The next day we hired bikes for the day with Claire and Mark, and cycled a little way down the coast, stopping several times to go swimming. The coastline is a mixture of pretty beaches and rugged cliffs. Going in the sea was a welcome way to get away from the flies, which we thought were a little troublesome, however the flies got much worse on Wednesday...
On Wednesday we hired a car and explored the gorges that have been cut out by the Murchison River. The scenery was amazing - it is easy to get a sense of how ancient the landscape is here. The only downside was the flies, which were truly horrendous! We were forced to wear ridiculous fly nets over our heads in order to keep the flies from fliying up our noses, mouths and ears! After surviving the plague of flies we then drove down the coastline to take in some of the views that we didn't reach the previous day on the bikes.
After admiring some pelicans on Thursday morning, and spending time sorting out some of the hundreds of photos that I have already taken, we got back on the bus in the afternoon for the trip up to Denham and Shark Bay - another five and a half hour journey!
For photos from Kalbarri, click HERE.
The hostel at Denham turned out to be one of the best that we stayed in - we were sharing a unit with Mark and Claire, and had our own lounge (complete with TV) and kitchen. Not bad for $50 a night (around 20 pounds)!
We spent Friday lounging around in sea, by the hostel swimming pool and playing on the free pool table. Mark even tried his luck at fishing! On Saturday morning we travelled the short distance to Monkey Mia, which is famous for the wild dolphins which swim up to the beach every day. Just after we arrived, the dolphins turned up for their first feed giving us a chance to get some really close up views of them. The undoubted star of the show was the baby dolphin that had been born within the previous 48 hours.
In the afternoon we went on a cruise on a former racing catamaran to try and find some dugongs. Shark Bay has one of the worlds largest populations of dugongs, which thrive on the huge seagrass beds in the area. Unfortunately, whilst we saw lots more dolphins and some turtles, we were unable to track down the elusive dugongs! We were given the opportunity to try again the next day, but the weather took a turn for the worse and we ended up spending the day playing pool volleyball against Claire and Mark!
For photos from Denham/Monkey Mia, click HERE.
