Back at Hamelin Pool

Thursday 16 June

Hamelin Pool WA

Again I don't know where to start - each day brings so many different adventures, big and small, and so many delightful details  - beaches made entirely of tiny shells, astonishing birds, a sky that stops you in your tracks several times a day. I am in love with WA (mind you I have yet to experience the 55 degree days that are the norm from the Gascoyne area northwards) - it is just vast and full of delicious colours when you slow down to walk through it. The ocean is crystal clear and turquoise, full of fish. Away from the highway & roadhouses, the stillness really gets into you and as you listen, a myriad of tiny sounds makes itself heard - so many different song birds, little rustlings and sudden movements of small creatures.

At Hamelin Pool is the old Telegraph Station, which helped relay messages between Houston and Carnarvon during the Gemini space mission! It's just a collection of old buildings, sheds and trailers in a very pretty setting close to a shell quarry (the beach is entirely made of tiny shells, you just cut a block out and build with it). The main building has a little tea room which is where Duncan the diesel mechanic makes me breakfast. We eat out on the verandah looking out at bougainvillea and lots of tiny songbirds.

Duncan's job is general caretaking/fixing/making noise in the shed. Like a lot of people out this way he has about six hundred trade qualifications; he must be pretty good as he's in big demand by the local roadhouses as well. Like me he sold his house & business and decided to live more simply, so now he just works a range of odd jobs and is also a licenced roo shooter (aieeee) but apparently this is pretty common out here in the west. Guess I can't complain if I'm scoffing down roo steaks every night...

It's a fantastic little place and I spend a bit of time walking along the station tracks & trying to identify birds ("Was that a bird?"), and of course there's the sunset stromatolite visit. Duncan's trailer is nestled cosily next to the generator which runs 24 hours, but the compensation is a great view from the other side and the most delicious rainwater to drink (the desalinated water tastes AWFUL). Smokey is living in his own trailer next door.