Team A

Did you know the first Europeans set foot in Australia way back in 1616, when Dirk Hartog and his crew landed on what is now called Dirk Hartog Island in Shark Bay, Western Australia?

We started our day at beautiful nearby Shell Beach for an early morning swim.

Pip and Bob James stopped to hold the Torch.

Nataliya striding out.

The friendly Phil and Phil Young (Sr and Jr) owners of the Wooramel Roadhouse held the Torch. They get to meet such a huge variety of people.

A guard of honour to welcome a local football team in Carnarvon.

– Nishima Knowsley (New Zealand)

Team B

No ceremonies for us today meant no hurry to depart Monkey Mia and the sublime Shark Bay area.

As the sun rose over the perfectly tranquil bay, the first dolphins appeared for their regular social visit to mingle with today's line-up of homo sapiens along the beach. Perhaps in tune with the serenity of the water and sky, the three family groups who appeared this morning were in a very relaxed mood. With tiger sharks – these dolphins' only natural predator – on the prowl in the open waters of Shark Bay, it is no wonder they seem to enjoy these tranquil moments with their relatively benign human friends.

Heading back through the Shark Bay World Heritage Area, first stop was Shell Beach.

The name says it all – a huge beach composed exclusively of millions upon billions of tiny white cockle shells, brought ashore by storms from the Indian Ocean over the last 6,000 years.

Why they all accumulate along this particular coastline, who knows? The wonder, variety, beauty and subtlety of this continent we find continually surprising, astonishing, inspiring and thrilling.

Further along the coast we visited Hamelin Pool, where the rock formed from these shells – compounded and cemented by lime leached from the shells themselves – used to be quarried and used for building.

Here also we encountered another of Nature's endless surprises. The Stromatolites are thought to be a link to the first life forms to emerge from the sea onto land.

According to one source, Stromatolite fossils found not far from here have been dated at 2.8 billion years-old – among the earliest known life forms.

Stromatolites, formed from communities of single-cell bacteria, once ruled the planet in days when the earth's atmosphere contained not enough oxygen for the existence of either plants or animals.

The Stromatolites apparently released oxygen into the atmosphere, unwittingly creating the conditions for the appearance of plants and animals, which in turn took over their habitats.

As deplorable as the current state of the world may be, we have certainly come a long way since these guys ruled the roost!

For a long time scientists assumed the Stromatolites had disappeared about 500 million years-ago, unable to compete with the higher life forms. Time continually moves on, yet here in Hamelin Pool it would appear to have stopped long, long, long, long ago.

The exceptionally salty water is inhospitable to the small snails which would normally consume the Stromatolites, so this tiny colony from virtually another planet has continued in the same way it has since before our present continents were formed – holding out perhaps for some cataclysm which might see a return to their days of world-dominion?

Running north from Wooramel Roadhouse was sheer joy.

The landscape here is as desolate as anything we encountered across the Nullarbor Plain but, what appears desolate from the car window is anything but, when you get up close.

The profusion of flowers beaming amongst the low scrub, ringing with the singing of birds in every direction, the very light intensely alive.

– Prachar Stegemann (Australia)

Team C

After a day of welcome rest at beautiful Monkey Mia our team was up with the stars to catch the morning sun rising over Shark Bay.

Ahead of us was 280 km of driving before we would commence running. But along the way we were able to admire the scenery as the morning mists cleared.

As we began running we noticed that the temperature was now steadily rising to 25 degrees Celsius, which is much higher than we have been used to over the past month. A number of motorists who had heard our reports on ABC Radio earlier in the day waved and honked their horns as we headed down the highway.

We made quick time for our allocated 77 km and soon found ourselves in the coastal town of Carnarvon.

Our first stop was Carnarvon Primary School where we were enthusiastically greeted by the students at the front gate. The school is very multicultural, comprising students of many races and cultures all studying and playing together in harmony.

With school holidays starting tomorrow this was our final school visit in Western Australia and with the anticipation of their Winter Term break only minutes away the children were full of excitement.

Our next stop was the Carnarvon Council Chambers where we were very warmly greeted by Carnarvon Shire President Dudley Malsen, CEO Graham Wilks and all the council staff.

As all the team members are new to this part of the country, we were well informed of all the best places to visit. We were also pleased to learn that Carnarvon is the food bowl of Western Australia with acres and acres of market gardens, growing all types of fruit and vegetables. It appears that this fertile area is on the verge of a major population expansion.

Before we departed, Michelle of the enthusiastic staff from the Shire rushed back to her house to fetch her baby joey red kangaroo called Jack, who she is raising at home. The little joey lives in a small bag to simulate a kangaroo pouch and when he is not sleeping, he hops around her backyard.

Since male red kangaroos grow to well over 2 metres, Michelle will soon be releasing him to a wildlife sanctuary where he will be slowly weaned off close human contact before being returned to the wild. However in the meantime, we all enjoyed hand feeding and playing with Jack, in the backyard of the council offices.

Our last appointment was to officiate the coin toss at the local Aussie Rules football game between two Carnarvon Teams, The Warriors and the Gascoyne Hawks.

Keno Phillips, who works with the WA Department of Sport and Recreation, passed us on the road earlier in the day and extended this honour to us.

Our team completed a lap of the oval before the game and then Edi Serban, our Romanian representative, got his first taste of Aussie Rules Football by tossing the coin.

Even though the Hawks won the toss, they were very quickly 3 goals down and despite some kind overtures from Keno for some of our boys to join the Hawks team, after having run 15-20 km each today, we decided it would be best just to spectate.

– Veeraja Uppal (Australia) 

Editor's note: As the team is heading into more remote areas of Western Australia, they will probably be out of phone and internet range for the next 3 - 4 days.  We apologise for any inconvenience, and hope you will return to view all the Live from the Road reports early next week...

If you would like to place a link or a write a story about the World Harmony Run on your website, click here to Link to Us. We'll be happy to place a reciprocal link and list you on our Friends Online page.

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Team Members:
Prabuddha Nicol (Australia), Kritartha Brada (Czech Republic), Nishima Knowsley (New Zealand), Edi Serban (Romania), Runar Gigja (Iceland), Iva Nemcova (Czech Republic), Prabhakar Street (Canada), Sandro Zincarini (Italy), Nataliya Lehonkova (Ukraine), Prachar Stegemann (Australia), Misha Kulagin (Russia), Dima Lehonkov (Ukraine), Angela Muhs (Germany), Veeraja Uppal (Australia), Miro Pospisek (Czech Republic), Elke Lindner (Germany), Standa Zubaty (Czech Republic)

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