Trevor & Jonathans Cruise & Trip to the Far East and Australia 2016

Day 71 - Tuesday July 19th 2016 - Monkey Mia to Carnarvon, Western Australia

So the day did start with an alarm but to be honest as is always the case we didn’t need it. It had been a long nights sleep as we had turned the lights out quite early and snuggled up under our two duvets but they did the job, we had not been cold at all.

This morning was all about the dolphins, so much so that after shaving and brushing our teeth we headed straight down to the beach to see what happens as we really had no idea.

We had put our swimming trunks on just in case but didn’t know if we needed them or not. We had not done the research on how interactive this dolphin thing really was but we were about to find out. Our logic was that there was no point taking a nice warm shower now only to get into a cold sea of salt water to then shower again so off down the beach we went.

We certainly were not the first to get there at all. The rules seemed to be that you were not allowed onto the sand until the wardens were present and they had assessed the dolphins that had come into be fed, you have to remember that these are supposed to be wild dolphins so they want to show that they are taking every preventative step to not get them too used to human interaction.

The boardwalk along the beach was rammed with people all waiting to run for the best place along the sand. The wardens made it clear that no one would be allowed onto the sand until the time of 0745 and the rules would be that although we would all be able to line up in the shallow water it would be no deeper than ankle height and only those invited by the wardens would actually get to feed the dolphins and it would be one fish only.

In a way the rules are good, we are talking about wild creatures here who also need to learn to fend for themselves just in case the tourists stop turning up. Apparently years ago it was a real free for all here with everyone in the water with fish feeding the dolphins and it all got out of hand with dolphins becoming aggressive and then starving themselves as they forgot how to fed themselves so this really is a step in the right direction.

Now dolphins were not the only animals swimming on the sea this morning (there were already two we could see very close to the shore line waiting for feed time). There was also a huge and hungry pelican who also fancied an easy feed time and he was not going away despite the warden’s best efforts and when he snapped that huge beak of his well it was actually quite sobering, you didn’t want to be on the other end of it to find out if it hurt or not, put it that way.

The time came and we all made our way into the freezing water, ankle height only! It was so cold, obviously the sun had not long been up and even the shallowest of waters had a frosty feel. The dolphins really swam in close, they were swimming in literally their bodies depth of water and by now there were about five dolphins that had come in for some easy food. One of them was quite young, still a calf and was certainly a lot smaller than any other dolphin we had seen before, they were all cute though, so inquisitive, so interested in what was going on and their eyes are so expressive……we were so lucky just to observe them.

Eventually it came time for the wardens to select people to feed the dolphins but despite our best efforts to look keen we were not chosen. Instead the lucky places went to the young families and children, pretty predictable but honestly it didn’t matter. We were as close to the dolphins as these lucky people were and the only difference was that we didn’t need to handle a dead fish!

Then it was over. The dolphins were out of bounds, no more human interaction (well until the other two interaction times due to happen this morning). I would guess that if you swam by the side of the marked dolphin area if the dolphins were still curious enough they might swim with you? Who knows but we had seen what we had come here for and now it was time to have some breakfast and get that shower and decide what to do with the rest of the day.

It was certainly just that bit too cold to lay on the beach, or so it felt at this time in the morning and we are not very good at doing nothing so we needed to come up with a plan and after all it was still very early in the morning.

So whilst we were eating our cereal and longlife milk we made a rare snap decision! We were not going to stay the second night as planned and paid for instead we were going to hit the road and get ahead of our schedule a bit.

There was good reason for this. Yesterday had seen us drive and rush about all day, fitting in as much as we could in the time we had but in Monkey Mia the star attraction was the dolphins so having seen them and understanding what the core was going to be we really didn’t need to go through that a further two times so moving on made sense despite losing our campsite booking fee.

With that decision made it was all hands on deck to clear down the van to get ready to move.

Sharks Bay where Monkey Mia is situated on a peninsula. It’s like an ear sticking of the west coast of Australia and it is a world heritage site due to its eco credentials and the unique aquatic life that live in its waters. As we were in such a rush yesterday to get to Monkey Mia before the sun went down we had not stopped at the other major attractions on the way through but by leaving now, this morning we would be able to do that and still make the five hour drive up to Carnarvon and spend some time there so it really was a win win situation. We had decided yesterday that we really didn’t want to be behind the wheel for longer than five hours unless we really really had to so gaining a day in our schedule was nothing but a positive thing.

We left Monkey Mia and drove off into the Sharks Bay National Park with our first stop being Shell Beach. Now many beaches in the world are called shell beach I am sure but this one really is a beach of shells, tiny tiny tiny shells everywhere for as far as the eye could see. When you put your hand into this shell sand you could really make out all the different whole shells. These were not bits of shell or old coral reefs these were all tiny little cockle shells making up the beach and it was quite fascinating. It also felt really solid underfoot. This is the sort of beach that you can lay on and not bring half of it home with you, the solution to sand.

We drove again for another hour or so but still on Shark Bay and stopped off at the Hamelin Pool Conservation Reserve. We had come here to see something called stromatolites…..any guesses? Need a clue? Well if you find one please tell us what they are as we never really found out. All we know is that they are very very old and they look like teeth coming out of the oceans floor in the shallow waters. They are a formation that looks like a rock and are made from billions of years of crustacean creatures and algae growth. There is a whole unique eco system here in Sharks Bay and these are just part of that but as I said, to the layman they looked like rocky human teeth and we will go with that!

Leaving the stromatolites behind we headed back to highway one and a road house as we were the wrong end of a tank of petrol, in other words it was low and that’s something that you just don’t do on long drives in Australia due to the mileages involved. We actually had to queue at the roadhouse for a good half an hour to fil up with petrol. There isn’t really any on the whole of the sharks bay peninsula, you can buy it at two of the campsites but the price was just astronomic so that’s why the queue almost went back onto the highway. It’s also because nearly every vehicle queueing for petrol was towing either a caravan or a boat or was a camper, in other words you could only get one at a time to the pump. Of course when we got there it was fine as our van is so small. We filled up and were in our way again, up highway one to Carnarvon with no planned stops between the roadhouse and the campsite we had booked earlier on the telephone.

So what was the landscape this time, well all the way to Carnarvon it was the same which made the drive a little boring being honest. It was all bush and red soil on both sides. We did pass a few wild emus and managed to get some pictures this time but that was about the extent of the excitement of the drive.

Just after one we stopped for some lunch in a layby watching what little traffic was on the road go past us. That is the magic of a van, just being able to pull in and do your thing, todays lunch was cheese and onion sandwiches.

We made it to Carnarvon just after two o’clock in the afternoon so we would have a good four hours before it got dark to explore the place.

We went straight to the campsite to get the pass and see where we were before heading straight out to explore. It’s hard to sum up Carnarvon, its half traditional Australian small town but it actually had quite a big suburban area and it certainly had a large coastline.

Our first stop for the day was actually out on Babbage Island opposite the town where there was a one mile jetty with an old train that runs up and down it. The jetty is actually the longest in the north west of western Australia and was constructed in 1897. It was built to accommodate state ships travelling up from Perth and for the first ever livestock shipping. The jetty itself was a little bit rickety. The wooden struts that crossed the jetty had definitely seen better days and the rail train tracks were all corroded. We didn’t take the train, it was already on its last run of the day instead we walked the length of the jetty, battling against the wind even though it was warm.

They don’t believe in health and safety here, we could have fallen of this jetty at any stage, the timbers were all different lengths and the handrail was not really in tact at all, in other words it really was a bit of a wreck but still it was worth seeing and it was raised above a huge sand bar/nature reserve before edging its way over the ocean.

After our brisk walk up and down the jetty we topped at the café just by the entrance to the jetty for a well deserved hot chocolate. Like all service in Australia (that we have encountered apart from in really nice restaurants) it seemed slow and all a bit confused but we got our drinks in the end and very nice they were too.

Outside of the jetty there was a bit of a railway museum for the trains that had once run up and down the jetty. It was closed now but outside of the museum they had a number for very rusty parts of train engines and carriages in beyond fixable states but great for photographs.

We had somehow not read the web properly or someone had put the pin in the map wrong on TripAdvisor as for our next stop we had intended to go to some blow holes that were the number one listed attraction in Carnarvon but it turns out that they are actually about 70 kms outside the town so that was now off the agenda. Instead we headed back into the town to see what it had to offer.

Now to be honest it was getting near closing time so most paces seemed to be shutting or were already closed but there were not that many place so after a short walk to the war memorial and a quick stop at the bottle shop to stock up on beer we were done. We might of made it sound like there was nothing to do here and that is not the case. For a town in this location Carnarvon leaves you spoilt for choice, it does have a bit of everything but you have to view it through a back water town in Australia eyes and then it seems like a city!

We left the town behind us and headed back up the road in the direction of the campsite. We needed to get some meat for tonight’s dinner and we had spotted that there was an IGA supermarket just up the road so we went there. Now we had sauces in for three meals if we could buy chicken and guess what they didn’t have? Chicken! We ended up with steak to make a beef madras, nothing wrong with that especially as we had red wine in stock to accompany it!

So the night was spent back in the van, going through the itinerary and checking what and where we were planning to go and do. Jonathan spent the night trying to actually get ahead of the blogs and ate far too many tim tams (chocolate biscuits).

We started to make the bed up just before ten as again tomorrow was meant to be an early started lights were out soon after that.