Denham - Kalbarri (ATA Day 9)

Today's drive was to get us from Denham to Kalbarri to make a bit of progress on the mammoth distance that's still left between us and Perth. I really struggle to understand how tour companies come up with their routes and stop points. Drive days with OzBUS and ATA have such varied lengths that I really can't fathom how whoever does the research comes up with the list of accommodation stops. Anyways....it's not my job so I'll stop whinging ;)

We got on the road early to make the short trip over to Monkey Mia to see the dolphin feeding there. I'm not quite sure what I expected of it, but what happened wasn't really it. People line the beach and can stand in the very shallow water while the staff are getting ready to feed the dolphins. Before this can happen everyone has to step back out of the water onto the sand, a yellow 'decoy' bucket is brought out to distract the pelicans that have gathered on the beach hoping to steal the dolphin's breakfast and then the handlers come out with the real fish buckets. There are only 5 dolphins that are hand fed, each of them have a quota of fish that they are fed each day in order to guarantee that they'll go fend for themselves and fish for the rest of their daily requirement and not rely on being hand fed everything they need. It's illegal to feed them if you're not working in the centre and part of the team that feeds them up to 3 times a day (in the morning). Nobody, including the handlers are allowed to touch the dolphins...one of the girls explained that from having them rub against her leg in the water she thinks they feel like a shelled boiled egg.

With the feedings over within a half hour we were going to be at a loose end for a few hours while one of the crew headed off on an Aboriginal tour (the welcome to country ceremony here was to rub soil between their hands..no billabong water spitting on the head). A big gang of us decided to take up the ATA/WestEx discount on the Dugong spotting boat and headed off for 2 hours on the water. We were dressed up in very fetching yellow raincoats (I can't complain it kept me nice and toasty), and headed off out to see in search of dolphins, turtles, sharks and dugongs. I spotted 3 out of 4 so that wasn't bad. The dugongs were pretty shy and I only got a look at them appearing for air for a fleeting second or three before they were off back to the ocean floor to graze on more sea grass. I spotted a solitary turtle which was cool, but there were no sharks to be seen. Dolphins however were all over the place! There was a big gang of males chasing a female to mate with her. After the boat crew explained what was going on and left me with some pretty disturbing imagery we sailed off to leave them to it. Poor lady dolphin...she'll either be pregnant, with calf or being chased by a group of males all her life! Despite not seeing all that many dugongs the boat trip was great..it was ace to just lay on the net in the middle of the boat watching the waves pass below.

Onwards then toward Kalbarri National Park to see Natures Window, a rock formation that looks like...a window. We messed about there for a while taking lots of pictures and attempting new jump shot manoeuvres (I think I'll have quite the collection by the time I get home).

After that we continued on to Kalbarri where we stayed for the night after yet another sumptuous Aussie BBQ evening with steaks, sausages and coleslaw.