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DAY 131 Monday 30 th November

It was time to leave Coral Bay and continue heading south. Our planned route would've taken us all along the coastline through a few properties and past 3 shipwrecks and the blowholes towards Carnarvon. We were looking forward to another few days of free beach camping. Unfortunately, we discovered that the properties have had to lock their gates to visitors due to people leaving too much rubbish behind. That meant we had to drive the 280km to Carnarvon along the tar. It was another boring stretch of road, which was so disappointing knowing that there was a fabulous coastline just a few hundred metres away that we couldn't see. We didn't mind too much, knowing there was a Woolworths in Carnarvon.

We stocked up and had a quick look around the town. We soon realised that there was not much point in staying in Carnarvon and continued along the tar for another 240 km to Shark Bay. It was a long driving day and we found the turnoff to Shark Bay around 5pm. We pulled into the first caravan park called Hamelin Pool Caravan Park and seeing no grass, no shade and very sparse surrounds we pulled out and drove on another 100km to the main town of Shark Bay called Denham. From there, it is only a 15 minute trip to see the famous bottle-nose dolphins at Monkey Mia. Although it was a long, tiring day it was worth it to finally be beside the water again.

It was nearing darkness as we arrived in Denham and Dorothy had decided to rent one the many cottages available on the beachfront to avoid having to put up the tent and fiddle around. The kids were hungry etc. We looked at the caravan park, also on the beachfront, next door to their cottage but it offered no protection from the howling wind. The Adcocks had a 3 bedroom cottage and invited us to stay, which cost us only $10. I cooked dinner for us all to make up the difference.

It felt strange to be inside a dwelling with 4 walls and a roof with a bathroom, kitchen, hot running water, and a real bed. I cooked Indian Butter Chicken with rice (cooked in the microwave!!!). We finished off the night with a few more hands of Mahjong and enjoyed not having to contend with a rickety table!

DAY 132 Tuesday 1 ^st December

We awoke this morning to rain - how fortunate that we were not camping! It is also very windy and quite cool. We had to don our tracksuits to venture outside. By midday, we had visited every shop and business in Denham. The rain had stopped and the sun was shining - the temperature was a pleasant 29 ° C. David and I packed up our things and drove out to Monkey Mia. The Monkey Mia Resort is right on the beach where the bottle-nose dolphins come in to the beach for a hand feed and has accommodation from grassed camp sites up to self-contained beach frontage villas. The price ranges from $7 per night to $170 per night. The resort is fantastic offering guests full use of facilities - free. These include, a hot tub and pool surrounded by a large grassy sunbaking area; all-weather tennis courts; a shop selling everything from souvenirs to 1hr film processing; a supermarket; dolphin research and information centre; cruise boats; beachfront restaurant and cocktail bar. We are paying $17.50 per night to stay here on a powered camping site, we have a beach view (white sand and turquoise water), and there is no one around us. I feel as if we are staying in the most luxurious resort and not just camping.

I have asked many locals their opinion as to the best place to windsurf and the overwhelming response is that many people do it but the TIGER SHARKS are out there. The lady at the Tourist Information Bureau in Denham said her family has been in the area for 100 years and TIGER SHARKS are an extremely common occurrence. She said the waters go out for a couple of hundred metres at only knee depth but still the sharks come in. She has seen many TIGER SHARKS over 10 feet long. David reckons its all bullshit but he's not the one who has to be out there with his legs dangling in the water. I am literally spooked by all the TIGER SHARK reports I'm hearing and it is really frustrating sitting on the beach listening to people complaining about how windy it is!

We had a lovely afternoon for our first day at Monkey Mia. We sat in the hot tub overlooking East Side bay and wandered around the resort. At the far end of the beach, there is a jetty where all the action is centred. Two yellow buoys are situated 50m off and this is the area reserved for the dolphins.

The dolphins don't usually come in after 1pm so we spent some time at the dolphin information centre. The centre runs 2 different videos per day. The first one runs at 9am, 11am then 1pm. We watched the second video shown at 3pm. We learned about past and present dolphin research conducted at Monkey Mia and observed the techniques used to identify each individual. Sharks commonly attack dolphins and each one sighted around Monkey Mia has been recorded and named according to its distinctive dorsal fin shape such as Holeyfin, Crooked Fin, Nicky, Captain Hook, Real Notch, Sharky etc. The video explained that dolphins do not swim in a pod, as do whales, but rather they swim in sets - that can change. Dolphins are not always the gentle, friendly creatures we expect. The males are especially aggressive and we saw footage of males "herding" females and even "kidnapping" females from other sets. For this reason, the male dolphins are not fed from the beach, as are the females. There are 3 adult female dolphins and their calves that visit the beach most days. They are Puck, Nicky and Surprise. More than 70 other dolphins have been identified by researchers in the Monkey Mia area. About a dozen of these dolphins visit irregularly and venture quite close to the shore - so you never know who is going to turn up! There is quite a large group of dolphins interrelated and the researchers are trying to put together a family tree. It is difficult work, because although they know who mothers whom, the fathers of the calves are unknown. All attempts are made to minimise contact with the dolphins and so tagging and DNA testing has not yet been done.

We had arrived at Monkey Mia at a very special time as the inshore dolphins calve once every four years. A young calf had just been born to Puk, one of the regular beach females, and she had started to bring the baby in to shore. The rangers explained that it is important not to feed the calves until they have proven to be completely independent, this usually takes up to 4 years. We were instructed not to enter the water if the calf was visiting, as the first few weeks are a critical time for the survival and well being of the calf. Mother and calf need time to adjust, to feel confident that they are safe and welcome visiting the beach.

We were very impressed with the information centre run by CALM (Conservation and Land Management) and the whole Monkey Mia Resort. We agreed to stay for as long as we felt we needed to get the most out of our visit.

DAY 133 Wednesday 2 ^nd December

By 7am we were sitting by the water waiting for the dolphins to arrive. We learned that the dolphins come in whenever they want but are not always fed. They try not to encourage them to expect a fish fed on every visit and only offer fish between 8am - 1pm. Each day they allocate 1.5kg of fish per dolphin - just a snack! That's about 10% of their daily needs.

The dolphins visit more commonly in the early morning but today it seemed we would not be seeing them. Around 50 people had gathered by the water's edge by 8am and by 9am the boardwalk, grass and restaurant was full of expectant dolphin watchers. At 8.30am the ranger was becoming restless and offered to show visitors a video. The room was filled to capacity with dolphin lovers willing to escape the blustery early morning wind.

By 9am we were disappointed that the dolphins hadn't arrived and stood up to return to our campsite for breakfast. As soon as we turned our backs, the dolphins arrived. People were flocking to the water's edge and wading in ankle deep. For about ½ hour the ranger walked up and down the shoreline with one dolphin following close on his heels. He identified all the 5 visiting dolphins and explained why Puk was the only one who would be fed today.

It was 10am by the time we returned to our campsite to cook breakfast. Just as we were finishing, Rob and Dorothy arrived. Unfortunately, they had missed the dolphin visit but were keen to hang around and wait for them to return. The dolphins sometimes visit up to half-a-dozen times a day so it is common to see guests staring out to sea with binoculars for hours on end. The Adcocks stayed and waited for the dolphins to return but left for Kalbarri at 1pm and we went to watch another video in the information centre. We said a fond farewell to Rob, Dorothy, Jackson and David, having spent the last 5 weeks travelling together. They need to be in Esperance, south of Perth for Christmas and so they will be travelling faster than us. As for our plans for Christmas, we still don't know where we'll be! Christmas day this year will be just like any other day we've had on our trip so we don't really mind where we end up, although preferably by the seaside sucking on huge fresh prawns!

That afternoon we took advantage of their special offer of a free Sunset Cruise with every wildlife cruise and went sailing at 6pm until 7.30pm. David was one of the volunteers asked to help "crew" the boat (which was just a matter of hoisting the sails) and then we settled back to enjoy a glorious evening. We returned full of energy and cooked chicken tikka masala and rice for dinner.

DAY 134 Thursday 3 ^rd December

We awoke to a beautifully calm morning and so had slept in a little. We didn't make it to the dolphin area until 8am and they were already in. There was a different ranger today, after 15 mins the feeding was over, and the dolphins returned to deeper waters. We had booked to go on the dugong and dolphin watching cruise at 1pm and so felt like killing some time sightseeing. Only 20 kms or so back towards the township of Denham is a beautiful spot called Little Lagoon. The waters are tidal (just) but it is the magnificent turquoise blue water that is the attraction. A narrow strip of white sand runs the whole way around the lagoon, which is almost a perfect circle. We continued sightseeing around Denham and then visited Whalebone Bay, Eagle Bluff, and Fisher Camp which are "Free Camps". We found great views and did some off-road exploring in our 4WD. Obviously, we took lots of photos and video. The real reason we left Monkey Mia was to go to the bottle shop in Denham to get beer for David but we arrived at 9am and the bottle shop didn't open until 11am. We killed time by exploring and it was worth it!

Our day ended in the hot tub again and we retired to cook chicken breasts in a creamy, green peppercorn sauce on rice. Since it is nearing Christmas I am experimenting with the pre-prepared puddings and we treated ourselves to a desert - steam pudding with hot custard!

DAY 135 Friday 4 ^th December

This morning we awoke with a start! Our mobile phone rang at 5am but we let it ring through to voice mail. Most nights we don't have mobile service so it was rare that we were woken by the phone. I feared the worst of course, with my brother overseas and with recent news of David's mother being unwell. However, at 8am when we finally rose, the message revealed good news. My underwater camera strobe had been repaired and was ready to send on to a destination nominated by us. We had to think quickly - where would we be in 5 -7 days? That's too far ahead to plan! We opted for Geraldton since we believe it to be a large town in the scheme of things and the windsurfing is said to be the best in Australia!

Our plan was to leave Monkey Mia today to look further north on the Shark Bay peninsula into the Francois Peron National Park. There's not much there apparently, but a historic homestead and some great viewing of sharks and dolphins out on the Cape.

We had a fantastic day exploring the National Park and wished we had planned to camp there. Instead, we left our trailer part-way along the trail (at the Peron Homestead and Visitor's Centre) and travelled through the sandy tracks out to Cape Peron. The views were spectacular and we felt like the first people to ever have been there. We made the only footsteps in the sandy headland at the Cape and swam in the crystal clear waters. We cooked 2 minute noodles for lunch (same as yesterday) and spotted a set of dolphins feeding close to shore. I captured the largest dolphin snatching a fish and thrashing about as it almost beached itself!

Many sandy tracks led to steep cliff faces with magnificent views to the waters below.

We have bought an annual WA Parks Pass for $45 (we should have bought it a long time ago) which allows us to enter any WA National Park free. Camping is still $8 per night. We came across a rough-looking camp site at the top of a cliff overlooking a large bay and found a young guy fishing. He turned out to be a researcher making a documentary on "TIGER SHARKS"! I'd heard there was a team about and for obvious reasons we wanted to listen to what he had to say. He had set up camp with his boss and team for 2 weeks to catch and study the TIGER SHARKS in the Shark Bay area. They only had a zodiac, which is an inflatable boat (which needed pumping up every hour), basic camping equipment, a box trailer and some VERY expensive camera equipment. The team was fishing for the sharks and then hanging them upside down, which makes them drop unconscious so they can remove the hook. The sharks are then tagged and sometimes a "critter cam" is attached to enable the researchers to obtain shots of them feeding etc. Very little is known about the TIGER SHARK such as where do they go to breed, what do they eat and what are their social behaviors? We left the team on the cliff as they prepared for a night session with the sharks!

After driving back out of the National Park and collected our trailer we obtained permission from the Denham council to free camp at one of the sites we'd visited a few days earlier. We chose Fowlers Camp because it was protected and a storm was brewing.

I bought a newspaper yesterday and was shocked to hear about a diving fatality that occurred in Exmouth a few days ago. Apparently, the Japanese female diver was onboard for an overnight diving trip in 5m swell. The dive operator was not the one we chose to dive with whilst in Exmouth but the one that operated out of the caravan park in which we stayed - Cape Tourist Village Caravan Park. The boat was called Jaws and we'd seen them out on the water every day. The reason we didn't dive with them was one of the dive instructor seemed a bit "simple" and we questioned how some people got jobs in the dive industry!

The strong winds and huge swells were caused by a cyclone just off the coast of Exmouth bringing excellent weather for the next few days to the Shark Bay area (or so we've been told!). But we've just a few drops of rain on our camp and are settling down for one of our first nights "on our own", with no other campers nearby.