Shark Bay and Monkey Mia

By 10am the next day we were turning west off the North West Coastal Highway, towards Shark Bay. Shark Bay Marine Park, bounded by Dirk Hartog Island to the west, comprises the salty east arm called Hamelin Pool where the stromatolites are to be found at Shell Beach, and the west one, Denham Sound. They are separated by the Peron Peninsula with Cape Peron National Park at the northern tip, the small town of Denham on its western shore, and opposite on the eastern side is the famed Monkey Mia, where the dolphins take money out of tourist’s pockets. Our target for a couple of days was a spot at the northernmost point on Cape Peron, accessed through deep sand for about 50 kms. We saw Bill & Jill again on the road, and made plans to catch up with them again at Monkey Mia, then headed up the track rather late in the afternoon.

I found this challenging. With the sun low and casting long shadows across the sandy ruts, I wanted to keep a fair bit of speed on to avoid getting trapped. Occasionally there were deep, short gullies that matched our suspension dynamics and we had one “Oh shit” moment as the front end took off altogether and came crashing down from a height of about a metre. The sump guard is looking rumpled but thankfully there appear to be no serious consequences. We set up camp with a strong south easterly buffeting us through the night. It didn’t take long before I was thinking about the journey out again, especially climbing out up the same hill where we had the jump up problem. I couldn’t relax really, and after a long walk the next day along the head of the beach (where Nicolas Baudin and Francois Peron came ashore in 1803 and met the natives for the first time) we packed up, to tackle the 50 kms of now dreaded deep sand before I could feel comfortable again.

I dropped some more pressure out of the tyres, to about 12psi, and gingerly crawled out at mid day. Where was the problem? With the sun overhead the track was hard to read, but seemed lightly rutted compared with the journey in. We crossed the open clay pans (where the real problems come when it has been raining), straight up the hill, and over the jumps without even realising it! A valuable lesson was learnt, that has built confidence, as we contemplate our next stage, across the Great Victorian Desert next week. We were ready for some indulgence that evening after we had squeezed ourselves into the resort at Monkey Mia. Bill & Jill were waiting and we yarned over a packet of Kettle chips and three bottles of wine, protected in one of the BBQ shelters on the shoreline.

The dolphins are well managed there, very different from some years ago. There are two feeding times, and people are organised so that everyone gets a close up experience without interfering too much with the dolphins well being. They only give them about a fifth of their daily needs, and they only feed the mothers. This ensures their own hunting skills are what they rely on, that the mothers teach their young how to catch fish, and the males aren’t attracted at all. You get to stand in the water up to your knees and after your feet go blue you don’t feel the cold so much!