Monkey Mia, Overland Roadhouse, Carnavon
It was down the beach at 7.30 in time to see the wild bottlenose dolphins. Had enough time to get a coffee and something to eat before they came. Then they came in, up to 24 dolphins swimming up and down the beach. All the people staying at Monkey Mia were making their way to the board walk where we had to wait before we could go down to the water. They have very strict controls over the feeding and interaction of the dolphins. We were then allowed to form a line along the beach then move, in our line into the water. Some of the dolphins came right in front of us swimming up and down the line of people. 4 people were picked from the crowd to hand feed the dolphins fish.
Monkey Mia is a reserve at the eastern shore of Peron Peninsula about 23 km from the town of Denham. The dolphins have been visiting the shore since the 1960's when a local nature lover began feeding them after they followed her husbands fishing boat to the shore. Riding into this area there is so remote, there's no power lines coming in from thhe main road, but when you get to Denham they have their own wind farm and solar power generators.
Called into Eagle Bluff on the way out, the water is so clear you could see the sharks and stingrays swimming the the water. The dugongs can be seen during summer when they come in close to shore to feed on the massive sea grass meadows in the Shark Bay area.
Then we stopped at Ocean Park which is an aquarium where they do shark feeding. Oceanpark is home to some of the region’s most diverse and dangerous residents including the infamous stone fish, puffer fish and turtles, lemon shark, black tip sharks, sand sharks and many more.
This area of Shark Bay is a World Heritage Area and covers an area of 2.2 million hectares of land and sea.
Back out on the North Western Highway we headed for Carnarvon. As we head north the whole of the environment changes to hotter drier regions, redder earth, .some of it flatter just scrubby plants and cattle stations. Most of the cattle we saw were grazing on the green verges of the roadsides.
Carnarvon has a One Mile Jetty, which we walked out onto which was built in 1897 to bring in supplies from Perth and for the export of livestock and wool from the region. Sheep and cattle were driven over land from the pastoral hinterland and loaded via a race that ran the length of the jetty.
Carnavon Best Western $145
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| Eagle Bluff |
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| Eagle Island-used to mine guano from here |
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| Has the largest area of seas grass growing in Shark Bay |
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| Carnarvon One Mile Jetty |
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