We were excited to get up early this morning to attend the Monkey Mia Dolphin experience, held by the ranger and volunteers at the Monkey Mia Visitor Centre. The Centre is within the Resort, but is also accessible to the public. Whilst we were waiting on the boardwalk before the Dolphin staff appeared Roo spotted a familiar chap in the growing crowd - it was a couple from our hometown of Mildura, Victoria! A long way from home - as we were! They were staying in the nearby town of Denham, and had just driven in to see the Dolphin Feeding presentation. We quickly said hello before the dolphin activity soon grabbed our attention. |
The dolphins were then fed four fish by randomly chosen members of the crowd. Once this was completed, the crowd were required to step away from the water and the sand to encourage the dolphins to wander off. This experience is repeated up to 3 times a day up until noon only if the dolphins return of the own choosing, and that there has been at least 10 minutes since the previous feeding. We got to see two of these. This management process is in place to discourage dependence on humans for feeding.
After the dolphin session we decided to take a drive into Denham where we went to the Shark Bay World Heritage Discovery Centre which had a moving 3D film called Fire on the Water which tells the story of the events of the World War II battle off Shark Bay between the HMAS Sydney II and the German Raider HSK Komoran which were both sunk, with the Sydney losing all of its 645 men and 318 of 399 on board surviving from the HSK Komoran. The battle occurred in 1941 and the wrecks were not discovered until 2008.
We then cruised around Denham and on our way out we spotted a very unusual creature - the Thorny Devil! None of us had ever seen one the wild so we were pretty thrilled to spot this one! He was in the middle of the road so we actually did a U turn and Mr Roo removed him into the bush on the side of the road after taking a few photos! A very cool creature!
We arrived back at our Van and Jess and Roo decided to go kayaking out on the calm waters of Shark Bay! It was an awesome and relaxing experience!
The evening was capped off by yet another brilliant sunset! Another wonderful day in Western Australia.