Sorry for the lack of updates everybody. Better late than never I suppose!
When we left Coral Bay, we headed south towards Monkey Mia. On the way, we made a short detour via some Blowholes on the coast just north of Carnarvon. In this area, the coast is very rugged and there isn’t much shelter from the weather. We stayed at an isolated camp ground, where the ranger let us sleep in an old shed right by the beach – A room with a great view for just four bucks!! The weather changed overnight. It was cold and grey in the morning, so we packed up early and headed for Carnarvon to buy supplies and then on towards Monkey Mia.
Monkey Mia is a tourist resort where volunteers feed four female Dolphins three times each day. When they come to the beach, they have their calves in tow. The calves are really playful, always messing about with each other. It was fabulous to see – the Dolphins come right in to the beach, where the water is only about knee height. The only thing I didn’t like about the experience was the crowd – it was two or three people deep at the shore. Even so, it was fantastic.
We had heard about a beach in the Francois Peron National Park (40Km north of Monkey Mia) where you can see Dolphins, Rays & Sharks in a more natural habitat (yes, yes, I know… water is their natural habitat), away from the crowd. So after a few relaxing days in the hostel at Monkey Mia, we headed up into the National Park.
40Kms in, 40Kms out – it should be a straight forward enough drive I thought. So I let the tyre pressures down and got stuck into it (or not as it happens, thankfully) – dry, soft, deep sand from the start. I was getting a little worried, given our tendency to get bogged down in the soft stuff. Driving along the track, I noticed that we were getting a bit bogged down fairly regularly. So, I dropped two cogs and nailed it to try and keep up the momentum. Silver (the Pajero’s name since Karajini, NT) pulled through – Hi Ho Silver and all that. Now for the other 79Kms!!
Cape Peron was spectacular, not that I saw much of it – real white knuckle stuff. Having to go that bit faster on the softer sand meant that Silver spent quite a bit of time airborne. When we got to the top of the Cape, I saw Dolphins just a few metres from the beach (without a crowd). It was worth the trip – but I couldn’t relax to enjoy it. I just wanted to get the drive back to Denham over with. Once again Silver took to the air, flying at an altitude of 2 Feet, past some vast Lagoons and Salt flats.
After our adventure in Cape Peron, we headed south to Kalbarri to walk the gorges there. Then onto Geraldton – the second biggest city in Western Australia for a short break from the travelling! I know – none of this sounds stressful in the least. But believe it or not, sometimes you need a holiday from the holiday!
Click here to see:
Our shed at the blow holes
A video of one of the blow holes (No Sound)
A pelican at Monkey Mia
One of the Dolphins at Monkey Mia
Sebastian, Calvin, Lucinda, Mike, Carla, Marcus, Dave & I outside the kitchen of the hostel in Monkey Mia – nice view!
The beach at Cape Peron
The track up through Cape Peron
A salt flat in Cape Peron