Well we arrived at the Monkey Mia dolphin feeding on time – unfortunately somebody forgot to tell the dolphins. We could see them playing in the distance but apparently they weren’t all that hungry. While we were waiting though we got a chance to talk to the ranger who told us they are only allowed to feed 5 grown female dolphins and they can only feed them three times before midday. Apparently when there were no restrictions a lot of dolphins died because the mothers were relying on being fed and weren’t teaching their young how to find food.
Eventually the dolphins came in and a very excited Claire was selected from the crowd to feed one called Puck. She very kindly took her brothers into the water with her but they were disappointed they didn’t actually get to feed it a fish (they are very strict about how much the dolphins can be fed it is only a small portion of their daily needs).
After the dolphin feeding finished we headed to the gift shop (we had to get a magnet for our collection) and managed to buy quite a bit more. While Paul was paying I ducked off to catch up with an old school friend who lives at the resort which was great – she hasn’t changed a bit!
After we left Monkey Mia we went to the old sheep station located in the National Park. The kids enjoyed sitting in the artesian hot tub which lived up to its name because the water was really hot. As the kids were getting out my nature spotting husband spotted and emu having a bath in the pond. When we first saw him he was up to his neck in water by the time we got close enough to take a photo he was standing in the pond and we got to see him hop out and start preening himself.
As we were leaving the sheep station and heading toward Little Lagoon to meet the others for lunch we had to come to a complete stop while a pair of emus had a play in the middle of the road – naturally I had to get out and take heaps of photos.
Little Lagoon was lovely and calm and Claire couldn’t wait to go for a swim – thankfully Josh had read the sigh that said there were poisonous stonefish in the water and you couldn’t swim – yet another shining example of my mothering skills!
The kids had a great time playing on the beach before we left for Eagle Bluff. Eagle Bluff was a great lookout where you could apparently spot stingrays and sharks – blind me spotted nothing but then other than a few small fish neither did anyone else.
After Eagle Bluff the Wooldridges headed off to try their luck at fishing while the Garments and Burgesses went to Ocean Park – a natural aquarium built on the waters edge. The young guy who took us on our tour was really interesting and actually went to the same high school as Paul (small world). We got to see stingrays and mantarays as well as a couple of different types of sharks (including one called the nervous shark – called this because he is scared to be around anything that is bigger than him). We also saw all types of fish that can be found locally and a cute little turtle called Bob.
Back to the campsite and before we had turned the engine off I was getting the usual cry of “what’s for dinner?” to which I gave my usual response of “food” which apparently wasn’t a good enough answer – so I had a glass of wine (or two or three) and pondered the question by which stage I was beyond it and Paul cooked.
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