Monkey Mia roundup...

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We are writing this in Perth, we had a little trouble with a crazy space bar on the only kiosk that was available in Monkey Mia. So, from memory....we woke up on the 2nd, nice and early and went for a walk down the beach. First sign things were going to be good were the dorsal fins floating near the jetty. A group of people had begun to gather around the shore already. When we arrived at the shore, the dolphins were swimming around, a couple a calves playing with each other. A ranger came down, gave a speech about NOOO!!!!! touching and then came the grog (ie...fish, but grog actually is another term for booze here, but we call it grog cause we think the dolphins are kinda coming in for a fix). We were standing watching the rangers and assistants look around for willing volunteers to hand out fish and who should get the tap on the shoulder but yours truly. Now, I have a wife who is absolutely mad about marine life, particularily whales and dolphins...so you can guess I had no chance handing out fish...not that I would want to, I don't eat it, and I really don't want to touch it. The dolphins get fed up to 3 times in the morning, then are pushed back to sea to find their own fish. We wandered down the beach for a walk, then returned to the feeding area to find that the masses had disappeared and what was left was just a few hard core dolphin freaks. When it was time to feed, the main ranger, who likes a special assistant, gave Penny a tap and our lucky Penny got to hold the fish bucket, stand beside a dolphin, and watch people feed them, much more exciting then the quick fish toss she had earlier. Already on cloud nine, the rest of the day was spent swimming in an ocean even I liked! While we were swimming, Penny was floating on her back and told me she could hear the dolphins in the water. I looked up at her and what should I see but a dolphin swimming by her head, about 30 or 40 cm's...no wonder she could hear it, it was on top of her! That capped the perfect dolphin day. The rest of the weekend was spent seeing the feeding in the morning, and swimming a few times each day. I actually read some of a book. On the Monday, we decided to go on a nature walk around the resort. It was 1km through some bush and ended up on the beach. We started the walk through the green bush and discovered some flying beetles we had been hearing the whole trip. They were the size of a humming bird, and they liked to fly out of the bush just as you past by them, making for a lot of jumping around on our part, pretty freaky nature walk. Also on the walk were snake and lizard trails in the sand, who knows how fresh they were. At one point in the walk, we had a family of 7 emu pass on the trail. By the time we got to the beach, our brains were fried from all the jumping, but we got some nice pics of the emu. On our final day, we did the feeding and Penny was double and triple dipping, feeding the dolphins a second and third time. But this time, because there was hardly anyone there at the later feeding, yours truly was asked to feed as well. Not another soul was around to feed, so up I went. It was quite interesting looking into the dolphins eyes and very toothy mouth. Once we were done, it was off to Perth. All in all Monkey Mia was a very cool place to visit. It was interesting to have these creatures just swim beside you as you were in the water, and the weather was quite agreeable. Penny was starting to feel a chill at 22C, so that was a change from the usual 18C...I guess we all adjust in some ways.

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