Shark Bay
15th-17th April 2017

The drive from Kalbarri to Monkey Mia was about 4 hours and we set off around sunrise. We entered into the Shark Bay world heritage area around 2 hours from Monkey Mia. Shark Bay heritage is 2.2 million hectares and incorporates marine and land. It's one of the few areas in the world that meet all four of the natural criteria to be listed as a world heritage area. The first stop in the area was Stromatolites and Hamelin Pool. The stromatolites are the oldest living organisms at over 3,500 million years old. The place was actually very beautiful and scenic. One of the most scenic pictures we got from our trip. The rocks against the blue blue clear sea made it look amazing!

The next stop, Shell Beach- I reckon the name gives it away! The beach is made entirely of Hamelin Cockle and Coquina Shell, which stretches for 120km. The beach was very strange and when entering it there were big Shell mounds for you to climb over. It really was WOW, the shells so white and the water so blue/green and clear. It was pretty amazing really! Some crazy stuff in this world that my brains hurts too much to think about!

Eagle Bluff was an amazing place. The views never fail to amaze me! There was a boardwalk on the cliffs edge that gave birds eye views of the area and the coast. The sea was striking blues and greens and it was beautiful. We saw some rays and Reef sharks swimming below which was good, though they looked tiny from how far up we were!
We grabbed some lunch in Denham, the main town in Shark Bay, along the coastline, before we headed to Monkey Mia. We pulled in at the side of the road along the way to see Little Lagoon, which was a beautifully coloured Lagoon.

We had to pay into Monkey Mia reserve to get to our accommodation as it's a national park area where people visit to see the dolphins. The accommodation wasn't what we expected. We thought there would be a hotel by the beach but it was a huge resort with camping, huts, dorms, everything really. We were staying in a beachside room which was nice. The room was very standard and the resort very overpriced for $300 a night but it was a perfect location and we got nice views of the beach through the trees from our room.

For the rest of the afternoon we had a mooch around the resort and then retreated to the beachside bar/restaurant to relax. What a life! For dinner we went to a second bar down the beach and had a pub meal there which was really good! We got a fairly early night ready to explore the next day!

We were up at the crack of dawn again and headed down to the beach for the dolphin interaction. The friendly pod of wild bottlenose dolphins regularly swim to Monkey Mia’s shore to interact with humans up to three times a day. On average, seven or eight dolphins regularly visit the beach, with up to 20 other dolphins visiting only occasionally throughout the year. Renowned as one of the best and most reliable places for dolphin interaction in the world, Monkey Mia is the only place in Australia where dolphins visit daily, not just seasonally. The Department of Parks and Wildlife (DPAW) established Monkey Mia as a marine reserve in 1990. A designated interaction area was created to help protect the dolphins, while allowing selected visitors to feed them during designated feeding times.

When we were heading across the beach to the interaction area we spotted dolphins just off the beach, swimming very close to shore! We didn't even get to the interaction area and we already had the experience! It's so weird how they know when to come in! We saw 7 dolphins come into shore at the interaction area. You were allowed to stand ankle deep in the water and they came within yards of us. At the end the rangers allowed certain people to feed the dolphins a couple of fish. They don't give the dolphins much as it would prevent them from hunting in the wild, but enough for them to return. It was a great experience seeing the wild dolphins come that close in and interacting with humans. We had some big pelicans fly in too. There were quite a lot of them just relaxing around the beach area.

It was such an amazing area with lots of wildlife, so for the day we decided to venture out further and try spot some marine life! We hired kayaks for the day thinking that we wouldn't really be out on the water too long- it ended up been around 8 hours! It was an amazing day! As per directions from the staff at Monkey Mia Kayak Hire we headed straight out to the furthest point in the morning and then took our time making our way back. The furthest point was the baby shark nursery, where you guessed it, there were baby reef sharks (and their mothers of course). It was actually quite scary been out in the open sea. We are very scared about the shark factor in aus! This area is known for tiger sharks, which can be deadly to humans. They are second behind great whites. The staff at the kayak hire told us that if we do see any there is nothing at all to worry, they haven't had any incidents in a very very long time. She said they may come over the kayak and be curious but just to let them and then they will swim off. We were quite nervous about this! After been out of the water for a while though we felt fine. We were never far off shore. We stayed at the shark nursery for quite a long time, watching the sharks swim by. When we were in the water with the kayak they just swam off scared so you couldn't see them. It was best to watch them from the beach. We saw a few different types of rays when we were in the kayak and one turtle. The rays were very big!! We also saw jumping fish which was very funny! There were also a group of emus walking along the beach.

After the full day out kayaking, which was tiring, we headed back towards the resort. We were just sat still in the water looking for sea life when we heard this loud weird noise from the water and like something spouting water. Nath was facing where it was and I quickly turned around to see what it was. A couple of yards from us this creature popped its head up out of the water and stared at us with its black beady eyes before going back under. We sat there for a while to see if we could see it again but it had gone. We debated a while about what it was as we really weren't sure. I knew it wasn't a dolphin or anything but it was a big creature. It wasn't until we got back to the beach and thought about it that we thought it was a tiger shark. We googled a picture and it sure was!! A big enough one as well! We were glad we didn't think too much about it at the time as we might have had a heart attack haha!

What an amazing day out the water. I love open sea kayaking. Maybe not so much when there's sharks but still! It was brilliant, we absolutely loved it! And we saw so much sea life. For the rest of the night we sat at the beachfront bar again and then went for dinner at the pub. We were up and set off before sunrise for the long drive back!

The drive back was long! About 9-10 hours. We stopped a couple of times to refresh but tried to power through and in the end it felt like it went pretty quick. What an amazing trip it was!! So worth the drive up and to visit them two amazing places. Australia never fails to surprise and wow me! Love it!