Monkey Mia

330km further south we drove into the beautiful town of Denham.  Denham is 23kms south of Monkey Mia (on the western side of the Pennisula).  We set up camp and the kids had a teddy bears picnic.  We then strolled into town along the foreshore to see the lay of the land and were instantly impressed by the small town.  The kids had a play at the park while I got some local fishing knowledge, which I put to good use of the jetty that afternoon catching lots of small yellow fin bream and little blue fish I couldn't identify.

The next day we were all excited to head upto Monkey Mia to see the dolphins.  We arrived for the second feeding (a much smaller crowd than the first feeding) and we were lucky enough to see 2 dolphins including Nikki who was pregnant.  Charlotte stood up very straight and was lucky enough to get picked to give Nikki a fish - we had some very hungry Pelican watching who would have loved the fish as well.
 
We stayed around Monkey Mia and learnt more about dolphins and even got to see the dolphins feed again (this time 5 arrived) and bought a few things at the gift shop.  We thoroughly enjoyed Monkey Mia - especially with the weather warming back upto 30 degrees.  Charlotte and Will played on the beach in the arvo as I attempted to catch some sand whiting but unfortunately I only caught bream again.

When we returned back to Denham we visited the Ocean park which had many varieties of fish including Sharks.  We watched the sharks being fed and will was more interested in the sand on the ground rather that the dangerous Lion fish...but everyone had a good time.

The next day and the wind had dropped out so we drove back up to Monkey Mia and jumped on the Aristocat Catamaran to go in search of Dugongs (after feeding the dolphins again....unfortunately Will didn't get picked this morning).  We saw many more dolphins, a variety of shovel nose rays as well as many big dugongs in the weed beds.  The Catamaran also had a boom net at the rear which Charlotte couldn't resist, so she stripped down to her undies and jumped in.....which meant I had to as well!!  It was a bit fresh to start with (which meant Will didn't last too long) but it was a fantastic experience watching all the dolphins swim by behind the boat.  Pods of dolphins surrounded the boat on our trip in, with many jumping out of the water and putting on a fantastic show.





When we got back, we went back to the jetty to drown the last few prawns in the Waeco.  Once again we fished in the kindergarten and both Will and Charlotte dragged in a fish.

 

Today was Mel's favourite of the trip so far ( I know, we say this most posts), and it would have been close to mine as well....until Fremantle beat Geelong and kicked the Cats out of the 2012 finals series.  The kids couldn't understand why I was yelling at the TV - it was weird watching the game at 5.30pm with the kids still awake!  Oh well, it was an even year anyway....look out for the Cats in 2013!!