The Wild, Wild West-ern Australia

Australia as a whole is a breath-taking country.

But I wanted to focus specifically on the breath-taking state of Western Australia and even more specifically on the North-Western part of the state. Western is both breath-taking and breath-giving, in the case of Hamelin Pool in Shark Bay Marine Park and World Heritage Site, which is one of the only place on Earth where you can find living marine stromatolites.

Stromatolites (pictured below) are sedimentary structures, primarily formed by cyanobacteria, which are oxygenic photosynthetic bacteria. Cyanobacteria have a significant presence in the fossil record. The stromatolites of Western Australia, dated approximately 3.5 billion years old, are some of the oldest known fossils.

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Monkey Mia, which is a short drive away from Hamelin Pool, is also a great spot to see some slightly bigger organisms--Bottlenose Dolphins. Monkey Mia is also a great place to swim in the turquoise waters of the Indian Ocean.

But beauty in Western Australian comes in many forms. If you travel further north from Shark Bay, you can find the beautiful Coral Bay. The bay is protected from Indian Ocean by the Ningaloo reef. Ningaloo reef was my initial reason for deciding to travel to the west coast of Australia.

Ningaloo reef is one of the few places in the world where you can swim with Whale Sharks. This beauty was around 7 m in length. Whale Sharks have become popular recently in mainstream media: firstly, for being featured in the animated film "Finding Dory" and secondly, and arguably more importantly, for being listed as endangered by the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN).

And while Western Australia's coast offers visitors incredible beaches and marine life, it also offers visitors Mother Nature's ultimate playground--Karijini National Park. Now my amateur photography does not give it justice, this place is gorge-ous.

I mean really, really gorge-ous.

Camping in Karijini was pretty amazing. Every day included new hikes to gorges, pools, and waterfalls. And every night included amazing views of the stars. Karijini was also where I saw my first (of many) Huntsman spider.

Western Australia is so much more than what I can describe--so I will cut it off there. But hopefully, if you've made it this far, you enjoyed this post.

Thanks,