Monkey Mia and Denhan- round 2

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Friday 8th Dec
The Bus dropped me at Denham at 8am and took Sean to Monkey Mia a further half hour drive. I went to sleep until 2pm! I phoned the Kitesurfer who was going to take me out but he has cut his hand and couldn’t take me so and the next bus is Monday morning so I’m stuck her till then. I’m a bit gutted that I can’t Kite surf but Emma, Nicky, Emma, Tamara and Karen are here tonight and Sean is just down the road.

Sat 9th Dec
Emma, Tamara and Karen drove me to Monkey Mia this morning where I met up with Sean and we sorted out some things to do tomorrow. AS for today I went and worked on the Pearl farm that we had visited last week. I put bags into trays that the oyster would go in and if it spat out the seed then it would get caught in the net and they would no not to leave it under the sea. I scrapped gunk from there shells and superglued plastic hearts into the oysters which was fiddly. The oyster knows there is a foreign body inside it and covers it in pearl to try to destroy it. Ending in a pearl hear on the inside of the shell. They are doing this to eatable ones to see if they can sell it to the restaurants for more and the presentation is better. It was an important day as it was the first day that the seeded was there inserting little round shell balls into the gonads of the oyster which is where the pearls are formed. She comes for 10 days each year and gets paid a lot of money as it is a fiddle surgical procedure.

Sunday 10th Dec
Sean came and picked me up at 10am in a hire car and we drove to Ocean Park which Emma and Nicky had recommended. For $10 we had a tour of tanks of fish, turtles as well as seeing a tiger shark and scariest of them all a stone fish which is incredibly well camouflaged but when you step on it spines go into your foot and if you don’t die of the pain it lasts for 6 months!!!
Then we drove to some look out sights further along the coast to see the sharks in the wild but the tide was so far out we saw nothing. So back into Denham for lunch. Then into the museum which was an incredibly modern building and a bit out of place in the town but there was some interesting stuff. We then went to a run down mini golf coarse where I kept Sean happy by ‘letting him win’.
Then we drove to Monkey Mia and went on a private (cause no one lese turned up) Aboriginal tour where Capes showed us how his people use to live and we got to try some of the fruit and nuts of the trees we passed. It was really interesting and Informative but we didn’t do the full walk as it was so hot (heat also equals flies). Capes gave me a lift back to the hostel which meant Sean didn’t have to and then drive back again to Monkey Mia (which means Monkeys home after a fishing boat called Monkey that was always kept in the bay for shelter).

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Photos

Tiger Shark
I found out later that it had to be released back to the wild- which I think was good as it seemed too small a place to keep it

stone fish
the scariest of them all

Aboriganal music
(for Karen's sister- note instruments between his feet)