Just a short forty minute Comanche flight almost due south from Carnarvon and the Bazflyers were on finals to land at the small airport of Shark Bay. The nearby rather small settlement is known as Denham. On first appearances one could reasonably speculate what on earth could be interesting about this place. However, simmering literally just beneath the surface the locality is simply a bubbling cauldron of fascinating history.
On the way to Shark Bay
Significantly, in the land of pubs, Denham is famously home to Australia’s most westerly hotel...
Cast eyes around the settlement you’ll find buildings constructed of Hamelin Conquina. This is a ‘shell-rock’ made of shell fragments that have become bound together. Local deposits of this rock also provide an important diary of ancient weather patterns.
Look out to the west of Denham and it’s possible to see Dirk Hartog Island, site of the first recorded landfall by a European on Australian soil. That was 1616. Since then the area has seen a succession of European landings by Dutch, French and British that reveal much about the shifting interests and rivalries between nations over their stake in the southern land of Australia.
What lives in here? The red sand so strikingly a feature of Australia’s western shores is actually sand particles coated with iron oxide.
Comanches being prepared for flight
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