We have spent the last week exploring Shark Bay, a World Heritage Area encompassing the town of Denham, the resort of Monkey Mia and the national parks and marine parks in the area. We started off in Denham, the most westerly town in Australia, staying in a campsite that backed onto the beach - perfect! It was a 235 mile drive to Denham from Kalbarri, and on the way we stopped off at Hamelin Pool to see stomatolites (really old living organisms) - there were loads more than at Lake Thetis. Once we got to Denham we checked into our campsite, and were told that if we stayed for 3 nights we got a 4th free, bargain. After that we explored the town, which was very nice but pretty small, and had a walk along the beach. The next day we went to the TIC and booked ourselves onto a 4WD aboriginal tour of the national park for the next day, before heading off to the Little Lagoon to relax. It's a tidal pool 3km north of Denham with very nice sandy beaches all around and very warm water, if a little shallow for swimming. We saww loads of wildlife around the town, mainly lizards and emus, which wandered around the town and also around our campsite! They look quite friendly, but have very big feet so we've been keeping our distance! The next day was our guided tour around the Francois Peron National Park, which is the whole area north of Denham. Our guide was Capes, who was an Aboriginal native to the area, and we started off learning a bit about tracking animals and about the different plants in the area and their uses. We also learnt some aboriginal words! Our first stop was a birrida, a dried up area of salt water in the sand dunes, and we learnt about aboringal culture and what these areas are used for. Then we went on to Bottle Bay for a swim in the crystal clear waters, lovely! We then went on to Cape Peron, the most northerly point on the cape, for lunch - there were loads of birds, and the are was absolutely stunning, with the red desert sand meeting the white sand of the beach, then going to the turquoise blue of the sea! After this we went to Skipjack Point where we were on the lookout for marine life, and we were lucky enough to see turtles, rays, dolphins and even a dugong! For one final surprise we stopped off at Peron Homestead on our way back, and went in the artesian hot tub, which was full of 40 oC water that bubbles straight up from underground water - absolute bliss! The next day was our last day in Denham, and also rubbish weather - cloudy and col - so we decided to first off all go to Eagle Bluff to see if we could spot any sharks from the cliffs - unfortunately it was low tide so we couldn't see anything! So we decided to go the Ocean Park aquarium, where we had a really nice lunch and then an hour long guided tour,which included seeing rescued turtles, loads of different fish from Shark Bay, sea snakes, and even sharks being fed! That was definitely the closest either of us want to get to a live shark!