Denham and Monkey Mia

Ok, so the Blog is a little late today(sorry Judith), but it is not without good reason….

To make up for it, this will be a long one… so grab a cuppa or crack a beer and settle to read about a great couple of days…

Now, where to start…. Well yesterday was an early start as we had to pack the van up in time to get over the road for a pelican feeding in Kalbarri. We just made it as the pelicans were coming up out of the water, and the kids loved them. They were big birds, taller then the girls, but all the kids got a chance to throw them a fish which was pretty exciting.

After the pelicans, we said our goodbye to Kalbarri and pointed the car North once more heading to Denham, a little town about 28km from Monkey Mia.

Was a pretty uneventful trip and we arrived at about 2pm, finally finding the heat we were after… it was 36 degrees. We quickly dumped the van at the Denham Seaside resort right on the beach 🙂 and headed to a Cafe for a late lunch.

Now apart from this Caravan park being right on the beach, it’s claim to fame is that it is the Western most Caravan park in Australia!!! There was one downfall though in that we were told they have had 3 snake sightings in the park in the last week!! Of course they told us this after we had booked in!

The rest of they day was spent at the only place you can spend it when it is that hot… sitting on the beach. We had a great time and didn’t return to the caravan until the sun was almost on the horizon.

Now the reason why the blog is so late today…. Monkey Mia 😀

We awoke at the crack of dawn this morning…. well… 6:50am anyway… and all piled straight into the car and headed for Monkey Mia to see the Dolphin feeding.

We arrived just in time for the first feeding, and raced straight down to the waters edge. It only took a few minutes before 4 dolphins appeared. Two females with their calfs. They swam around as the Rangers talked about them for about 20 minutes while we all stood ankle deep (knee deep for the girls) in the water. They came in very close, often cruising by only 2 meters away.

We all had to step out of the water as they began the feeding, and they selected people from the audience to step into the water and feed them. Being a good dad, I push the girls a little forward in the hope that their cuteness would get them a chance to feed, but the lady picked an older lady standing right next to us and moved on down the line… most disappointing.

They fed each of the dolphins 3 fish, then held onto the last one so that they could all be fed the last one together. They were just about to feed the final fish when another of the feeders said how about those two little girls in the middle… and if that is their brother, then he can bring them down to help too. Yay!!! it worked.

They all held onto the fish together and fed it to the dolphin. Unfortunately, they all also had their backs to us…. but they were happy anyway.

After the Dolphins had their breakfast, we headed to the cafe for our breakfast… but not before a sneaky Dad booked us onto a 2.5 hour cruise on the Aristocat2 to look for Dolphins, Dugons Rays and a visit to a Black Pearl Farm.


While waiting for the cruise, the girls got a close look at an emu that was wondering around.

The cruise was great fun, with some nets at the front of the boat that the kids could lie in while Mum and Dad dangled their feet off the front. While listening to the safety briefing, an Eagle Ray cruised along the back of the boat. Unfortunately that was the only one we saw, but we did see many Dolphins and Dugons, as well as turtles, a sea snake, and apparently there was a big shark, but none of us saw it.



Zac and I didn’t see it as we were hanging off the back of the boat in the drag net. The drag net, as it sounds, is a net strung between the two hulls at the rear of the boat. they lower it just into the water, and then gun it!!! Instant Jacuzzi!!!

Towards the end of the cruise, we visited the Pearl Farm where they grow pearls. This farm was made famous recently because one of the farmers, Jaime, was on the tv show The Farmer Wants a Wife.

It was Farmer Jaime who talked us through the process of growing pearls, a most interesting process that is nothing like I thought it was. We did learn that it takes 2 years to grow a pearl, which then has to be harvested, or it will be ejected from the oyster. As they harvest the pearl each two years, they replace it with a larger ball to grow a larger pearl. Each oyster goes through this process 4 times over it’s 8 year life.

All very interesting, but what I’m sure you really want to know (not looking at anyone Kate) is that Jaime is no longer with the girl he met on the show, and is now single and looking… I kept my wife close by just in case!!!

After the cruise we played on the beach where I went snorkeling and got up close and personal with a turtle… but no dolphins unfortunately.

On the way back we stopped by the Little Lagoon for a look, but it was too hot to stop and we simply drove out onto the beach…

….because we could!!! A great couple of days 🙂