Me and Flipper!!!!

You will notice there was no update yesterday - got up late, hung out three loads of washing done the night before whilst posting blog, and started spring cleaning laundry, finishing washing and then started on bathroom. Vacuumed out WM's car which they had kindly lent me to bring all my gear back the night before and then ambled back up to school to return the car. A campfire was planned for the afternoon so at long last we got to toast marshmellows and have damper. Although fine, it was cold so was just about on top of the fire by the end of the day. Got dropped back home and decided to put on another pot of soup and then fell asleep!!!!!

Had a day home today, last lot of washing, and then moved onto tidying kitchen and lounge. Am having a few hassles with my laptop so have defragmented (while watching Harry meets Sally - still a good movie LOL)and Norton updated so here's hoping. So back to the trip.......

Monday

Struck camp early this morning as ETD was set at 8am. We had another 600+k trip today to get to Shark Bay. First stop was petrol and air in the tyres and then we were off properly. Next stop, a photo opportunity at the welcome and goodbye signs for Exmouth and the Prawn outside the fish factory. The landscape was much of a muchness, scrub, scrappy patches of grass and a few wild flowers. On the trip to Shark Bay we crossed two completely dry rivers which was interesting. The land was almost flat with very little to comment about. We had a stop at Minilya Road House and then headed to Carnarvon to find it was the Banana capitol of the West!!!!! There were acres of bananas palms growing everywhere and the wild flowers on the side of the road changed with white daisy type flowers and what looked like Michaelmas Daisies though smaller than the ones in NZ.

We stopped at Carnavon for a quick picnic lunch along side the harbor where there were tables placed beside a carpark. A quick toilet stop that was unusual in that the toilet was completely automatic. You pressed a button for entry and once inside, a button to close it. You pressed the loo paper dispenser and that doled out an amount of paper (you could press again if need be). Soap came out of an automatic dispenser above the basin and once you put your hands under the tap, water came out and the loo flushed. Next to the tap you put your hands under the dryer and then pressed the button from the inside to open the door again. Not for the nervous or for those who could not read English LOL. It did say on the notice outside that if you failed to come out after 10 mins a siren would go off for a minute and then the door would open automatically – I guess that is if you had a heart attack or stroke whilst on the throne or some other affliction that prevented you from exiting under your own steam. Back in the car again and miles and miles and miles and miles of much the same scenery again and after we left Carnarvon, we rejoined the Great Northwestern Highway. At one stage we passed a sign saying we had passed the 26o latitude and we were no longer in the northwest (merely west I guess) but as we reached Shark Bay we passed the 26o line and were back in the NW again!!. There were numerous signs along the way with kangaroos and cattle on saying beware, but we were lucky today to reach here without having to dodge a one! There was another stop after the turnoff to Shark Bay because new wild flowers were spotted – yellow ones – two varieties, and pink ones and green ones so another photo stop LOL. I have taken a few myself and we have all started to watch the roadsides to see who can spot the next new variety.

When we got to the caravan park at Denham, Shark Bay, we found we had sites in two completely different places and once we ascertained we could all fit on the one site and cleared it with the office, we immediately set up camp. A change yet again as this time we set up on sand/shell mix with a concrete pad as well. We are cheek by jowel with three caravans and as I am typing this there is a child crying in the next caravan (11pm). The WM, LA and I with one of the girls headed down to the township once our tents were up to see the sun setting on the horizon and I got some good photos again (I think). We also got a few more supplies and then headed back for dinner and more laundry. 'Shark Bay is one of only a handful of special regions in the world to meet all criteria for World Heritage listing. The Shark Bay region is home to an extensive range of rare and colourful marine life including the humpback and southern right whales, dugong, manta rays, turtles and dolphins. There are rare plants, mammals and birds also only found in this region' (tourist mag).

We are off early tomorrow morning to try and see the bottlenose dophins at Monkey Mia so will sign off for now.

Tuesday 15th

Was up at 6am to get ready to leave camp by 7am. We managed to get away by 7.10am so not too bad. The idea was to reach Monkey Mia by 8am in time for the dolphins. Apparently they come to the beach several times a day, but the only guaranteed time is the first feed hence our decision for the early start. "Up to three generations of dolphins have been known to visit Monkey Mia beach since the early 1960's. Up to 20 different dolphins have been known to visit the beach. Many dolphins have been given names by the research scientists and can be recognised by defining individual features, mainly fin identification" (tourist mag again). The beach started to fill up with people as we arrived, so I gained a vantage point and sure enough the dolphins started to arrive – just two at first, a grandmother called Puck and another female called Nicky were the first two. Then several other adults came plus at least three babies. I rolled up the legs of my pants and went into calf deep water. Two volunteers were in the tide with the dolphins and gave the crowd a commentary while walking up and down the area with them. We were told to stay in the shallows as the dolphins preferred to come in close. I took oodles of video and how exciting it was, I was less than a 1m away from a DOLPHIN!!!!!! And yes, the babies really do make ‘Flipper’ type noises. Not only were there dolphins but there were pelicans as large as life also on the beach. More photos ensued. The volunteers wait for ½ hour with the dolphins just poodling up and down the area of the beach they use for their display and then more volunteers come down to the beach with buckets of fish, about 5 for each dolphin, and they get people from the crowd to move into the water to hold a fish in their hand. The fish is held in the water for the dolphin to take from their hand. At the end of the feed, the volunteers swish the buckets out with water and that is the signal to the dolphins that the feed is over. While we were there today, there were two other people in the water with the dolphins with sieve type filters in their hands which they held above the blow holes of each dolphin that they could. From the residue of what the dolphins blow out, they are learning what sort of food they eat and yesterday they found out they can do DNA analysis on the residue also which means they can work out the family lineage of each dolphin. They know who the mothers are for each dolphin because the young stay with the mother for up to 4 yrs and now will be able to work out the sires of each dolphin too. "The DEC has developed a management program that aims to ensure that the dolphins maintain their hungting and survival skills. The feeding strategy that has been implemented, allows continued interaction with humans, whilst ensuring that stress levels are kept to a minimum and the fish provided does not exceed one third of their estimated daily intake" (tourist mag).

We were not allowed to touch the dolphins because of the possible transference of disease from humans to the dolphins. It was OK if they came close enough and rubbed up against you – they didn’t tend to as the volunteers stayed pretty close to them at all times. A dolphin can move at 40k’s when they are after a fish, they only get one set of teeth, and the oldest one they have had since Monkey Mia opened was 35 yrs old when it died.

Within about ½ hour after the feed, a good amount of the dolphins had come back for their second feed and again, I was in the tide taking more photos. This time however, I WAS PICKED TO FEED ONE OF THEM!!!!!!!!! I handed my camera and video to a woman standing next to me, never thinking to ask her to take a photo (spit, snarl), picked a fat, smallish fish out of the bucket and held it just under the water when my dolphin (Nicky) came and took it out of my hand. Crikey!!!! What a total buzz and how excited was I. (I was jumping up and down on the inside and hugely squealing in my head, LOL) It was all over too quick and somebody else was taking a turn for the last fish of the morning.

We then decided to do a tour on the Aristocrat, a catamaran which goes out across the bay to the Pearl Farm in the middle of the bay and over sea grass beds in the hope of seeing a dugong. "Seagrass meadows cover about 4,000 sq kilometres.. dugongs are hervivores and feed mainly on the roots and rhizomes of the seagrasses .. The dugong is one of the world's two suriving species of sea cow and it is thought about 1/8 of the world's population is found in the Southern most extent of Shark Bay" (tourist mag). It was a fairly overcast day so it was a challenge to see the dugong but we did catch a glimpse of one as it came up for air briefly. We appeared to be in the middle of the dolphin’s pantry at one stage as there were several of them racing the boat and leaping about in the tide around us. There were also numerous cormorants about hunting for fish as well. The catamaran had nets in the front and back of the boat you could sit in, around etc. The front net was so that the adventurous few could hop in and sit in it and sit/ski along as the boat sped along. Lots of shrieks as the water was cold (18o) but it looked a lot of fun. After spending a good hour looking for dugong and sailing amongst the dolphins we pulled alongside a floating building with a boat along side that was the Peal Farm. They grow black pearls and we had a very informative chat from one of the blokes who runs the place. One of the guys running the place showed us how a bead of shell is implanted in an oyster, and then a piece of nacre beside it that stops the oyster rejecting the bead that in 4 years becomes a pearl. To get a 1” pearl takes 11 yrs and you only get one in about 10,000 pearls of that age. It was then a short trip back to the beach, a few more pelican shots and back to camp.

We had a very easy dinner and then a relatively early night as it started to spit and then rain. I was tired from all the fresh air and was asleep before I knew it.