Packed up all our flying monkeys and left the Windy City (Quobba) headed for Denham. The weather hasn't improved at all - still very bloody windy. Stopped in Carnarvon to do a little shopping. Just a quick stop. You know, arrived at around 10:00 and didn't get away until 3PM. Oh well, even though it was Sunday and nothing much was open, Carnarvon is a nice place, and we were totally zonked after a night of very little sleep due to the wind and constant flapping of canvas. While we were there we had a squizz at the mile long jetty (yep it's long), the jetty tram museum (yep, they used to run steam trains along the jetty to the ships), the Shearer's Hall of Fame (used to shear a lot of sheep in the area - actually we found this to be very interesting with lots of great old photos and personal storied from back in the day), and the HMAS Sydney/HSK Kormoran Museum which while providing no new information did have one of the two recovered lifeboats from the Kormoran.
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| It's a mile long |
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| Kormoran Lifeboat |
From Carnarvon we legged it to Denham/Shark Bay with plans to visit Monkey Mia and the Francois Peron National Park. We arrived just after six, which was when all the camp ground offices closed. The Blue Dolphin caravan park has a helpful sign in the office window suggesting that you call Barry to arrange matters after hours (even though someone was obviously living in the accommodation attached to the office and had all their doors and windows open & the lights on..... Anyway the call to Barry went straight to "Bazza's" voice mail, so I left him the relevant message, but after 20 minutes standing round in the wind and cold (yes it was still very bloody windy, and it must have been no warmer than 22 degrees - absolutely arctic conditions), we gave up and went to the Denham Seaside Tourist Village around the corner where the manager came straight outside from his dinner and sorted us out with a camper trailer friendly, sheltered (a relative term, but appreciated none the less) site. Big thumbs up!
Next morning after catching up on some of the boring bits that go with travel (a.k.a. laundry) we strolled into town to see the sights and go to the tourist information center to see what was what in Shark Bay. Well, I'm pretty certain that Bazza's brother was on duty. Useless as an ashtray on a parachute harness. So, we determined that we would just wing it and go wherever the mood took us, after a nice coffee and some lunch of course. Turned out that all the espresso machines in town were broken except for the one in the cafe that was closing early because the waitress had a doctor's appointment and was consequently only doing take away! In fairness, the doc only comes to town once a week, so it was only to be expected, but the timing could have been better. Got an inoffensive takeaway and headed back to camp. We then drove out to Eagle Bluff where we were presented with views of several sharks and a shovel nosed ray from the boardwalk. Then it was on to Shell Beach, which is made up entirely of....... wait for it........ shells.
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| Pearling Lugger as seen through a dirty lens |
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| That's a shark down there |
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| Eagle Bluff Boardwalk |
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| Told you it was made of shells |
When we finally staggered back into camp, our septuagenarian neighbors gave us a feed of whiting after they caught so many from their canoes in Little Lagoon, that they had no room in the freezer for any more cryo-vac'd fillets. Very tasty dinner.
Next morning it was up bright and early so we could catch the 08:00 dolphin feeding at Monkey Mia. NOT. We did head out to Monkey Mia, but didn't get there until around 10. Hey, we're on holidays and we slept in. The dolphins had already been fed twice by the time we had bought our entry passes and they only feed them three times a day at a maximum depending on how many times they come back into the resort. Luckily, they were feeling particularly hungry/greedy and swam back to the beech just as we got there. We have heard many people complaining how Monkey Mia is just too commercialized now and how this spoils the whole experience, but honestly it was great. Yes it's big businss with the resort raking in the money, and the Department of Environment and Conservation charge everyone an entry fee, but the setting is very picturesque and the dolphins are incredible in the way that they swim up to the shore and give all the people standing in the water a good looking at as if they were the tourists and the people were the wildlife show there for their entertainment. Well worth the drive! On top of all that, the coffee was great.
Selected 4WD in the Patrol and headed off to Francois Peron National Park for an afternoon of sand, sand, and more sand, with a couple of clay pans thrown in to ease the boredom :-) Great fun, and we stopped off at Big Lagoon (which looks like a great place to camp), Skipjack Point (where we just missed the Manta and Eagle Rays, but did see dolphins, some other big rays, and a shark swimming by) and Cape Peron. All very picture-skew.
Must clean the camera lens in the morning.....
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