Blogs from Monkey Mia, Western Australia, Australia, Oceania

Awaking early we headed down to the ocean for the dolphin experience. Monkey Mia Resort do a dolphin feeding experience. I wasn't sure what to expect, in two minds about the how ethical this would be but my curiosity override and we were lined up on the beach, toes in the water. We were informed about the 'dolphin program' of only feeding 2 of the dolphins less than 10 percent of their daily feeding, allowing them to catch their own. The talk involved history, facts and a strong emphasis on dolphin (and ocean) conservation. Although Kym and I have been blessed by the amount of wild dolphins that have approached us while we have been kayaking or on the jetski and have had many encounters with them in Adelaide, we were still ahhing and awwing everytime ... read more

Geo: -25.7976, 113.691Up early this morning because the dolphins visit the shore around 07:00 by which time a large crowd of people are already listening to the days briefing from the ranger, after which it's down to the water's edge and wait for the dolphins to come in close to be fed. It's changed a lot since the last time we were here, now they feed them 3 times during the morning but they get far fewer fish and the crowd aren't allowed into the water unless they're lucky enough to be chosen to feed the dolphins thereby reducing the amount of physical contact. How lucky are Jacob & Sophie, once again they were selected and so entered the shallow waters to feed the dolphins, that's another tick off their wish list so far so good. ... read more

Hamelin Pool to Monkey Mia Hamelin Caravan Park sits on the site of the old Telegraph station, steeped in history, in the 1960's the telegraph station assisted with the lift off of GT-1 unmanned Gemini space mission. However now the only telecommunication is the Telstra phone box and the facilities could be upgraded. From Hamelin Caravan Park we travelled the 120km to Monkey Mia to experience the feeding of the Dolphins. Australia's famous Indo-pacific bottlenose dolphins. The Department of Parks and Wildlife control feed the dolphins 3 times a morning between 7.45am and midday. Feeding times depend on the dolphins coming into the feeding area. We arrived at 9.15am and basically paid $32 for the privilege to park in the car park. We witnessed the last feeding of the day at 9.35am. We heard the wild ... read more

Wednesday 28 October continued We had access to free wifi, but only a limited amount so had no chance to blog. Pat sorted out some washing, but we did not have enough AUS$1 dollar coins to pay for the dryer. We settled down for the night about 10 pm and thankfully I had a pretty good nights sleep. Thursday 29 October The birds woke us at 7 am. The kettle went on and we showered. At 8 am the office opened so we got some more coins for the dryer. We had hung stuff on the communal washing line and between this and the dryer we sorted things. We finally moved off after 9 am and got petrol and supplies on the way out of town. Actually on Highway 1 at 10 am. We drove and ... read more

Hi travel followers. We are now in Monkey Mia / Denham after spending a few days at Carnarvon Western Australia. At Carnarvon we visited places like the Blow Hole, the One Mile Jetty, (we did a bit of fishing from here) and the OTC satellite station etc. All very nice, but one of my specific highlights was coming across and getting up close and personal with a "thorny Devil" (see photo). What a magnificent and unique little lizard they are. Who couldn't love them. From Carnarvon we moved further down the coast to Australia's most westerly town (Denham) and caravan park etc. The coastal scenery from the elevated Caravan sites is spectacular and our site became even better when we were visited by a resident Shingleback Blue Tongue Lizard. (see photo) This morning we travelled the ... read more