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Published: January 26th 2009
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We decided to see if we could make it all the way to Monkey Mia in one journey - it was less distance than Broome to Port Headland so we thought it was achievable. I packed a bag of food and drink for the cab and after a final drive through Coral Bay to the petrol pump we made our escape.
Almost as soon as we set off along the straight road an emu ran out of the bushes in front of us. We were doing about 120kph at the time! Matt slammed on the brakes making everything in the back of the van slide to the front, slowing down just enough to allow it to escape. If we’d seen it a second later, or if the bird was any slower, it would have been roadkill. It was a close call. After that I trained my eyes to the bush on either side of the road to try to spot any more before they gave us such a shock.
It was a long, boring journey that seemed to go on and on, only broken up by stops to fill up our tank which seemed to be gobbling up fuel
at a silly rate.
Finally we arrived at the turning for the peninsula which was home to Monkey Mia and Shark Bay. We eagerly drove along the empty road looking forward to getting settled into our campsite and picking what trips to do. We were prepared for emus and kangaroos jumping out at us. What we weren’t prepared for was what happened next. A group of birds came from out of nowhere and flew straight in front of the van. Some didn’t make it. A few seconds later another group flew directly into our path and got hit. Just as we were cringing at the thuds, more appeared from our front, flying directly into our windscreen and bouncing off. It was horrible. At 120kmph there was no chance for them but there was nothing we could do - they were literally appearing out of the trees and heading straight for us. We’d driven into the odd one in NZ (one of which got squashed in our front grill - the poor thing) but hadn’t experienced anything quite like this before. Minutes later we had moved up the road and there were no birds anywhere to be seen and it
was safe again.
We arrived in Denham - a small town that was not much more than a couple of campsites, an information centre and some basic services with a very choppy milky blue ocean washing against the shore. After hunting for a long time we finally managed to find the public water tap at the desalination depot. It was a relief because we hadn’t filled up for days as all of the campsites we’d stayed at at been too remote to have a good supply of drinking water. From the tap we were allowed to buy 20 litres for $1. Unfortunately the tap seriously leaked so we had to feed in more dollars to get the amount we needed. It seemed a waste given how precious water is out here.
When we’d filled up the tank enough to get us by, we carried on to the Monkey Mia resort. It was a bit cheeky that we had to pay to pull into the area where the campsite was based but the money gets invested into the provision of the dolphin facilities that we were coming to enjoy so we weren’t too annoyed at arriving £10 lighter.
We checked in and realised we were in the centre of a giant resort. There were lots of camper pitches, and plenty of cabins of all different level. The resort was right on the beach, and there was a shop, bar, restaurant, take away and internet rooms. There were also tour booking offices and a visitors centre so it was really like a little village.
We emerged from reception with hands full of tour leaflets. After lots of debating we settled on booking a package of tours (a national park safari, an astronomy trip, a wildlife cruise and a sundown cruise) - it meant staying a night longer than we’d expected but we could lose a night further down the coast instead. It was going to be a busy (and expensive!) couple of days!
Relieved that we‘d been able to book onto everything, we went to listen to a free research lecture about the ecosystem in Shark Bay. It took place in a small conference room onsite where they held regular talks for guests about the scientific studies that were being done in the area .
We listened intently as a young guy who was leading a project from the US gave a talk about dugongs and tiger sharks, before putting on a film for us to watch about the lifestyle of the dugongs. They are such funny creatures - they look like a cross between a sealion and a hippo. Apparently they are descended from elephants and are also know as seacows. They have tails like dolphins, big faces and they skim the ocean floor to eat the sea grass.
After the film the researcher showed us various sharks teeth and the big hooks they use to catch them - something they do each month in order to carry out tagging for their research. Afterwards he gave us a chance to ask lots of questions. We learnt that there are lots of different sharks in Shark Bay and they live in both the deep and the shallow water, although he assured me that they aren’t dangerous. He pointed out that there are only five deaths per year from shark related injuries and most of these are due to bleeding out rather than the victim actually being eaten. He told us that he regularly dives with them and it has been a very long time since there has been a shark related fatality in Shark Bay. Personally I still wasn’t convinced. Five people per year is still five people. As they say on the lottery ‘it could be you’!
Back in the van, Matt started reading more leaflets and guide books and decided that we needed to visit Albany on the SW coast. I’d already suggested taking a trip to Margaret River SW of Perth for a night or two in between Christmas and New Year. Adding Albany into the equation would mean us leaving Perth for three to four nights, hiring a car and paying for accommodation that we hadn’t budgeted for. I remembered some advice that somebody had given us earlier in the trip - think about how much it would cost to do it as part of the trip now (maybe £400 given that it was peak holiday season), then compare how much more it would cost to come back specifically just to do that one thing (maybe £3000) and think of it as saving money rather than overspending! I started to feel much better.
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