Abroad in Australia: Day 3- Monkey Mia

The next morning we were all excited to set out for Monkey Mia bright and early to see the dolphins come in. They are the major tourist attraction- at 7:45 every morning several female dolphins swim in to be fed a few fish for a snack. We saw a 34-year-old female named Puck who has been coming her whole life, and brought her 1-year-old calf with her. Another 35-year-old female and Puck’s 12-year-old daughter each came with their calves as well. The tourists stand on the edge of the water, and nobody touches the dolphins. Nobody is allowed to swim in that section of the beach either, so that the dolphins can have their own special area. The speakers give them a few fish each day, nowhere near enough for sustenance so they are not dependent on it- they only feed five females who have made it a tradition to start their day by coming into Monkey Mia. It was really cool to see them that close! It was hard to get a good picture of them in the water, until they began looking at us.

The Monkey Mia Resort.

Afterwards, we went out on a catamaran called the “Aristocat 2” for about an hour and a half. There were cool nets to sit in on the front of the ship, and in the back there was this awesome net you could ride in for a while. It was really exciting trying to hold on and being pummelled by the water...and the ocean was really warm! For the rest of the time we cruised around trying to find dugongs (sea cows, like a manatee), and before we got into shore we spotted 2!

Sitting in one of the front nets.

Being dragged in the back net! I'm the closest one to the camera.

The rest of the day was spent driving around to a few different spots. We stopped at the Eagle Bluff cliffs overlooking a small bird conservation island, and we stopped at an old abandoned sheep station.

The Eagle Bluffs cliff area.

A sheep dip- used to get rid of parasites on the sheep, the ranchers would make the sheep swim across and dip them before they could climb out. Sheep have to roam huge areas to sustain themselves here, so along the way we would often see groups of sheep in the middle of nowhere that looked like they were wild.

A female orb weaver that we saw in the sheep shed. Their webs are so strong you can stretch them a few feet and they snap back. I will never complain about spiders in MA again! :)

Another random stop along the way- I think it was a marsh.

We also stopped at Shell Beach, one of only 2 beaches in the world made entirely of shells. The salinity of the water is really high so the ocean was crystal clear, and the water was shallow and still. We were the only ones on this incredible, huge beach. It was really nice.

Then we left and I was on dinner duty for that night. Once the setup was complete we walked over to the beach to see the stromatalites. The flies were pretty bad when it was light out so we started out wearing the super attractive fly nets. Stromatalites are some of the oldest known living organisms on Earth, reaching 3.5 billion years old. The ones in Shark Bay are about 2,000 to 3,000 years old but are pretty much the same as their ancestors. Stromatalites provided much of the Earth’s oxygen- they were cool to see, even though they were just rock. It was a really pretty beach and dock.