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Hi Guys!!
We left Exmouth at 9pm on Tuesday evening, and 3 buses and 12 hours later we arrived in Monkey Mia. We dumped our bags and set off for a walk along the beach.
Monkey Mia is famous for its dolphins, and people have been feeding the dolphins here since the 60's. Nowadays, in order to protect the dolphins the interaction is quite regemented. There is a dolphin interaction area at the beach where no boats are allowed, and no people can go in the sea without a ranger present. The rangers carry out upto 3 dolphin feeds a day, at times decided by the dolphins, but no later than midday. This is to encourage the dolphins to leave the bay in the afternoon, and continue their natural behaviour. On top of this only certain dolphins are fed, and no more than 1-2kg of fish each per day, which is only a smidge of their 20kg+ daily intake. During the feeds people from the crowd are picked at random and allowed to feed these wild dolphins.
We made it back to the dolphin interaction zone just in time for the final feed of the day. There were 8 dolphins, 1 with a 6 month old calf, and after an informative talk, the feeding began. Amazingly, Emma was chosen first to feed a dolphin - it was brilliant. We spent the rest of the day on the beach, it's getting colder, but is still about 26 degrees C.
The next morning was again spent at the beach, only 50 metres from our room, and we watched another dolphin interaction. In the afternoon we made our way to the jetty, and boarded the 'Shotover', a catamaran, for a 2.5hr boat trip of Shark Bay. The trip is designed to see Dugongs, but unfortunately the sea has dropped to a rather chilly 16 degrees, so the dugongs have moved off to warmer waters. We did, however, have a very relaxing trip, and saw tons of dolphins, and the crew invited the 2 of us back for a free trip tomorrow.
Friday morning we were on the beach for the dolphin interaction at 7:30am. About 8 dolphins were around, with 3 calves - they were gorgeous. Lee got picked to feed a dolphin, which was pretty cool. We had a walk along the beach, where we saw an emu being chased off the sand by a seagull - what a sight!! Our afternoon was spent on the Shotover, where again we saw no dugongs, but loads of dolphins, and had a great time anyway.
We spent our evening packing, ready to move on in the morning to the tiny town of Denham, 25km away.
Love you loads,
Lee and Emma
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