Monkey Mia

We arrived at Monkey Mia on Tuesday the weather was threatening rain and as per the forecast we were expecting at least 10mm but despite the dark clouds, no rain eventuated, but the temperature defiantly dropped

Anyway after taking advantage of the lovely camp kitchen and doing some meal prep we enjoyed a nice relaxing evening at the bar watching the  beautiful view.

Earlyish the next morning we headed down to the “dolphin Experience area”

Just another beautiful sunrise

We sat waiting patiently (we always arrive early, its a gadget thing) 

And then received our briefing from the ranger. 

He was pretty much upstaged as the dolphins made their way in towards the shore.

We were advised to walk down to the shore  and stand on the edge of the water

The dolphins cruised past inspecting us like a captain in the army.

We were then allowed to walk ankle deep into the water.

There were about five dolphins that came in on our day and we could see more further out, the ranger advised that two of the dolphins that came in were the daughters of another dolphin , who passed in the last few years and that these two learned from watching their mother come into the shore. The Dolphins came so close to the shore, we were advised that these bottlenose dolphins are adept at swimming in quite shallow water as they often have to to chase the fish trying to escape becoming a meal. At no time were anyone allowed to touch the dolphins.

The Dolphins are totally wild and chose to come in when the want. They are rewarded for coming in , but receive in total about one quarter of their average daily intake and only if they come to get it ,during our experience only one came in for the food, the rest happily swam away. This forces them to not be dependant on humans and to still forage for their own food.

After the dolphin experience we headed out on a chartered trip, the plan was to show us as much wildlife at they could.

As we were cruising out we had dolphins swimming along side us, jumping and chasing the boat.

At Monkey Mia they grow black pearls, as we neared the below building, the crew explained it was the storage shed for the pearl growers.

As our boat came around

We were surprised to see this nest, it is the home of two Ospreys and was built entirely by the two birds over a few weeks and is now in its fourth year as the home for their young. At the time we were there , there were no babies yet , but the birds usually lay eggs in the next few weeks. 

The cruise also worked very hard to get us a sighting of a dugong. We were fortunate enough to see several  in the above image is a mother and baby dugong, it was very hard to get a good photo of them as they only come up occasionally for air and at no time did the boat get too close,ensuring the dugongs dont get distressed.

And then there was this guy below

There are several Emu’s wandering around the park at any given time , they are not fearful of humans at all and wander up really close. At one point we watched one really checking out what was in the back of Reggie, (we had the tailgate open) luckily nothing he could eat.

Sadly we really only had one full day at Monkey Mia

This was the first place that i really felt i would love to stay longer. We didn't get the opportunity to explore the national park, or Durk Harrogate island or some of the other areas, i guess it will need to go down on the wish list for a visit for another time.

Sadly we left very early the next day as we had a full day of driving ahead.

Until the next blog

Travel safe 

The Touring Knights