Shark Bay, Monkey Mia and Denham

One of the dolphins at Monkey Mia

We stayed at Hamelin Homestead for 2 nights. On the first day there we went to the old telegraph station nearby an saw the Stromatolites which look just like rocks only they are one of the earliest forms of life in the world. We also saw the quarry from whence these blocks of compressed shells are mined however today this is basically just for the continual restoration of heritage buildings in Denham that were originally made from these quarried shell blocks. From here we will drive the 100km to Monkey Mia and Denham. We are so glad we decided to go straight to Monkey Mia first as we only just made it there in time for the last dolphin feeding. It should be advertised more that the 3 morning only feedings only at variable times that is basically determined by the dolphins’ arrival with the mostly likely times being from as early as 7am and the last generally around 10-10.30am. We had 5 dolphins come in including 2 young ones. I was fortunate enough to be one of the lucky ones chosen to hand feed a fish to a dolphin. We don’t have a photo to record the event as my back was to the camera and it happened so fast it was sort of disappointing that the buzz didn’t last longer.

The sea hare

We received the greatest kick out of patting a sea hare. This is like a huge snail wider than the palm of your hand and it has a small shell on its back like a snail. When you pat it, it releases this bright purple inky liquid that colours the waters surrounding the animal. This is a defence mechanism. We also got some good photos of pelicans there too. We ran into Kevin of Stuart Coaches there once again. After leaving Monkey Mia we went driving around the area visiting such places as Shell Beach a beautiful wide white beach of millions of the tiniest cockle shells; Denham and Nangi.

2 birds?

Tiny cockle shells of Shell Beach