Denham and Monkey Mia

Denham is about 324 K's south of Carnarvon and Monkey Mia is 26 K's further. Monkey Mia is famous for Dolphin Feeding and subject to differing opinions about the value of traveling 260 K's off the main road. Is it worth the trip?..you bet it is. The Dolphins are fantastic, the feeding is well organised with lots of little kid's getting a chance to feed the Dolphins. The cost to enter the park is not expensive in the scheme of things, anyhow back to the start.

We chose to stay at Denham and found that the Seaside Tourist Village was an excellent Park with 2 levels. We were settled into Denham Heights and our friends into Beach side, we had great views out over the ocean and our friends P&P nice views of tea tree beside the beach. Like everywhere along the coast the wind is horrific, strong and unrelenting (we are bloody sick of it). But Denham is a lovely little town with a great future, I think it will keep growing as apart from the wind it looks like a great place to live.

Our main purpose in visiting this area is to see the Dolphin feeding and do a tour of shark bay in a catamaran yacht, we booked the tour and arrived at Monkey Mia early next morning. We were in time to witness the first feeding of the dolphins for the day. As I said before the feeding was excellent, with 7 dolphins arriving and four or five feeding. They seem to really enjoy the interchange between people and themselves and are very curious and seem to be attracted by different colors and movements. They are very cute and I really enjoyed the experience.

Then onto the yacht, with a good seat and the wind doing something useful for a change we skipped across the water of the bay to an area where there is a lot of sea grass under the water. This is the favorite haunt of the Dugong, a marine animal like a miniature whale and we saw plenty of them. They are a very shy, timid creature that come to the surface to breathe and then dive to eat the grass, they stay at the top briefly and you have to be quick to see them and very clever or lucky to photograph them. We also saw turtles and dolphins. At $69 this was a good value for money tour and the bonus was a sunset cruise for an additional $9, which we chose to take the next night. With the experience of the previous day we took wine and snacks and happily sipped chilled wine and nibbles while we whizzed across the water to witness a brilliant sunset. I could really get used to sailing it is an awesome feeling.

We also visited a marine center and saw a huge variety of fish and sea creatures such as blue ringed octopuses, sea snakes and sting rays and many others. We also saw sharks being fed and I reckon the highlight was the commentary and knowledge of the guide, who absolutely talked the whole time and knew what he was talking about. We learnt heaps about sea creatures.

I spent a very nervous Saturday watching Collingwood and St Kilda at war, a frustrating draw resulting, so a very nervous week ahead.

Four nights at Denham and a wonderful time, yes everyone should visit Denham and Monkey Mia and let this wonderful little place wash over you. South again towards Kalbarrie.