Day 29 Geraldton to Denham - 28/3/11

Today we headed off to Denham along the North West Coastal Highway and through Northhampton, Binnu, Wannoo Billabong Roadhouse and Overlander Roadhouse where we turned off to go to Denham.  The trip from where we turned off at the Overlander Road House to Denham was a long (130kms) boring and hot drive with occasional glimpes of the spectacular coastline.  The landscape is just short shrubs and it goes on forever.

Denham has a population of 1200 and is the main service centre for the Shark Bay World Heritage Area and the gateway for exploring this region.  Denham is named after Captain H.H. Denham who charted the whole of Shark Bay in 1858.  The first pastoralists came to the area in the 1860's and pearling took off in the 1870's.  The pearling declined in the depression but has been re-established at Monkey Mia.  Today the main industries are tourism and fishing. 

The view from outside the Tourist Information Centre

Lots of butterflies 

The beach outside the caravan park

Our caravan park, Denham Seaside Tourist Village, claims to be the most western caravan park in Australia.  Our site overlooked the beach and the Indian Ocean. After setting up, we went for a walk around town and went to the Tourist Information Centre to get some information.  At one of the cafes there was a planter box with some creeper in it and there were so many butterflies.  You can see them in the picture above.  Apparantly the butterflies, flies and grasshoppers are in huge numbers after the last lot of rain.

cheers
Pete and Roz