Photo: Rachel Austin

A single clone of the Poseidon’s ribbon weed (Posidonia australis) in Shark Bay, Australia, is at least 4,500 years old and spans more than 180 km in fragmented, near-shore meadows.

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Photo: Shutterstock

The massive plant is around 4,500 years old but could continue expanding indefinitely.

Source: The world’s biggest clone is a 77-square-mile ‘immortal’ meadow of seagrass

A road trip itinerary along Western Australia’s sparsely settled Coral Coast. You’ll feel like you’ve time traveled back to the good old days, when a scenic place might still be uncrowded, unhurried, and uncommercialized, like Baja in the 1970s or California’s Central Coast a generation before that.

Source: How to take the road trip of a lifetime along the Western Australia Coast

Once again, Tom Hegen brings us closer to nature. His new aerial photographic series was taken during his travel in Australia. It is a genuine visual pleasure…

Source: Splendid Shark Bay in Australia

Source: Exploring the Australian coastal wilderness where Blue Planet II was filmed

On one side is rugged outback, on the other a marine wonderland, and in the middle…  Monkey Mia, where the red desert meets the sea…

Source: Monkey Mia, where the red desert meets the sea Monkey Mia red desert meets sea

Australia – Shark Bay, Western Australia

A former sheep station in Western Australia has become an internationally important conservation reserve, housing rare and threatened species as well as a huge range of stromatolites.

Hamelin Station, on the edge of the Shark Bay World Heritage Area, stretches across more than 200,000 hectares and plays host to a range of endangered species, as well as the world’s oldest known life form.

Bush Heritage Australia now owns the former grazing property, where it has been ramping up conservation work to protect species under threat.

Spokeswoman Annette Ruzicka said the importance of the reserve was not widely appreciated.

“It’s habitat for several nationally threatened species such as the Hamelin Skink, which you only find here, nowhere else, the mallee fowl and the western grass wren. And there’s also a melting pot of plant biodiversity,” she said.

World’s most diverse stromatolite collection

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Source: This Australian Beach Is One of Only Two Beaches in the World Composed Entirely of Shells

Although more people are familiar with Australia’s east coast, home to most of the country’s population, its northern and west coasts were the first ones Europeans explored. The Dutch led the way, since they were already trading with what is now Indonesia (which they called the Dutch East Indies). In 1606, Willem Janszoon came upon the Cape York Peninsula, not far from Indonesia on Australia’s northern side, the first European to encounter Australia.

Source: Oct. 25, 1616: Dutch explorer Dirk Hartog finds Australia’s west coast