SHARK BAY AND MONKEY MIA

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Shark Bay and Monkey Mia

We set off from Coral Bay on the morning of the 26th September, ready to continue our journey south, via the town of Carnarvon and Shark Bay, most famous for the regular dolphin visits at Monkey Mia. After only a few hours we got to the town of Canarvon, one of the biggest towns on the coast, but still only a little bigger than Knowle! We managed to find somewhere to send the postcards and check our emails, but didn’t fancy staying long in the town itself as it lacked any character and had a surprising amount of drunks wandering the streets at this hour of the morning! We decided to head out of the city and have a look at Carnarvon’s most famous landmark, its One Mile Jetty. It was nice to look at but after being ripped off at the internet café we decided not to pay the extortionate (in our opinion!) $4 to walk the 2 mile round trip up and down the jetty!

We had a quick bite to eat and then continued the long journey the World Heritage site of Shark Bay. By the time we got near to Monkey Mia it was getting quite late, and we weren’t sure wether we were allowed to camp at any of the roadside rest stops so we decided to continue on to Monkey Mia and the Dolphin Resort right on the beach. The resort itself is a tiny little “village” in the middle of nowhere, built just to take advantage of the daily dolphin visits into the shores of the beach. It was actually a really nice resort though, with everything you’d need, shop, bar, restaurant, swimming pool, tennis courts and of course a lovely beach where you could hire boats, kayaks etc. We manged to get a camping spot for the night and settled back for the night, making sure to take advantage of the BBQ gazebo , showers and laundry!

27th September

We were up extra early the next morning as the dolphins are fed at 7:30, but another backpacker told us that its best to get there extra early before the crowds get there and get a good spot, maybe even get chosen to feed one of the babies! After a 100m walk down to the beach from our van we were on the beach by 6:35, alone apart from 3 or 4 other early risers. The dolphins had already started to come to shore, some on there own, some in groups of 3 and 4, and were playing around, diving and flipping about! We had them basically to ourselves for the next hour, and it was a really lovely experience. They came really close to the shore and even though you’re not supposed to touch them it was so hard not to as they were so cute and playful and always look like they’re smiling! At half 7 about 100 people arrived in dribs and drabs, of course all pushing to get to the front as usual! We stepped back away from the annoying kids and watched the feeding for a while before deciding to head off and see what the rest of Shark Bay had to offer.

After picking up some supplies in Denham we visited Shell Beach, which I really liked and Adam eventually had to admit was quite cool. It’s an 110km stretch of beach made completely of small white shells instead of sand, up to 10 metres deep. This far down it is so compacted that it is mined in some parts of the beach and used as building blocks!

The Stromatolites in Hamelin Bay sounded interesting on paper, a bay of living rocks over 3.5 billion years old, making these one of the oldest things in the world, but to be honest they just looked like tiny little black stumps dotted around the bay. Was quite interesting learning about them though! After lunch we continued our journey south, next stop…..Kalbarri!

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Photos

Pelicans
This guy flew at Maria and made her scream - hahaha

Stromatolites
Maria couldn't say that word - hahaha