Monkey Mia

30-Jan-00 thru 02-Feb-00

Monkey Mia is part of the Shark Bay World Heritage site and home to the Dolphin-Human Interaction Centre. At this place, dolphins regularly interact with humans. Shark Bay is also home to one of the two stromatolite colonies in the world (the other being in the Bahamas).

These shots were taken from the headland at Kalbarri - A really scenic spot where a river enters the Indian Ocean. We stopped here for the night on our way to Monkey Mia but did not spend much time there as the corrugated roads would have bounced poor daisy to pieces!



Whilst waiting for the dolphins - this picturesque pelican posed for us.


Here come the Dolphins...


Swimming closer...


Here he comes!


Look at that electric smile!


Even likes to be touched!


Hey lady in the white hat! Yes you in the blue shirt.
Come here...


... and give this guy a fish! In being selected to feed the dolphin, SGK fulfilled a 10 year old dream of coming to Monkey Mia and doing just this! (Yes Cathy ever since you told her about it!)



Just south of Monkey Mia on the way out to the main road is this beach made up of trillions of these little shells. There is a local industry that harvests these shells to feed to chickens to make the egg shells stronger! They also spread them on unsealed roads to keep the dust down. The reason for so many cockle shells here are because the water is too salty for the cockle's predators but not the cockles themselves.


Further on towards the main road is Hamelin Pool with the stromatolites. This sign shows the story of evolution.




Stromatolites are earths oldest life form - there have been stromatolites on earth for 4 BILLION years. They are a form of Super Blue Green Algae (Yes Chris, the stuff you take in your supplements) that sift lime out of the water and form these weird stumps.


The only othe life form that we could see in this hyper-salinated/deoxygenated water were these weird albino fish.