Day 47 – Denham and Monkey Mia

Up early, and we left Denham at 7am, so we were at Monkey Mia at 7.30am for the first early feeding of the dolphins. After paying the $24 Monkey Mia resort entry fee, we walked down onto the boardwalk, until we were summoned by the Dept of Parks & Wildlife people to wait and the waters edge. Monkey Mia is such a pretty bay. 

We didn’t have to wait too long before a dolphin and its baby calf came along and frolicked around us in the water. We weren’t allowed in the water (unless invited by the Parks people to feed the dolphins).

 

After watching the dolphins for a couple of hours, we boarded the big catamaran “Aristocat II” for a three hour wildlife cruise. We were hopeful of seeing some dugongs today. On the way out to sea we stopped off at the Black Pearl Farm onto the pontoon, or a tour and demonstration of how the pearl seeds are implanted into the pearl muscle, and sent out to the nearby farming waters to grow pearls for a few years. (This farm was owned and run by Jamie, from the TV show “Farmer wants a Wife”. Didn’t see him around today though.

One very different thing they are doing at this pearl farm was to implant little nuggets of gold, and opal inside the pearl, so then the oyster covers the nugget in nacre (to make a pearl), and then after extracting the pearl they use an acid wash, to expose the gem inside the middle of the pearl – very cool.

 

Back on board the cat, we had a lovely day to watch the dolphins play on the bow of the boat, and then finally when we reached the seagrass beds, we saw a couple of dugongs. Yey!  They are the strangest creatures, and live entirely on seagrass.

 

We also spotted quite a few huge Loggerhead turtles flapping gracefully through the water, though as soon as they spotted the boat, they immediately did a deep dive out of sight. Beautiful creatures. Unfortunately I wasn’t quick enough to get a photo of them.

Back at the resort we wandered around the caravan park to have a sticky beak, and were actually glad that we couldn’t get in, as it wasn’t much – very cramped and dusty.

 

We then had some lunch at the café and then headed back into Denham for a wander down the tiny main street (yep, had to check out the pearl shop again), but didn’t buy anything. We also had a look at the tiny little Anglican church built entirely of the shell blocks we had seen yesterday at the Shell quarry on the way in. Amazing construction, and even the font was made of shells with a giant conch shell on top.

After a wander around the town we drove the 20km south to Eagle Bluff – an absolutely magical place. A boardwalk has been very carefully constructed around the cliff face edge allowing you to walk along and peer down into the warm, shallow waters below. We couldn’t believe the amount of sharks feeding below us – they were very easy to spot, and in one patch we counted 15 Lemon Sharks circling below. We were also amazed to see two Giant Shovel Nosed Rays (which looked like big brown sharks) very clearly in the water. There were also a number of Cowtailed Stingrays. A beautiful walk overlooking the green sea and surrounding cliffs. A lovely end to a lovely day.