Page 191 - Mit dem Wohnwagen durch Australien 2

large towns are threatened. Large parts of the population had to be evacuated. The military came to help. Both
flooded zones together are the largest food producers of Australian fruit. Fruit, vegetables and coal will become
much more expensive.

SHARK BAY
After our prolonged stay in Carnarvon due to the floods, the roads south were finally cleared, so that we were able
to move on. Our first stop was Denham in Shark Bay, near Monkey Mia, best known for its Dolphin feeding
program. Shark Bay is a very sheltered Bay in the shape of a large W. It is shallow and reaches deep into the
mainland. There are normally only 2 tides per day and water is not exchanged very often. The salinity is one and a
half time as strong as out at sea. One of the elbows of the W is cut off towards the open sea by a large sand- and
sea grass bank and builds Hamelin Pool. Beyond that, the salinity is even higher and reaches hyper salinity to twice
as much as the sea.

These unique living conditions favour very special and unique live forms. Dugongs, huge, gentle and endangered
sirens of the sea, love nothing better than to eat the abundant sea grass. The majority of all Dugongs in Australia
live here.

The most extraordinary and also oldest creature on earth lives in the hyper saline area of Hamelin Pool. They are
called stromatolites. You have never seen them? Well, so have most of human kind and still, we all owe this
creature our life. Stromatolites have existed since over 3.5 Billion years. Well before they existed there was no other
life on earth and only about 1 % oxygen in the atmosphere. Stromatolites are tiny cyanobacteria that attract calcium
carbonate and cluster together to build roundish rock structures. They have a very special way of feeding. They use
photosynthesis from the sun in order to exchange Carbon into oxygen. In those far away times there was water
everywhere and stromatolites thrived. They had no competitors or predators. They enriched the atmosphere with up
to 21 % of oxygen and in the water many oxygen breathing life forms including fish and ultimately, humans evolved.
The living stromatolites in Hamlin pool are about 3000 years old and thrive, because the hyper saline water prevents
the evolution of any predators. They were discovered in 1956. Some other living colonies still exists in other locations.
One of the very early by-products of the oxygen production was that Iron particles oxidised and built layers on the
ocean floors. When the seas receded the land emerged and tectonic forces built up mountains and ranges.

One of these former sea beds now builds the Pilbara and Kimberley’s where iron ore deposits are mined big time.
There the oldest, now dead, stromatolites were found and estimated to be 3.5 billion years old. Shark Bay has been
declared a world heritage site, not only for its stromatolites but also for the habitat for dugongs and other endangered
species.

The very salty water allows millions of small white mussels to live unchallenged in the bay. Meters of white shells
build a pristine white beach. Over millions of years these shells compressed to rock which is now mined for very
picturesque buildings.

The biggest magnets however are still the dolphins in Monkey Mia. A little chic resort with a camp ground, tourist
office, restaurant and shops has been built there which lives exclusively from tourism. We stayed in cheaper Denham
and made day trips to Monkey Mia and sure enough, the dolphins were there.

We joined an aboriginal culture tour with Daryl a very knowledgeable black fellow who addressed us as brothers
and sisters. The group was made up of kids from a youth camp for children with cancer and their friends and
siblings. I felt immediately at home. They were a lovely mob. We tasted bush bananas directly from the vines and
also cooked in the embers of a little fire, where we baked some fish. Yummy.

After our third visit to Monkey Mia one of the rangers asked us if we would not like to volunteer for their Dolphin
program. We planned to leave the day after and were on the way to sail with the Shotover, a large, former racing
catamaran to explore the sea life of shark bay. It was a beautiful cruise we discovered huge sea turtles in the
shallow warm waters, saw a sea snake and lots of dolphins playing around the boat. And finally, there they were: the
dugongs, sirens of the seas. Large, gentle mammals with mermaid tails grazing on the vast sea grass banks. They
are very shy and were lucky to see one with a calf at her side, both lifting their heads out of the water to breathe and
then disappearing again. A magical Moment.