Day Two

I awoke day two in quite a lot of a pain. My shoulder was pulled out of joint a little in my sleep. It is really impossible to keep something like that still when unconscious. Thankfully, I just had to restraighten my sling and physically push it back in place. At this point, it is what physiotherapists refer to a piano key joint; it is free to just go up and down, but will most likely pop up. For much of the day, I had to struggle to keep the joint in place. By night time it was healed enough to more or less stable.

Our first stop was at Kalbarri National Park, which was incredible. The main feature was a sandstone gorge that we hiked through. At my first photo op of the day, I realized my camera was broken; the lens came out, but would not go back into the camera. I found this odd since in worked the prior evening for some sunset photos. My sunglasses were also missing; I probably left them at the hostel. A few of the people in the group chose to rappel down the side of the gorge (the call it abseiling here though...odd), which looked like much fun. After our hike, we stopped at Nature's window, a sandstone formation at the top of this cliff that looks surprisingly enough like a window to the incredible gorge below. It was truly breathtaking.

Our next stop was to Hamelin Bay, home of one of the largest and oldest colonies of stromatolites in the world. For those not "in the know", at billions of years old, stromatolites are one of the oldest living things on Earth. They were the first ever photosynthetic organisms, creating all the original oxygen in our atmosphere. Without them, we would not exist. To see such things was incredible, especially since evolution has not altered them in billions of years. All they were were some brown, coral-like growths on the beach, it was still fascinating.

We stopped for a bathroom break at a service station called Billabong, which was actually built on the site of a billabong. You could tell by finches. So, if you ever get lost in the outback, if you see finches flying around, you know there is nearby water. Water was definitely needed. I got off the bus into the hottest natural temperature I've ever experienced. It felt just like a sauna. The thermometer sitting the shade read 41C (or 106F). Typically the shade is between seven and ten degrees cooler than the sun, so the actual temperature was 50C or 122F! That is hot!

The final stop was Shell Beach, which is exactly how the name describes it. The entire 110km long beach was made entirely of sea shells. It was like sand, but a closer inspection showed it was all broken shells. The "sand" here is used for buildings, landscaping, and chicken feed (the shell particles makes the chicken eggs harder to break apparently). While there, Dave, one of our guides, convinced us there was a flock of turtles. The whole 20 person group waded the shallow water for 100 meters, only to find it was hoax! To top it off, he later claimed to have seen a snake in the bushes which he never found. He redeemed himself after catching a spiky dragon on the side of the road though.

(Special thanks to Eline, Cathrine, and Mirte for the photos.)