Shark Bay World Heritage Area

Shark Bay/Monkey Mia is a destination in Australia known throughout the world. Famous for the Dolphins, which is the biggest draw card.
And for all you Oprah fans this area was featured on Oprah in Australia. We had another windy day, as we remember WA is Windy Always, but we can't complain as we have had some gorgeous calm days to enjoy.

Shell brick quarry

We turned onto the Shark Bay road, our first stop was the Hamelin Bay to visit the old telegraph station and the stromatolites. There was a short walk from the telegraph station to the stromatolites. We learnt about the shell quarry there. As there were lack of resources available back eigty odd years ago the masses of tiny shells were cut into brick and used to make a lot of the buildings. We then had a walk along the jetty over the stromatolites, they do just look like rocks in the water but when you learn about how they are formed, how old they are and the value of them it is quite amazing. There is so much to learn about them but in short they are layered limestone rock built by single-celled Cyanobacteria (blue-green bacteria) which trap and bind sediments. They produce oxygen and hence you can see bubbles at high tide when they are underwater.

Stromatolites

Wheel ruts made over 60 years ago

Over sixty years ago there was a port built here for the telegraph station and it is amazing that you can still see the wheel ruts which the wagons had made in the stromatolites.
Time to move along to see the next feature of this area. We came across the dog fence made to keep the foxes out of the shark bay area. We had to stop to show the girls how it worked. As something approaches the fence a dog barks, which effectively scares the foxes and ferral cats. The girls tried hard to sneak past without setting the dog alarm off, but it was too smart for them.

Having fun with the dog fence

Just past the dog fence was the turn off to shell beach, we stopped in for a look and found the beach was not sand but tiny shells and went for miles. So bright and white.

We made it into Denham, stopping at the sign on the way as we thought it looked great for a photo with the ground being shells, yes we are parked on tiny little white shells. As we drove further into town we passed a caravan park and there was not green grass but the whole ground was the tiny white shells again. We looked at the other two parks in town and they too looked barron and had the white shell ground cover. Denham water is very expensive here as they have their own desalination plant, which is expensive to run. So besides the foreshore there is no much grass around.

sandy road to Cape Peron

 We decided to go out to Cape Peron National Park to find a camp. The Denham tourist information had advised us of the sandy tracks, but could not tell us if it was too sandy to tow a trailer as he had not been on the road himself. So we decided to leave the trailer at the homestead and head up to the tip of Cape Peron and the roads were very sandy. A good but sandy road we made it to the tip in no time, had some lunch with the millions of flies about then did the walk along the Cape. I just love the contrast in colours here, the red sand and white sand with such blue waters.

The contrast in the white and red sand is beautiful

  

Kates autograph in the sand

Emmas autograph in the sand

It was quite protected for the wind at the tip so we spent quite a few hours walking over the sand dunes, the girls enjoying playing in the sand dunes. There were so many birds about to watch and wildflowers to discover. We really enjoyed discovering this place.

We finished the day with a dip in the hot tub at the homestead before setting up camp.

 The next day was an early start. We arrived at Monkey Mia a little after 7am and found loads of other tourists there already to see the famous Monkey Mia dolphins. Braving the cool twelve degree breezy morning we waited on the beach from 7.45am for the Dolphins to arrive. Standing in the water with our feet frozen the excitement of the Dolphins arriving was amazing. Surrounded by tourists from all over the world, Japanese being the most dominant, we watched the dolphins swim up and down in the shallows, poking their noses out of the water to have a look at us, it was so cute. We learnt that dolphins have good vision 180 degrees in front, side and back but do not have vision above which is why they tilt their heads above the water to look at us. Emma and Kate were lucky enough to be chosen to hand feed one of the Dolphins, and her name was Surprise. This was a real buzz for the girls.

Feeding Surprise



Surprise saying 'Thank you'



Puck the Dolphin showing off



Watching the dolphins



Still buzzing with excitement, we hit the shops for some souvenir's. Emma got herself a dolphin necklace and Kate got a dolphin teddy purse (to keep all her tooth fairy money in). A walk around the Monkey Mia resort we discovered the hot tub and lucky for the girls and Darrin they had their swimmers on and were able to go for a dip.

  



Warming up in the hot tub

With their new souveniers on Monkey Mia beach

After a wonderful morning enjoying Monkey Mia we headed off to visit the playground on the Denham foreshore the girls had spotted yesterday. We spent a number of hours here as we met another family who are travelling Australia. Tony, Tracy, Matt(9) and Liam(7) are from Harvey Bay and are on the road for 12 months. We had a great time learning about each others adventures. They are travelling the same way we are so we hope to catch each other along the way.