Shark Bay

Herald Bight
A lady on a stall beside Maggie at Broome had told us you didn't need to go to Monkey Mia to see Dolphins in Shark Bay because they were everywhere. So we headed up the sandy track into the Francios Perron national park and took the even deeper sandy path to Herald Bight with is on the same side as Monkey Mia anad is also away from the prevailing wind. The signs warned us of deep sand and advised against trailers but we chugged on with very deflated tyres to a camp on the beach.

From Herald Bight Shark Bay

The water was shallow and devoid of any dolphins but we enjoyed looking at the less spectacular creatures to be found on the mud flats.

A day later, our friends Andy and Julie turned up with their kids Elliot and Danial. We copied some other fishermen who were catching large garfish and soon we had a bucketful ourselves. Then began the large task of filleting the little blighters. Whether it was worth the effort is debatable, but we had more than enough fish to feed the nine of us.

From Herald Bight Shark Bay

After a couple of days with no dolphins, we headed off to do the touristy thing, leaving Andy and Jules the beach to themselves (and as we found out, an hour and a half getting their landcruiser to firmer sand when they tried to leave).

 Monkey Mia
We arrived at 10oclock for what we believed were hourly feeds of dolphins but it was nothing like that. In fact the dolphins are only fed  when they turn up in the morning, and only up to three times. They had been twice already, so when they didn't appear by noon, we resigned ouselves to camping the night at Monkey Mia and headed to the Oceanarium south of Denham for the remainder of the day.
The oceanarium turned out to be a small but great place.

From Shark Bay

The tours run continuously - you can follow one around until you have heard it all before. The fish and sharks were not very hungry by the time we arrived in the afternoon having already had a few feeds that day but the tour guide had lots of interesting information to share and we loved looking at all the different creatures - sharks, fish, turtles, squid.

Next morning at Monky Mia, Milly spotted a few of the dolphins coming in at 6am.

From Shark Bay

We all got up and watched them playing in the shallows for a while before they left to hunt for their own fish as we clearly had none for them. After 7.30am, the crowds started growing for the 8am feed which is the earliest they feed them. Unusually there were no dolphins.

From Shark Bay

So everyone just waited and waited for over an hour until finally they came in to be fed. We were glad we saw them with just a couple of other people in the early morning.
Hamelin Pool
On our way out, we stopped at Hamelin Pool to look at the stromatolites. These are living rocks formed by algae. Apparently stromatolites released all the oxygen in the beginning of evolution, ehivh made life on earth possible. I respect them for that.

From Shark Bay