Burringurrah, Mount Augustus, Dirk Hartog Island 10 Day Tour

Day 6 – Carnarvon to Monkey Mia – Carnarvon Space & Technology Museum, Stromatolites, Shell Beach, Eagle Bluff, Monkey Mia

We visit the Carnarvon One Mile Jetty Heritage Precinct. The One Mile Jetty was built in 1897 and was the first port in Australia to transport commercial livestock by sea on a regular basis. State ships stopped in Carnarvon on average twice a week until they ceased operations in 1966.

Carnarvon’s Number 1 Tourist Destination the Carnarvon Space & Technology Museum.

The Carnarvon Space and Technology Museum celebrates the little known history of the role Carnarvon played in the manned space program and in the Australian communications industry.

The museum focusses on two parts. The Carnarvon Tracking Station and the OTC Satellite Earth Station, for which each station played separate roles in the early space industry.

The Carnarvon Tracking Station was located 10 kilometres south from Carnarvon. The station was built to support NASA’s Gemini, Apollo and Skylab programs. It was commissioned in 1964 and operated for 11 years. It was the last station to communicate with the space capsules leaving the earth orbit, and the last to make contact before splashdown in the Pacific Ocean. At the height of the operation, it had a staff of 220 people.

The OTC Satellite Earth Station and now the museum site is situated at the northern end of Browns Range, about 6 kilometres from the centre of Carnarvon, and 4 kilometres north of the Tracking Station. The OTC Satellite Earth Station was opened in1966, initially with the 12.8 metre wide Casshorn antenna as part of the global satellite communications system. The Casshorn antenna has interacting parabolic and hyperbolic reflectors in a characteristic ‘sugar scoop’ form. A very interesting place to visit and relive memories.

On 21 July 1969, the day of the Apollo 11 moon landing, the Casshorn antenna relayed Neil Armstrong’s first steps on the Moon from NASA’s Honey Suckle Creek Tracking Station to Perth’s TV audience via Moree earth station – the first live telecast into Western Australia. Later in 1969, the larger 29.6 metre wide steerable antenna was built to facilitate better communication between the NASA Tracking Station and the USA.

Visit Bumbak’s before making our way up the coast to Coral Bay. Bumbak’s Preserves & Ice creams is one of Carnarvon’s major tourist destinations. It offers award winning homemade preserves & ice creams possessing an extensive portfolio of 100 lines. Their mango smoothie and banana smoothies are the ultimate of scrumptious.

Visit a unique Cactus Garden flourishing in Carnarvon’s tropical climate. The garden has attracted Instagram followers.

From here journey to the Shark Bay World Heritage Area and marvel at the astonishing world-class natural attractions in the region. Shark Bay is well known for its white beaches, turquoise waters, and rust-red sand dunes. It is primarily renowned for both its terrestrial and marine life. It is nature at its most pure.

Shark Bay is renowned for its marine fauna. A population of 10,000 dugong is one of the largest in the world, a variety of sharks, and many dolphins particularly at Monkey Mia. Humpback whales use Shark Bay as a stopover in their migration along the coast. Vast meadows of seagrass the Dugongs graze on and Stromatolites at Hamelin Pool

Next stop is Hamelin Pool to view to view Stromatolites, which are one of the earliest forms of life to evolve on our planet. Living fossils, part of the earth’s evolutionary history.

Further we will visit Shell Beach which is home to billions of tiny Cardiid Cockle; the 60 km stretch of beach is covered to a depth of some seven to ten metres.

A stop at Eagle Bluff will give you a scenic view over the coast; you might be lucky enough to spot Lemon Sharks, Stingrays, Turtles or Dugongs.

Accommodation:  Monkey Mia Resort

BLD