Tuesday, 16 June 2026
This morning we wandered down to the beach at 7.45am for The Dolphin Experience which Monkey Mia is so famous for. Perhaps not quite the encounter with wild dolphins that it used to be? The activity is now heavily regulated and closely supervised by rangers – for the sake of the dolphins – so no-one really gets to paddle with the dolphins anymore. It was all a bit bizarre really, with people lining up along the edge of the water, take-away latte in hand, waiting for a dolphin to arrive. Heaven forbid that a unique wildlife encounter would take precedence over your first coffee for the day??!
Eventually, after a fair bit of patter from one of the rangers, including that Monkey Mia’s Indo-Pacific bottlenose dolphins are better than Melbourne’s common bottlenose dolphins, Kea swam up to the beach. After a bit more information from the ranger, about how to interact with wild dolphins and some details about the local dolphin population, a volunteer arrived with a bucket of fish, OK, three fish. The volunteer entered the water and then fed these three fish to Kea. When the bucket was rinsed that was Kea’s signal that she had received as much fish as she was going to this morning and off she swam.
To have a truly interactive experience with the dolphins you need to volunteer for a minimum of five days. During your five days of prepping fish and helping out with other things around Monkey Mia, you will get the opportunity to enter the water and feed a dolphin a small portion of fish and have your photo taken with the dolphin. Everyone else who was there, it was strictly no feet in the water and look, but don’t touch. A bit anti-climactic really.
After the dolphin experience, we returned to our cabin to finalise our packing and head off. We returned to Denham where we photographed the Old Pearler Restaurant and Australia’s Shark Bay Hotel, Australia’s westernmost pub. The restaurant is made from blocks of coquina, a soft rock formed from the shells of millions of tiny molluscs that have cemented together over thousands of years.
We arrived at the Shark Bay World Heritage Discovery and Visitor Centre to watch the 9.30am 3D presentation on the HMAS Sydney. The 15-minute presentation was made after the discovery of the wrecks of the HMAS Sydney and the HSK Kormoran in March 2008 and contained eerie underwater images of both ships and a detailed summary of how the battle unfolded.
After the Sydney sank in 1941 with her entire crew, after a short but deadly exchange of fire with the Kormoran, there were only German accounts of the battle. The Kormoran was also fatally damaged, but the German crew had time to abandon ship and most survived. With only German eye-witness accounts of the exchange between the two ships, conspiracy theories abounded for nearly seven decades. With the discovery of the wrecks in 2008 it was possible to verify most details of the battle and to find some closure on what remains the Royal Australian Navy’s greatest naval tragedy. A fitting tribute to the lost men and those they left behind.
We circled back around for a quick look at Little Lagoon Creek and Little Lagoon before leaving town. A bit of a whirlwind visit to the Shark Bay World Heritage Area. We really should have stayed here for at least one more night to do it justice.
As we drove back out Shark Bay Road we made a quick stop at Eagle Bluff. There is a fabulous boardwalk atop the bluff and it is possible to watch sharks, rays, turtles and fish cruise the clear shallow water below the lookout. We did see some movement in the sea grass below us but we could agree on whether it was a turtle or a shark!!
We made one more stop at Shell Beach. This is the beach that was once quarried to cut blocks of coquina (shell brick) for buildings around Shark Bay. The salinity of the water here is extreme – almost twice as salty as the open ocean. This allows the Fragum Cockle to flourish in its billions. After living for about two years, the molluscs die and their shells wash up on the shore, eventually compacting into coquina. In places the shells are estimated to be 9-10 metres deep.
Now it was time to leave the Peron Peninsula behind us and make tracks for Kalbarri, but we were still nearly an hour from the North West Coastal Highway. About 12.30 we reached the highway and, finally, we were on our way south again. The Overlander Roadhouse was very close to the interesection with Shark Bay Road, but we decided to make some headway south before stopping at the Billabong Roadhouse for sandwiches.
There was nothing of note between the roadhouse and the turn off onto Ajana-Kalbarri Road. We continued towards Kalbarri, eventually finding ourselves driving alongside the Murchison River, WA’s second longest river at 820 kilometres long, with a catchment area larger than Tasmania. We passed the river mouth, before continuing along the coast to Red Bluff, where we are staying tonight at a G’Day Park/Summerstar Tourist Park. Our accommodation for the next three nights is in a two bedroom, family sized cabin. It will be nice to have some space to spread out in. It has been so cold today that we had to turn the heating on in the cabin rather than air conditioning.
We tried for another sunset tonight. With heavy cloud hanging over the Indian Ocean, it was disappointing again, although we did see some Fingers of God filtering through the clouds in the lead up to sunset. While we down at the end of Red Bluff Road waiting for sunset, two fisheries officers arrived to check up on the people fishing from the rocks. Bernie asked if they were checking fishing licenses but they said it was more about checking the size and number of fish being caught to make sure no-one was exceeding their bag limit.
At dinner time we met Ross and Sharon (they’re doing a farm stay rather than a caravan park at this stop) at The Jetty Seafood Shack to buy fish and chips for dinner. The four of us took our paper wrapped dinner back to our cabin to eat, because it was far too cold to eat by the sea tonight. Bernie and I had been looking forward to fish and chips by the sea, but it was a bit disappointing all round. The fish and chips were only average and we had to eat them indoors. At least the company was good.
Steps: 10,018 (6.50kms)
