Dolphins at Monkey Mia
We got up early this morning to watch the dolphin encounter at the beach. We arrived by 7:30 (there were already a couple of dolphins swimming close to shore, just a short way from the show area) and quite a few people already waiting. The environment people and volunteers arrived shortly after, and so did the dolphins, right on schedule at 8:00 am. The head lady narrated for quite a while (perhaps she was being repetitive for emphasis) and told us a bit about these dolphins. They are Indian-Pacific bottlenose dolphins. There were probably about 10 dolphins in all, though they only fed three of them, about two or three fish each. They pick someone from the crowd to feed each fish.
After the show was over we finished packing up the motorhome and drove it to the parking area to leave for our sailboat cruise. We spent about two and one half hours on the water on a large (60 feet or so) catamaran, looking for sea animals. I saw a loggerhead turtle just after we’d left the dock. We also saw some dolphins, and spent a long time looking for a dugong. Finally we found one, and got a couple of minutes view, but it never resurfaced where we could see it. On the way back we saw a sea snake, so there weren’t a lot of animals today.
This afternoon we drove in the four kilometers to Eagle Bluff viewpoint. It is a cliff about 100 metres above the bay, and below us we could see many rays and sharks in the crystal clear shallow water. The bush flies were terrible, but we’d bought head nets today at the service station where we bought fuel. That was a lifesaver, as with the net on they can’t continually crawl in your nose and eyes. They do however follow you into the vehicle, and we sprayed it with Raid after each stop. We must have swept up 50 or more flies tonight, and there are still a bunch flying around on the windows.
We also stopped at Shell Beach. The flies here were even worse, so we didn’t stay more than about five minutes, just long enough to take a picture. We then drove on to the sign to Hamelin Pools, drove in about two kilometers to where there was a Hamelin Station farm stay. However they didn’t have power, so we decided to leave. I drove to the north following the sign to the Stromatolites and the Telegraph Station. When we got to the end of the road we found that there are camp sites here at Hamelin Pool caravan park, so we have power and are running our air conditioner full bore. It is very warm tonight, and with all the flies outside we don’t really feel like being outdoors.
Sunset at Hamelin Pool
After supper I walked to the beach area to photograph the sunset and the stromatolites. It is about a one kilometre walk. At first you walk up a set of steps, quarried from blocks of the shell beach. In about 200 metres you pass through the old quarry where you can still see the cut marks in the compacted shells. The stromatolites are quite different than the ones which we saw a few days ago at Thetis Lake. A boardwalk extends out for about 100 metres into the shallow water. There are several different kinds of formation here, but it was getting rather dark so they were hard to photograph.
I had worn my fly net down to the beach, and the flies were thick. Somehow some got under the net, and when I tried to swat them, I suddenly felt a sharp pain in the back of my neck. I took the head net off, and discovered I had got a wasp under the net, so that was what had stung me. Whatever species they are, they have an orange body. It was painful for a moment, but not nearly as painful as a yellow jacket sting. There was a little boy on the boat trip today, and he had suddenly started screaming. He had been stung on the thumb by one of the wasps, and the captain put some kind of cream on it, and he stopped crying immediately. Perhaps it was some kind of an anesthetic.