Monkey Mia
Next we made the long drive to Monkey Mia. Arriving at the Shark Bay peninsula we stopped to see the magnificent shell beach and admire some beautiful look outs before continuing on to Monkey. We had finally evaded the cold, the rain, and the flies, but we now were contending with strong winds of 60km/hour. The campground was completely unobstructed for the wind so we decided to get a room for the night. Our room was somehow in the middle of a bunch of rooms of young middle-schoolers on a school trip. They were funny and friendly, and not a problem at all, but definitely not quite nor expected. There was a lot of chaos going on around us. Luckily we escaped to the beach where we were lucky to see some dolphins coasting along the shore just a few feet away from us. We walked with the dolphins and enjoyed a few drinks and snacks before an early night to bed.
The next morning we got up early to go to the dolphin encounter. A few dolphins showed up and we watched them feed and play and were also lucky enough to see a few sea turtles hanging around as well. It was really great to see all the wildlife and we were happy for our trip. We checked out and headed to the aquarium next. I had skipped the aquarium on my previous visit and I’m so glad we went back and went to it. It was a really neat experience. The aquarium is a converted fish breeding facility that was designed to breed some vulnerable species of fish, the program had been successful though and the fish breeding facility was not longer needed and converted into this aquarium. It was an aquarium like no other one I’ve been to. More like a nature center in a lot of ways. All the creatures in the aquarium were local species and nearly all of them were individuals that were injured and in recovery or permanently injured. Entry included a tour by a marine biologist who knew all the creatures by name and personality. At each tank she would tell us not only about the species, but of the personalities and the dramas of the individuals in the tanks. There was an angelfish, Steve, who had never paired off (they mate for life) but instead had begun living with a pufferfish. A clownfish colony, which we learned about have 5-10 members, all are males except the dominant one, who is the largest and is a female. When she dies the next largest male goes through a sex change and becomes the new dominant female. In this colony the 2nd place male had got caught trying to mate with the female and got kicked out the colony and had to live in the corner of the tank instead of in the anemone home until he was forgiven, likely in a few weeks. He in turn refused to feed the anemone any of his food which made the rest of the family more mad, because apparently the first thing they do when they get food is feed some of it to their home/anemone. It was quite the drama. We met a variety of other fishes as well all with unique personalities and stories. They also have a big shark tank where the biologist fed the large sharks as we stood just a bit above them on a small bridge. It wasn’t a worry though, and it was so cool to watch.
After the sharks we drove a long drive back south where we saw had less wind and was now nice and sunny. We drove many hours that day making it south of Geraldton where we spent the night in a caravan park along the beach.
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