Hello again from an overcast and drizzly Perth!
So on Day 8 of our adventure we arrived in Denham Australia's most westerly town. Which is pretty cool as i have also been to Australia's most easterly point of the mainland (slightly different i know, but cool all the same!)
We turned off the North West Costal Highway into Shark Bay World Heritage Area. I have now been to 6 out of the 16 world heritage sights in Australia and this one was definitly up there with Uluru National Park for sure. The drive off the highway to Denham was the most scenic drive of our whole adventure.
We stopped off at many significant sights along the way, all which contribue to the area's distinction. But my, were they fly ridden! At one point it was SOOO bad, it was like stepping into a fly farm, which was a shame as we were at Shell Beach and this is where we had planned to sit and have our lunch, no chance!! Despite the flys it was still pretty impressive and we just grim and beared it for as long as humanly possible, the shells go 10meters deep in places!
Another stop was Hamelin Pool, which is a marine reserve containing the world's best known colony of Stromatolites. now i dont really understand this, but the book says, they are the oldest form of life on earth! Hamelin Pool is the first living example found in the world and is estimated to be 3,000 years old!!! Stromatolites are brown rock like formations which are made up of modest microbes almost identical to organisms that existed 19 million years ago!!!! All pretty cool anyway and worth the fly ridden stop :-)
So by the time we arrived at Denham, we were both pretty traumatised. All the hostels along the coast were really quiet and we were blessed with another room to ourselves and kitchen and bathroom too, as the hostel was made up of lots of appartments, luxury! So we just made the most of it, wandered along Denham's one street with the Emu's and that was about it!!
Day 9 - was Christmas Day take two, for sure! It was all about the dolphins at Monkey Mia and was such a special day. It was like going to bed on Christmas Eve, i was just soo excited at the thought of seeing dolphins and we were up at 6am to make sure we did!!
The wild dolphins of monkey mia have been coming to the shores of Shark Bay for 30 years, a lady thought it would be a good idea to train them to come into the shore by feeding them and they have done ever since. When the road was sealed and more and more people found out about it, a more controlled enviroment was set up. The dolphins are still completly wild, and dont necessarily come to the shore everyday, you are just unlucky if they dont! Thankfully by the time we arrived at 7.30am they were already there and the first feed was under way. They are fed up to 3 times in one morning a third of their daily intake, so that in the afternoon they still have to go off and hunt. 6 adult females are fed. When we first arrived it was a bit of a circus, with about 150 people in the water, but after the first feed they soon disappeared and we were front row!!
It was just an amazing experience, being in the water, fairly shallow and the dolphins just swimming past you, and out in the distance as you stood there and watched, it was very special. The second feed happened fairly quickly as the dolphins hung around and people are just randomly picked to feed them!! It was like Shrek, pick me pick me and yes, they did!!!! Hooray!! Now it was even more like Christmas!! it was sooo cool, over in a moment but i got to feed a wild dolphin! And then i got picked out again, haha!!! It must have been my lucky day, so Kirsty got to as well! Talk about the cat who had the cream!! We watched the third feeding, sitting on the beach with an overwhelming sense of satisfaction, and then we saw a turtle too! Not bad as by now it was only 9.30am!!! We chilled out on the beach for the rest of the morning and by lunch time it was like your own personal oven, so we headed back to find out on the radio it was 39degrees! We went out in the evening and had a drink to celebrate, Saturday night out in Denham, not quite as happening as the Borderline!!
Day 10 - A chilled out Sunday morning on the beach, although fairly windswept by the end, i dont know the things you do for the cause!!! We escaped the afternoon sun with a visit to the World Heritage Discovery Centre where we learned about all we had seen and experienced over the past couple of days. It was a really modern exhibition but very informative with some stunning photography. In the evening we went back to Monkey Mia, about 28km east and had some fun on the beach with the flys and sunset before we went on an aboriginal dreaming evening. It was SO amazing! An aboriginal guide, led us out into the bush a bit and we sat around the camp fire, learning about the aboriginal people of the area and the stories they are told from childhood about how the land was formed. In that part of Shark Bay it is known as Malgana Country, although there are about 16 different tribes in the area, all with thier own language (not english!). It was a really great evening, a lovely experience as the stars came out and the guy played the didigerdoo and we ate fish that had been caught that day and cooked on the fire in front of us.
The drive back was a bit exciting, the Australian bush comes alive at night and we saw snakes, rabbits (ok, not so Australian) and loads of Kangaroos on the road, it was all very eventful in the pitch black, i had to drive so slow and be on true kangaroo alert! I think at one point kirsty made me jump more than the kangaroo on the road next to us!!!
So that was our weekend in Shark Bay, amazing! just when we thought our trip couldnt get any better, it just did!! I nearly have as many dolphin pictures as i do crocodiles, which is alot!!
I will leave the final part of our trip for another post! xx
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