Denham is the gateway for exploring the Shark Bay World Heritage Area. Situated appoximately 9 hours North of Perth. From here you can venture into special areas including Dirk Hartog Island, Steep Point, Eagle Bluff, Shell Beach, Francois Peron National Park and don’t forget Monkey Mia.
We decided to stay in Denham over the Easter period. It gets quite busy everywhere at this time of the year and pot-luck vacancies tend to be hard to find. Even designated bush camp sites within National Parks are in high demand. I guess this is when not having to stick to a time schedule comes in handy.
Our extended stay in Denham gave us plenty of time for some extra adventures within the local area. One of our favourite things to do was walking the beaches each morning and finding some pretty awesome shells along the way. We also went beach fishing a few times, but alas no table fish came home with us for dinner. However while we were standing on the sand bars of the beaches, with the very clear water we watched a variety of fish including a couple of small Shark, Stingray, Skate and many juvenile Whiting. They all swam so close to where we were that we literally could have touched them.
There are plenty of great four wheel drive tracks for those wanting a little more excitement. On the Monkey Mia Road you will find the turn off to Little Lagoon. This is a wonderful place to spend a little time swimming, fishing or just enjoying wading through the shallow turquoise very clear waters.
We stayed at the Denham Seaside Caravan Park and had a pretty awesome site facing the waters of Shark Bay looking towards Dirk Hartog Island. We could easily see the salt piles of Useless Loop’s solar salt processing operation. At night the lights of Useless Loop’s salt works added a different perspective to the whole scene.
This is a Top Tourist Park and a powered site at this time of the year was approximately $39 per night for two people. It also features:
• Tiered level sites for Motor Homes, Caravans, Camper trailers and Whiz-bangs.
• Several amenity blocks. The site we had was close to the uni-sex ensuite type amenities.
• Laundry
• Camp kitchen
• BBQ’s
• Jumping Pillow
• Fish cleaning table
• TV reception
• 4G Telstra reception
• Wi-Fi available near the office
• Pet friendly
From the park it’s a short easy stroll along the foreshore to town. In town is the Shark Bay World Heritage Discovery and Visitors Centre. Besides all the usual information it has a great museum, which does have an entrance fee, but inside you will see it’s full of natural wonders, world heritage and some fantastic historic pieces dating back to 1616. Did you know Shark Bay is one of 16 sites worldwide that satisfies the criteria of being named a “World Heritage” region?
In town you will find a Bakery, IGA supermarket, Newsagent, Pharmacy, Post Office, a couple of cafes, restaurant and The Shark Bay Hotel (Australia’s most Westerly Hotel) and called ‘The Old Pub’ by the locals. Oh and before we forget there is also a great little supermarket right across the road from the caravan park.
You can fuel up at the IGA or the Service Station which sells just about anything from camping equipment and beach clothing to fishing gear and car accessories and much much more. It also has a great little café. I also loved the Surf n Dolphin shop with all sorts of things including some really nice clothes….
We had some beautiful days in Denham and some very very windy days. No wonder it’s a place that Kite Surfers come to and we thoroughly enjoyed watching these very athletic guys each afternoon whizzing across the bay right in front of the caravan park.
The sunsets were pretty awesome too.
Approximately 20kms south of Denham on the Hamlin Road you will find the turn off to Eagle Bluff. This is a great place to stop and sight some of the local marine life such as sharks, rays turtles and Dugongs. There is a fabulous elevated boardwalk to viewing platforms where you can look down onto the shallow waters below. Yep we spotted quite a few sharks and a turtle. Better than nothing we thought. It was pretty awesome.
Across the bay from Eagle Bluff you can see the Useless Loop salt piles. We had never heard of Useless Loop until our visit to Denham. At night we have been seeing bright lights across the bay from our caravan park site and we now know they are the lights of Useless Loop. As much as we would have loved to visit and experience what happens in a solar salt operation the town of Useless Loop is a closed mining town – no visitors/tourists allowed.
If you have the time make sure you stop into the Denham Lookout. Here you will find the “Thong Shack” and again more lovely beaches. This is where we also found our marine “Easter Egg” which has obviously hatched. But we don’t know what hatched from it. It was so beautiful.
Also don’t forget to check out Shell Beach and Monkey Mia.
Below are a list of others places we have visited that may be of interest to you:
-
- Alice Springs NT to Broken Hill NSW
- Broken Hill to Sawtell – NSW
- Crossing the Nullarbor
- Free Camps – Broken Hill to Cobar -NSW
- NSW – Free camps, Donation camps, Showgrounds and Caravan Parks 2019
- Northern Territory – Free camps, Donation camps and Caravan Parks 2018/2019
- Queensland Road Trip 2017/2018
- South Australia to Western Australia 2019
- South Australia trip 2017/2018
- Victoria 2017/2018
- Western Australia Coastal Trip 2018
- WA’s Got the Lot 2019
Cheers
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Happy Aussie Caravanning Lifestyle
Dixie and Graeme