Before the Seagulls left Denham we decided that we would spend Christmas together in Kalbarri. The drive from Denham to Kalbarri being close to 400km we decided that we would break it up with an overnighter at the Billabong Roadhouse in Meadow. But before Meadow we took a break at Shell Beach, located on the eastern side of the narrow neck, Taillefer Isthmus, half way down the Peron Peninsula.

Shell Beach

Shell Beach is quite an amazing strip beach that is covered in billions and billions and billions and billions of tiny white cockle shells each of which are no larger than a ‘pinky fingernail’. We often use grains of sand on a beach as a way to visualise large numbers but it is fair to say that Shell Beach dose a better job of this because you can actually see each indivdual shell in relation to the expanse of the beach.

From the parking area you take a short walk to the inland edge of the beach to discover that the beach itself is about 100m wide and 60km long. It is made entirely of shells, one of only two beaches in the world like this.

The next thing you notices is the beach is contains a number of longitudinal ridges and furrows about 1½m deep. The ridges and furrows look like frozen waves as you crunch your way up them and down them to the waters edge.

The water, which is hyper-saline, is absolutely crystal clear. It is like rippling glass out to the point where it deepens and turns into the typical aquamarine colour of the area. The water and the shells are quite mezmerising to look at and the water begs you to strip off and take a dip.

Believe it not though… It was quite hot when we visited, around 40°C and the heat combined with the super-salty water was actually off-putting in terms of swimming. There were only a few people there with us and a couple did go in but they didn’t stay in long. You could almost hear the crackle of salt as they emerged from the water and dried in the sun.

Billabong Roadhouse

So after the very unique Shell Beach, we continued the trek back down the Peron Peninsula, back through Hamelin Pool and on a bit further to Meadow and the Billabong Roadhouse. Now… Meadow was somewhat confusing as a travel stopover. There is the Billabong Roadhouse, which has free-camping at the back and there is also a BP Roadhouse next door which operates the Billabong Hotel/Motel and caravan park with powered sites, water and amenities.

We had originally planned to free-camp at the Billabong Roadhouse so we pulled into the free-camp area at exactly the moment that the sky decided to dump an excessive amount of rain right on top of us. The free-camp area was a bit rough and uneven, and it wasn’t really clear where you should park and which way you should point.

After a minutes or so of downpour the ground was starting to look decidedly muddy and slippery so we hastily decided to pull back out and drove the 100 or so metres down to the BP Roadhouse and discovered that the paid/powered sites were in a lot better condition and handling the rain better. So we decided to pay for a site and have the luxury of mains power just in case we needed it. It was a good decision in the end because, even though the downpour didn’t last very long, it did dump a lot of water. Our site was nice and level and didn’t end up being a slush pile by the time we pulled out the next morning.

The rain was actually a welcome surprise because it cleaned a lot of the accumulated red dirt, sand and salt from the car and the caravan, which was sorely needed since we hadn’t seen rain since Darwin…