Having stayed in Exmouth an extra day meant we had only one night to spare before meeting friends in Denham in Shark Bay, around 750km away. We'd hoped to spend a night at Coral Bay - about 2 hours south of Exmouth, and then another night on one of the isolated stations on the coast north of Carnavon like Quobba or Gnaraloo, but needed to rethink our plans.Heading south, we arrived in beautiful Coral Bay just before lunch on the first wind free day for a while. The water was bright aqua, and there were plenty of families lounging on the beach, so we took our picnic lunch onto the sands and then spent a couple of hours snorkelling in the still aqua and turquoise waters protected by an outer reef. Gorgeous place, and the kids enjoyed meeting some others their own age. Would be great to come back here one day and spend a few days. As we'd stayed a bit longer than planned, we didn't have time to set up at our proposed overnight stop at the Blowholes on Quobba station, so we went through to Carnavon and set up just before dark. No excitement here apart from a big sausage sizzle set up for a hundred odd retirees who'd left the cold in Perth and headed north. Carnavon doesn't have a great reputation, but we passed plenty of orchards and signs for markets on our way into and out of town. Apparently it used to be a bit of a foodie town until much of it was damaged by big storms a few years back and the poncy restaurateurs left. Anyways, we didn't stick around long the next morning, and drove another 4 hours south to the small seaside town of Denham in Shark Bay, Australia's most westerly town. It's mostly a one-street place with various accommodation options, few pubs and touristy shops, and plenty of fishing going on off the main jetty. Our campsite for the next 3 nights was the Denham Seaside Tourist Village and we had the best spot in the whole camground sheltered by a couple of dunes and trees, with a 2 minute hop to the beach. An old school friend of Paul's, Clive, who now lives in Perth with his family, had come up with a mate and brought his fishing boat and a mountain of steaks, lamb, and beer to meet us with. The girls had a terrific time playing at being wolves on the dunes while we caught up. The boys had been fishing and caught some beautiful pink snapper (limited to 2 per day) which they cooked up for the girls and I (Paul who doesn't do seafood had steak).The next morning, Clive and his friend Dean, went out fishing again, and we drove the 30km to Monkey Mia, just in time to see the third feeding of the dolphins for the day. It was just amazing to see these beautiful wild animals in so close and as most people had left after the first 2 feedings, both Harri and Matilda were selected by volunteers to come into the water to meet 2 dolphins called Nicky and Surprise. It is all tightly controlled now so the dolphins don't become dependant on people for food. According to the presenters, fisherman used to feed the dolphins in the 1960's and they got so used to people, they still come in every day for food several generations on. The first feeding is when the dolphins first arrive, somewhere between 7.30 and 8.30, and punters are asked to stand on the shoreline while the presenters give their spiel for 20 minutes or so, and then some lucky people are chosen to come into the water to give a dolphin one fish. Sometimes there are up to 7 dolphins at the first feeding, but the second and third is usually only a couple, and any dolphins hanging around after this are not fed at all, and people are strongly discouraged from entering the water or engaging them in anyway. One particular female dolphin comes in all the time, and also chases fishing boats begging for food and looking really cute. All this means she has lost all but 2 of her calves through neglect or leaving them alone to be preyed on by sharks, so the powers that be watch her 2 offspring quite closely to ensure they're socialising with others and learning the skills they need. Still an amazing experience.On our way back to Denham after a bite to eat, we stopped in at a lovely place called Little Lagoon, thinking it looked like a nice place for a quick swim, but signs warned us that stonefish were in plague proportions, so we decided to head back to camp to see what the fishermen had caught for our dinner. Mackeral on the menu tonight!The wind really picked up overnight, and it was starting to get too cold to swim too. We went back to Monkey Mia for another look at the dolphins for the first feeding. There were around 80 people and it was too cold to hang around in the shallows so we watched the proceedings from the small jetty to the side. They had a video called Dolphins of Monkey Mia showing in the theaterette about one of the Dolphins we'd met called Puck - she's taught her offspring to surf and aquaplane along the shoreline to catch fish - which is one of the very few places in the world this is seen. Clever things.Afterwards we visited the Ocean Park Aquarium with some sharks in large outdoor pools, and plenty of life inside in tanks , and they had a terrific cafe for lunch too. On our way out, we had a look at Eagle Bluff which had a boardwalk along a cliff top overlooking a very clear small bay. There are around 30,000 dugongs who live in Shark Bay and when conditions are favourable, they are often seen grazing on the seagrass from above. Unfortunately it must have been too cold and windy for them on this day so missed the action. The boys took Matilda out on their fishing boat that afternoon, and she caught her first ever fish, or should I say squid! Pround as punch she was, especially since no-one else caught anything. Calamari on the menu for entree tonight. Clive and Dean had been out on the boat that morning with a fellow in the campground who knew where to find some great crabs, so he'd put them in a small steamer for us to enjoy with a risotto I cooked up in the Dream Pot that night. Gourmet stuff.Clive and Dean headed back to Perth the next morning, and it was a bit cold for us to hang around too, so we left a day early. On leaving Shark Bay, we stopped in at the Hamelin Pool stromatelites. These are microbial mats and small rocky stacks made by cyanobacteria and basically credited with being examples of the oldest life on earth. They photosynthesise as plants do and produce oxygen which gave way for other life forms who rely on oxygen to eventually come along. The water is super salty so not much other life can survive here.