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Published: December 30th 2005
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OK, so before I start with the story, I'd just like to mention a bit about the title. Because there are so many gorgeous beaches here, and the water is teaming with wildlife, everyone encourages you to go snorkelling. However. I'd like to advise that at no point during our trip, will I be doing any sort of swimming in the open sea or snorkelling, due to my incredible ''might be sharks in the water'' phobia. Alan might go in for a lirrle dip, but not moi. Anyway - lets crack on with the blog......
......Heading further up the East coast of WA, our destination Shark Bay Heritage Park, we stopped for a light refreshment at a town called Carnarvon. We wanted to check the place out as a potential stopover point for a few days on the way back down to Perth. Carnarvon was, again, a bit on the dead side, although it was the middle of the day, and we’ve worked out by now that no-one comes out to play between the hours of 12 noon and 4pm as it’s so hot, so maybe it’s not too surprising that it was so quiet.
We walked along the
road to see the bay area, but on the way we were flagged down by a group of manic looking women outside a café, who asked us if we had a mobile phone on us. We didn’t have ours with us, but we asked them what the problem was. Well…. There was only a bluddy snake in the café!!!!!! IKES!!! According to the crazed, chain smoking ladies, it was a biggun, of the Evil Brown Deadly variety (and that’s an actual species type you know) and it had initially been coiled on a chair, but now had slinked its way into the kitchen area and was now writhing and hissing under a cupboard. Now, I've seen people do that at parties, but I guess when a scary reptile is involved then it needs to be handled with extreme care. They didn’t know what to do, the cop shop was closed, the Ranger (a man who fixes problems such as this) tel number was nowhere to be found, and they were becoming increasingly panic stricken by the second. What to do???? Being of the superb and upstanding league of top tourist type travellers, we advised that we’d be happy to help
out by alerting the nearest garage of their predicament when we stopped for petrol. This we did, and the Ranger was promptly called by Mr Friendly Garage Worker (that was his real name, I’m not making any of this up). We haven’t seen any snake bite deaths on TV so we reckon it was all sorted out. Apart from this little flurry of activity, we didn’t think much of Carnarvon, and decided to bump this as a stop point in favour of some extra time at Kalbarri, where we’ll be over Christmas.
Onwards & upwards to Shark Bay then…...........with no snorkelling gear in sight.......
We were actually staying in a little place called Denham which is on the opposite side of the Shark Bay peninsula to a fabbo little Eco area called Monkey Mia. Our YHA was topper, right on the ocean front, with our own personal apartment except for two other girls, and a wee pool area with loungers. Perfecto! Monkey Mia is kinda famous for doing this dolphin feed thing every morning. Lots of controversy surrounds this particular activity in the travellers world, as some people believe that the wild dolphins who come into the shore
to be fed each morning are not really wild anymore because they are now effectively trained to interact with humans. We disagree - to us thats like saying that feeding the blackbirds & sparrows in your garden is turning the birds domestic. Nuts Coconunts! Anyway - we weren’t out our bed early enough each day to watch the dolphin feed, and we weren’t that bothered about it. We’ve seen dolphins up fairly close when we were in Esperence and that was amazing enough.
Overall, we had a great deal of fun and excitement in Shark Bay - its an absolutely gorgeous area - we’d say one of the most beautiful places we’ve visited so far. The sea is, yet again, clear as crystal and very bluey green. There are scores of palm trees at Monkey Mia and lush grass areas to sit and enjoy a picnic, a sunbath,or even a big creamy cone with a flake in it.
It was up, up and away for us one day when we took a scenic flight over the region. Such a completely brilliant experience. We were in a tiny plane with 4 other peeps and the pilot, and with every
upward air current, we would dip and soar like billy-o. It was like a rollercoaster ride but with better views. 3 of the 4 other peeps were a family called Ferral. This is amusing, because in Aus, if you call someone ferral, it means that you think that they are backward and a bit of a Thick Hick from the Sticks. When we booked the flights at the visitor centre in Denham, the guy behind the counter was having a good laugh about their name, and the fact that they were visiting from the outback. The wife was on her first ever flight, and had the brown paper bag on her knee the whole time. We were dreading her puking, as the plane was really so small that it would have set us off too. Fortunately she managed to keep her brekko down. Good woman! They’re made of strong stuff these Outback ferrals, ooops I mean Ferrals.
We also went on a couple of catamaran trips - one in the afternoon, and another at sunset;
The day time cruise was a nature watch, and we saw Dolphins (natch), Dugongs (which are like Manatees only their tails are a different
View of Salt works
There's big salt works here at a place called Useless Loop. This mound of salt is huge and worth in the region of 12 million dollars. (12 million dollars has to be said with a Dr Evil voice to make it sound good)
shape), Turtles, a Tiger Shark and a Sea Snake. It was refreshing, interesting and fun! Alan got a bit of ‘Ship Captain Interrogation’ in too, to further aid his incredible obsession with all things boat. When we got on, the crew gave us these totally bogging sunglasses with Polaroid filters to help us see through the water below and get a good view of the animals. They worked pretty well, but Paris Hilton would definately not be up for wearing them, I can tell you. Maybe Nicole Richie would though, as they were a bit on the big side. Point is that you would not buy themif you seen them in the shop. No way. Hey - interesting thing about the catamaran......... it used to be owned by the most wealthy man in New Zealand and it was a world champ in boat racing thingy's. But, and this is the exciting thing, it has a double bed in one of the cabins that was made for none other than DIANA ROSS! Cool, isnt it?!
The evening boat cruise was supposed to be a high speed affair, and high speed it was. We got flaming soaked. At one point I
View of Denham where we stayed.
The dark blue stripe was nearly across the road fromour YHA. Its a channel that's cut out of the sea floor to allow boats to come up to the short jetty. got a bit galas and I was half way through saying to Alan ‘ It’s not that bad, we haven’t got that wet’ and as I said ‘wet’, we got an enormous splash right in the chops. After that we got hit with a wave every two mins for the next hour. Who needs the log flumes at Blackpool? Not us!!
All too soon it was time to depart lovely Shark Bay, and make our way further up the coast to Exmouth, which was to be our most northerly point on this particular journey.
We’ll see you in the Exmouth blog then….
Love Alan & Shaz. Xxx
PS: Merry Xmas to everyone - we hope you have a great time, get um big heap pressies and enjoy yourselves immensely!
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Morv
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Merry Xmas!
Looks amazing...I will think of the sun as we attempt some beach walks all wrapped up braving the good scottish weather in Barra over the new year!