A big day out, but a wonderful day out too.

It’s been a LONG, but WONDERFUL day.  We got up at 5am and left at 7am to go and feed the dolphins at Monkey Mia. (pronounced my-ah, not me-ah. It’s Aboriginal)  This ritual has been going on for years.  It was in 1963 that the governments listed this whole Shark Bay area a World Heritage Environmental Marine Park.

When we got there the dolphins were already waiting for their FREE handouts.  It was interesting to see these beautiful wild mammals swimming so close to the beach ready for their interaction with humans.

The rangers keep a strict control on how much fish is fed to the dolphins so they learn to feed themselves and their babies.

 

These little guys were resting on the end of the jetty and just watching the people.

 

 

THIS,..is where we got the most excitement from.  Here at Cape Peron, we spotted two sea turtles, a couple of sting rays, 3 tiger sharks, and several dolphins.  All swimming around this cove for food.  We spotted some Skipjack, aka Spanish Mackerel, nearly 3 feet long!!  And one of the ladies in our group spotted either a sea snake or an eel amongst the rocks.(even though nobody else saw it, “sure Sandy,sure”)  We spent quite a bit of time at this point just gazing into to the cove to see what else we might find, as dugongs were known to haunt this area as well.  (there’s more photos in Flickr Slideshow)

We stopped here at Gregorie’s beach for lunch.  Once we finished, we headed up to the beach to have a look.

 

This is one of those special places where the contrasting colours are just vibrant.  We played in the water and we played in the sand.

 

  And Chris chased the birds for us, so we could get the birds in flight.

 

 

One by one, they flew off.

 

 

 

 

And, our first incident happened.  The Scout got bogged,..or “temporarily stopped” as Col says.  But with a few shovels of sand away from the tyres, he was out in no time at all.

This was a beautiful beach.  Once again, the red sand met the blue ocean and it all it does is make you want to take a swim despite the cold temperature of the water.

We weren’t sure if these guys knew they were just standing on a sandy shelf or not.  But the group quickly dispersed once they realized there were fresh oysters on the rocks below.

There were some large salt pans that we travelled through to get to the tip of the peninsula and back again.

And then incident number 2 happened.  The Scout got bogged.  AGAIN!!  4WD never got engaged.  Margaret said there was a loud “clunk”. Well, that’s not good news, but once again, sand was dug out away from the tyres and Col kicked it into gear and made his way to the other side of the hill on to the beachfront.  And much to his chagrin, Chris gave him a hard time about getting bogged TWICE in one day.  But he took it on the chin gracefully and with good humour.

We stopped in at the Big Lagoon on the way home.  Here we had a cup of coffee and biscuits to end the day’s excursion.

 

Yes, it’s been a big day, but an absolutely beautiful day.  You couldn’t have asked for better weather.  And we saw so many fish and wildlife today, it was exciting.

Tomorrow?..don’t know, I’m still savouring today.