Dolphins at Monkey Mia

Yet another early start this morning with an alarm set for 6am, aiming to be on the road to Monkey Mia by 7am. At the Monkey Mia beach they have a dolphin feeding programme that can commence at any time really, depending on when the dolphins arrive.
We got there before 8am and it wasn’t too long before we were led down onto the beach and then to stand in the water. It’s an amazing way to see wild dolphins close up and done in a way that doesn’t endanger the dolphins by only feeding 5 specific females and then only a small part of their daily intake so thy don’t become reliant on it.
After the feeding we had breakfast in the car park (the advantage of having your “home” with you !) and planned the rest of the day.

The track to Cape Peron

The Francois Peron National Park covers the northern part of the peninsula and has a series of 4×4 only tracks that give access to a number of lookouts and camps, it would have been rude not to…
We started with the longest option, heading to the Northern most part of the peninsula, Cape Peron. As you enter the 4×4 track there is a tyre deflation/inflation point where you air down your tyres on the way in and a compressor and air line to pump them back up again before you leave.
The track itself is mostly pretty good but there were a few stretches of very soft sand that took a bit of effort to get through and as the track is about 40k long it takes the best part of an hour to get along it. It also crosses a couple of salt lakes which look like they are a real problem if it’s wet.

Skipjack Point

We spent about an hour at Cape Peron, the water looked very inviting but the large shark that was alternating between the sea weed beds and the shallows on the beach put that idea firmly out of our heads.
Next stop was Skipjack Point, only a few k away, where there are a couple of lookouts that are high on the cliffs overlooking the ocean. This turned out to be a real chance to see an array of marine life, almost like a wild aquarium. There were large numbers of Manta Rays swimming in the bay along with Turtles, small sharks and numerous fish. We probably spent over an hour there just waiting for the next creature to make it’s presence felt.

Sandbar Shark at Skipjack Point

All we had to do then was drive back down the track to the camp site at Denham for our second night there. We took a couple of diversions down the side tracks so in all we covered around 120km of sand driving, getting my eye in for later !

Tomorrow we’ll head to Carnarvon or thereabouts as we head to Coral Bay and Exmouth for the day after and we’ve booked the snorkelling trip for Saturday morning from Exmouth.