Australia
Shark Bay
Stromatolites — among the oldest living organisms on Earth — still building reefs in hypersaline shallows.
The stromatolites do not look like much — dark, humped mounds in hypersaline shallows. Then you process what you are seeing. These are among the oldest living organisms on Earth, 3.5 billion years old, still building reefs the way their ancestors did when nothing else was alive.
Shark Bay is a UNESCO World Heritage site on Western Australia's Gascoyne coast, recognised for its outstanding natural values across all four criteria — one of few places on Earth to achieve this. Hamelin Pool's stromatolites are living microbial mats descended from organisms that produced the oxygen enabling animal life on the planet. At Monkey Mia, wild bottlenose dolphins swim into knee-deep water each morning to interact with visitors — a behaviour that has continued daily since the 1960s. Shell Beach is composed entirely of Fragum erugatum cockle shells, estimated at ten metres deep, stretching 60 kilometres. The bay's seagrass meadows support one of the world's largest dugong populations.
Couple
Dolphins at dawn, stromatolites at midday, a sunset on Shell Beach — Shark Bay compresses 3.5 billion years of life into a single day's experience.
Family
Dolphins that approach children in the shallows, a beach made entirely of shells, and the chance to see the oldest life on Earth — wonder at every stop.
- Stromatolites at Hamelin Pool are 3.5-billion-year-old living organisms — among the oldest life forms on Earth.
- Dolphins at Monkey Mia swim into knee-deep water each morning to interact with visitors.
- Shell Beach is made entirely of tiny cockle shells, ten metres deep and stretching for 60 kilometres.
- Dugongs graze on seagrass meadows in the bay — one of the world's largest populations.
Monkey Mia resort — watch bottlenose dolphins arrive at the beach at dawn, then eat breakfast with the view.
Denham fish and chips — Shark Bay whiting and blue swimmer crab from the World Heritage waters outside.
Dalyan
Turkey
River channels wind past Lycian cliff tombs to a turtle-nesting beach, explored by wooden boat.
Manitoulin Island
Canada
The world's largest freshwater island holds lakes within lakes and powwow drums across the water.
Shodoshima
Japan
Olive groves and soy sauce breweries on a Mediterranean mirage in the Inland Sea.
Toktogul Reservoir
Kyrgyzstan
Turquoise water filling a canyon that drowned 26 villages — a lake that swallowed history.
Kangaroo Island
Australia
Sea lions lounge on beaches, koalas sleep in roadside trees, and the air tastes of eucalyptus.
Huon Valley
Australia
Huon pine colonies possibly 10,000 years old — a living organism older than civilisation itself.
Wave Rock
Australia
A 15-metre granite wave frozen mid-break, striped with mineral stains in the middle of wheat country.
Karlu Karlu (Devil's Marbles)
Australia
Granite boulders balanced like marbles by millions of years of wind, sacred in Warumungu Dreaming.