After brekky we hit the road down to Monkey Mia. On the way we stopped to have a look at shell beach. It is the most beautiful beach we have ever seen. It was a very serene place and had a really magical feel. The beach was entirely made up of tiny white cockle shells for as far as the eye could see. There must have been trillions of shells here. It was simply amazing. This perfect snow white beach went down into the extremely calm and gorgeous aqua blue ocean waters. The shells were very deep in places and it was wonderful to sit amongst them, sift them through our hands and throw them in the air. We got some incredible photos. The high water salinity in this area has resulted in the proliferation of this tiny cockle. As their predators do not cope well in this environment this has resulted in the accumulation of trillions of these tiny shells along the shore. The cockles have existed in huge numbers for thousands of years, then died natural deaths and been washed ashore. After leaving this gorgeous beach we drove for just over an hour down to the town of Denham and on to Monkey Mia. This is where wild dolphins come to the shore to be fed. The place has changed massively since I was last here twenty years ago. Back then it was just a little car park and a smallish wooden hut on the beach. That was it. The nearest accommodation and shops were over twenty kilometres away in Denham. Now though it's a commercial hell. They have built a whole resort here and even more building work is going on at the moment. There's a huge visitors centre, shops, restaurants, a pub, cabins, apartments and a huge caravan park/camp site. The strap line for the place is 'Dolphins are just the beginning.....'.!!! And the end result I dread to think. It appears that it can only get worse. The dolphins it would seem are being exploited to fund this load of commercial b******s. It's all about money. In the 1960's a fisherman and his wife began feeding the bottlenose dolphins when returning with their catch. As news of the dolphins coming ashore spread people started to come and see them until in the 1980's an information centre and car park were built and the development started that would eventually become the monstrosity that it is today. We had arrived just a few minutes late to see a feeding session. We were told though that there was a possibility of the dolphins coming ashore again so we hung around at the feeding area for a while. The dolphins didn't appear and who can blame them. Imagine having your food while over a hundred people are 'woop wooping' and battling with each other to get the best spot. I wouldn't like it and compare it to eating at a McDonald's! Why do people eat at McDonalds anyway? It's a load of 'sheep' paying money to be literally poisoned by a burger and fries. Why do so many people self harm in this way? We had a mooch around the resort and hated it. It's a real shame as it could have been a nicer more laid back experience like twenty years ago if commercialism hadn't advanced in such a rampant way. There were even camels being exploited here for tourists to ride on, the poor loves. They should have been roaming free. We got some photos with model dolphins in the visitors centre and then we got out of here. We were glad in a way that we hadn't seen any dolphins in this environment. It would be better to see them naturally in the wild rather than part of a 'show'. I saw a dolphin whilst in the sea at Adelaide back in December and that is how it should be, natural and spontaneous. We put the $16 entrance fee we had paid down to experience and drove to Denham and had some lunch at a rest area by the ocean. We then decided to go back to the main highway and stay the night at the Overlander Roadhouse. With hindsight we wouldn't have stayed here but it was still better than giving in to the dark side and stopping at the Monkey Mia Resort. Up until now all the roadhouse caravan parks we have stayed on have been great. This one was a bit scary though and was basically a tatty bit of ground next to some dilapidated cabins just round the corner from the petrol pumps. The facilities were awful. Jay came back from a trip for a wee completely traumatised! She had never witnessed such filthy facilities and with hindsight she would have put a peg on her nose before entering. To put it mildly the place stunk of poo and the bin was overflowing with discarded tampons!!!! The gents wasn't much better. We couldn't shower here as we'd probably come out feeling dirtier than before we went in. We holed up in the camper van, doors locked, for the evening and would make our escape at first light.