Just a quick one before we head to Coral Bay as I'm not sure we'll be able to get online up there.
Thursday - the early bird catches the fish! We went to watch the pelican feeding and only one turned up so she (we think) got all the fish! A couple more turned up briefly right at the end, until a dog wandered past and scared them off. Must be my upbringing on Roald Dahl but I find them fascinating, they're such odd looking creatures and surprisingly graceful in the air despite how big they are!
We left Kalbarri after the pelican feeding to drive up to Monkey Mia. Mostly a lot of straight, boring road until we got to the Shark Bay, world heritage listed region where there were a few things to stop for. First up was the Stromatalites of Hamlin Bay. If you're not sure what they are google them but basically they're growths of cyanobacteria that generate oxygen and scientists think they created the right atmosphere for larger life on earth a couple of billion years ago! Its very rare to find such large living colonies of them now but the very salty conditions in this bay keep predators away. It was a very peaceful spot with a boardwalk out over the edge of the pool so you could see them close up.
Next up was Shell Beach - exactly what it says on the sign! It was a large beach completely made up of little shells. Closest to the sea they still look like shells but as you get further up the beah they get crushed and compacted. They actually mine them sustainably for building materials. Something in them didn't agree with us though - we sat down briefly on the shells and then afterwards both had itchy rashes where our skin had touched them! Luckily they went down after a couple of hours.
By this point there was a large grey cloud approaching but we managed to get to the lookout at Eagle Bluff and spot some rays down in the water before it started raining. We passed through Denham on our way to Monkey Mia.
Monkey Mia is famous for its friendly dolphins and apparently gets 320 days of sunshine a year and only 200ml of rain - but of course being Brits on holiday we copped a large amount of that rain in the less than 24 hours we were there! It was drizzling a bit when we got there, started torrentially just after we got back from dinner at about 8pm and carried on all night (I woke up several times and it was still going!). It slowed to a drizzle again about 7:30 in the morning. It put pay to our plan to go out on a boat and try and spot dugongs but we did go down early in the morning for the dolphin feeding!
They've been doing 'dolphin interactions' there for a long time, basically they feed the dolphins up to 3 times a morning, but only small amounts of fish and only when/if they come in to the beach. The guests can wade into the water (below the knee) and watch, with a few people selected to feed them. We were there at the start time of 7:45 in the rain and wind, a couple of dolphins showed up and then went again. We had to wait a while until they reappeared properly about 8:45. Then there was a larger group of at least 5 or 6 and 3 of them came right in. It was really cool to be just a metre away from a dolphin that's swimming along eyeballing you! They swam around looking at us for a little while before they were fed. We didn't get to feed them but it was amazing to be so close to them while they checked you out! There was also a curious turtle nearby who kept popping up for a good look at what was going on! (the picture above is one of my many photos of the dolphins!)
Nothing much more to report from yesterday, we just stayed in Carnarvon and are driving up to Coral Bay today, where we're going on a trip to try and swim with whale sharks tomorrow - fingers crossed for a bit of sunshine and some sharks!
