Our WA Trip - Part Five - Shark Bay World Heritage Area

And back to the adventure! It's now January 14th and Jen and I are finally on our way to Shark Bay. I was glad to leave Geraldton - there was something about the hostel that I really didn't like. I couldn't even put my finger on what was bugging me. It was strange because since Jen's far more experienced than I am with the whole hostelling thing, I've been following her lead when it comes to deciding whether or not a place is 'good'. But in Geraldton, she was OK with the place, and I was not, for the first time all year. Go figure.

Anyway. We left Geraldton and headed northwards once more. I would like to point out that the only point along the whole way north where we had any cell reception was on the beach in Geraldton. And once we left the town behind, we lost radio stations - for good. We'd forgotten to bring along the road trip CD's I'd made for the Great Ocean Road trip, so we had no music, either. Yikes!

There is absolutely NOTHING on the road north of Geraldton. Nothing. I mean, you know there are few landmarks when the roadhouses (gas stations) are marked on the state's map! (Yep. All two of them.) There were no trees, just more of the endless variations of the word "scrub", and lots and lots of wind. Randomly, we saw a number of feral goats grazing at the side of the road. At first we thought they must be escapees from some local station, but no, they're wild. It was also bizarre seeing the roadkill on the sides of the road... there are no vultures here, but I guess that the goannas (big lizards) or something else must be picking the bones clean, 'cause that's what we kept seeing - dessicated skeletons of roos and other critters.

About four hours of driving through this nothingness brought us at last to the Shark Bay World Hertiage Area. This place is special for a number of reasons. First, it's very isolated. (I did mention the endless drive through nothing but scrub, right?) Shark Bay has the largest sea grass beds in the world, and a huge population of dugongs, which are a threatened species. Also lots and lots of sharks. Hence the name Shark Bay. But most significantly for me, Shark Bay is one of the only places in the world where there are stromatolites growing. As a nature nerd, this was something I HAD to see on my Aussie trip. So off we went!

We arrived at Hamelin Pool around 12:30, and it was HOT. I'm talking well over 40C, with no humidity, no clouds, and no trees for shade. Boy am I glad our car was air-conditioned! We checked in with the lady at the little souvenir store (there was a sign asking all visitors to report there before going out walking, for their own safety)... she advised us that it was too hot to do the entire walk (no kidding) and suggested a couple of short walks instead. We went to visit the shell quarry, which was cool. The whole bay is hypersaline, so very few critters can survive in the water. However there's one species of clam that can, and it does, in the zillions. The entire beach front was made of tiny coquina shells! Back from the beach itself, in the dunes made of shells, there's a quarry where blocks of solidified shells used to be cut and used for buildings. It was nifty but it was so hot we only stayed there briefly.

After a short drive, we finally arrived at the stromatolite pool. It's hard to describe - likely it's easier for you to go and take a look at the pics in my "Western Australia - Part Two" album. Basically stromatolites are piles of bacteria that live together as a colony, and they produce oxygen. So we walked out onto this boardwalk over a shallow, salty bay, full of these blobs of bacteria and mud. Why are these so cool/significant? Well, scientists are pretty sure that the stromatolites represent how life started on earth over three billion years ago. And since the stromatolites produce oxygen as a waste product, they were the organisms originally responsible for changing earth's atmosphere into something that the rest of us could all breathe. So in a very real way, without the stromatolites, no other forms of life as we know it would have evolved.

See why I had to see 'em? :-)

The heat was just incredible. It wasn't too bad when we were on the boardwalk over the water, but when we got back onto the beach, it hit us like a wall. We high-tailed it back to the car and the air conditioning. In fact, we skipped eating lunch and just headed for Monkey Mia, the end of our travels for the day. This turned out to be another hour and a half down the scrub-and-nothing-else road. Every time we crested a hill, we kept expecting to see the resort, and it felt like it took forever for us to get there. I will no longer complain about the monotony of driving through Algonquin Park's back roads... the scenery in Shark Bay was just so empty it was mind-numbing!

Monkey Mia is a little resort literally in the middle of nowhere, situated on a bay of brilliant turquoise water with red hills and - yes - scrub, all around. Our tour book called it a "slice of paradise" and I would agree. I'm glad we were there in the slow season though! The resort has a hotel, a hostel, cottages, and a trailer park - so there were lots of options for accommodations. We stayed in the hostel. Basically once we had our keys and had moved our stuff into the room, we crashed and took a nap. It was glorious. Then we threw on our swimsuits and hit the beach in the late afternoon. This too was glorious. We emerged from the water feeling much better. We decided on the spot that we would spend our entire time at Monkey Mia (a) in our bathing suits and (b) without our shoes.

We enjoyed dinner at the "Monkey Bar", the much less expensive of the two restaurants at the resort. And afterwards we took a loooooong walk down the beach. It was so cool! The water was very shallow and crystal clear, and we saw rays, skates, and lots of other fish. We also surprised a green sea turtle, who was poking around near the shore. It kept sticking its head up out of the water and eyeing us from about 20 feet offshore. When it realized we were staring back, it slapped its flippers on the water and dove under. We couldn't wait to go snorkeling the next day.

The real reason we'd come to Monkey Mia was for the dolphins. This place is famous for its wild dolphins that come right in to shore every morning in order to get fed. The dolphins have been coming to the beach at Monkey Mia for over 30 years,, every morning, without fail. How crazy is that? It used to be that members of the public were allowed right into the water to interact with the dolphins, but it was discovered about 15 years ago that this practice was causing the dolphins a lot of harm. It was kinda the equivalent of feeding ducks or seagulls all your scraps - the dolphins were no longer wild, they no longer cared for their young, and - worst of all - they contracted diseases from us humans! So nowadays the dolphin interaction program is very strictly run by the park rangers, and things are much better.

We arrived at the beach around 7:30 in the morning. The dolphins were already there, along with quite a few people. More people arrived steadily up until around 8am. The dolphins just cruised through the shallows, occasionally rolling over to eye us and see if we had any fish. We had to stay right out of the water until the park rangers allowed us in, and even then, we had to stay in a straight line and only go in as far as our ankles. While the dolphins might have been a little wary of us, they sure knew who had the fish! The rangers were in water up to their knees and the dolphins would go right up to them and bump them with their beaks! The rangers gave a good talk about the history of the dolphin feeding program and dolphin biology. They apparently only feed female dolphins (the males can be really aggressive), and even then, they only feed certain ones. The dolphins can come into the beach up to three times each morning, but no food is offered after that. And the rangers only give the dolphins about 1/3rd of their daily intake in the public feedings; the animals are expected to find the rest on their own. This helps to keep them wild and ensures that the mothers will teach their calves how to hunt.

Needless to say, I snapped lots of great photos!

Oh, and the pelicans! Australian white pelicans are the largest pelicans in the world (for those of you who have seen the brown pelicans in South Carolina with me, these birds are TWICE the size!). The pelicans at Monkey Mia aren't stupid and know all about the dolphin feeding thing. Understand that these birds' beaks are almost as long as my arm - they can be a pretty serious nuisance! So when the dolphins are getting fed, two volunteers from the park are on pelican patrol - as in, they have another bucket of fish that they entice the pelicans with, to get them away from the dolphins and the people. It was crazy!

Anyway. We grabbed breakfast once the dolphins had swum off, then headed to the dive shop to rent some snorkel gear for the day. The guy at the shop was dubious - he said that the conditions weren't all that good for snorkeling (the wind had really picked up). We told him we had no choice, we were signed into a sailing cruise in the afternoon and had to leave the next day. His response - "Girls, you've gotta learn to relax!" It was like he was amazed we'd try to cram so much in! Ha ha! Well we rented the equipment anyway and tried snorkeling over the seagrass beds. And the guy was right - with the wind and everything, lots of sand was being kicked up off the sea bottom and visibility was terrible. But we saw a few things and it was a good practice session, so no worries!

It really was a jam-packed day. We came in from snorkeling (more than glad that we were wearing our rashies to protect us from the sun), dried off, took a nap in the shade, ate lunch, and headed off to the jetty to get on the catamaran. We spent the entire afternoon on the boat, cruising around Shark Bay. It was great. Jen and I got to help winch the main sail into place. We sailed waaaay out into the bay and saw dugongs, sea turtles, and huge shoals of fish. In fact, the tour operators were thrilled with all the wildlife we spotted - apparently we were sailing on the best day they'd had in weeks!

The wind out on the bay was fierce, and our ship was FAST. The catamaran we were on had once been a racing boat, so at a couple of points the crew turned it into the wind and let it RUN. It was like flying. I'd never been on a sailboat of any type before, and it was great. There was netting in between the hulls of the ship, and for a good portion of the way back, Jen and I laid down in the rigging on our bellies. This felt somewhat like flying, skimming just over the surface of the water - except for the parts where the boat hit particularly big waves and we got drenched. Ha ha!

We returned to shore for about an hour, so Jen and I grabbed some ice cream, wrote postcards, and chilled out in the shade. Then it was back onto the boat for the sunset cruise. Once again, the temperature drop as the sun went down was astounding. I'm glad I took my fleece! There were only four other guests on the boat with us for the evening cruise, and it was the same crew as for the afternoon excursion. So once again Jen and I helped hoist the sail. Coolness. We also helped stow it at the end of the cruise. The waves were huge in the evening so it was a wild, bouncy ride, but lots of fun.

Back to shore again, and another hour-and-a-bit break - so we grabbed dinner at last. Hot food felt great after so much time on the water! Then, as the sun was almost set, we headed out to the "Awe-stronomy" tour - again with the same guys who had run the boat tours for us earlier in the day! (They knew us by name at this point.) Our main goal with the astronomy session was to find the Southern Cross constellation. I mean, really. It would be completely ridiculous for us to come back from this trip without knowing how to find Australia's most famous constellation! The guy running the tour had a fantastic green laser (argon?), which he could point at a star and we could follow the beam all the way. I gotta get me one of those - although I understand that they are very expensive and banned in the US. The laser is apparently powerful enough to truly blind an airplane pilot, if pointed at a plane flying overhead. Crazy.

So yeah, suffice it to say that by the time the astronomy session was over at 10:30pm, we'd had a very, very full day. The temperature had dropped nicely so our hostel room was nice and cool for sleeping in, which was a nice break. And sleep we did!