drifting inland across the town.  Presumably, if we had looked very carefully, we would have also seen clouds of mosquitoes, just ahead of the cloud, belongings tucked under their arms, making a hasty escape into the hinterland (perhaps that was the Denham rush hour).

On Friday, May 24th we drove to Herald Bight which is up on the east coast of the Peron Peninsula.  Twenty three kilometres of the drive was off-road along a sandy track – parts of which got quite deep, so we were glad we followed the Park Ranger’s advice and let some air out of the tyres.

We went for a walk along the beach, had a picnic lunch then retraced our journey along the track to the main road and along to Monkey Mia which is well known for its Dolphins.  We arrived too late to see the Dolphins being fed but we did see them just offshore whilst we had a swim.  Monkey Mia really is a beautiful spot for swimming.