WA-Shark Bay and Monkey Mia

Shark Bay became Western Australia’s first world heritage listed area in 1991. The area is renowned for its white beaches, turquoise waters, rust red sand and a multitude of marine life.




Heading towards Shark Bay you pass by Hamelin Pool which is one of only two places in the world where living marine stromatolites exist. These are the oldest living organisms on the planet and are very slow growing at a maximum of 0,3mm a year.
They dot this shoreline in rocky like clumps and these particular ones are estimated to be 3000 years old. A walking platform has been erected so that we could view them without damaging them.



We settled ourselves in the caravan park at Denham and headed for Monkey Mia. I have wanted to visit this place and see the dolphins since I was a teenager and I was not disappointed. Between 8 - 12noon every day the bottlenose dolphins come right into shore to be fed. They swim around and very gently take the fish out of your hands.






While here we had lunch at the restaurant and watched the emus wander around the grounds. We then spent three hours cruising Shark Bay on the sail boat, “Aristocat 2” where we saw dugongs, turtles, more dolphins and we even saw a shark. Out in the bay we stopped in on the pontoon “Sea Lab 1” where we saw demonstrations on how they seed the black lip pearl shells and then the end result of stunning coloured pearls.