Contrasting with the laid back quiet nature of Point Quobba, entering shark bay we found ourselves in a real tourist location. Even the main road heading up the peninsular has a grand sandstone brick entrance at the hwy turn-off… It is obviously widely promoted, with a larger presence of Asian tourist compared to other attractions/locations we’ve seen on the WA coastline. I gather it is primarily the dolphins that they come to see. In terms of Aussie tourists / grey nomads, the caravan parks were pretty empty.

We visited the attractions (some of them anyway) as we came across them. The first turnoff was to Hamelin Pool, and the stromatolites within. Hamelin Pool simply refers to the huge shallow area of Shark Bay, which is really salty due to evaporation and little fresh water inflow. Its about double the salt concentration of normal seawater! The result of this is that not much can survive in this salty water, so most of the life forms present in the water are pretty primitive.

The stromatolites are one example of this – they are just the build up of microbes over time, that has turned into a type of living rock. Or microbial mats, converted into microbialites, as the signs put it.

The next attraction is Shelly Beach, which is probably different from what you might first imagine. Yes it is very shelly, in fact the whole beach is made of shells – up to 9m deep in total! However it is all one type of shell/organism, the Fragum Cockle. This beach is also on the Hamelin Pool, and the Fragum Cockle is the only seashell that can survive the high salt concentration! This gives it a monopoly on the shoreline, which it has had for many many years. Fortunately it is a smallish nice enough looking white shell, so its a pretty beach to look at!!

Following Shelly Beach we headed straight into the town of Denham. This is a pretty little town whose main activities are clearly based around both tourism and the bay it sits in. At the nice info centre, we signed up for several things: a permit to camp that night on the bay, entry to Monkey Mia the following day, and a wildlife cruise on the Aristocat 2 yacht!

The camping permit was for Fowlers Camp, about 20km’s back down the road. A spot on the bay, no facilities, but cheap and protected from the strong onshore winds. We noticed 4 large wind generators just out of Denham (can’t not notice them!), so wind along this WA coastline must be pretty consistent. Here are some pics from walking around the point. Obviously tough conditions to live in judging by the vegetation!

Down in this area of the coast (as opposed to further north), there is a lot of seagrass in the ocean. So don’t go getting excited when you see dark blue patches in the ocean – those aren’t coral, but masses of seagrass! Not fun to snorkel in! It washes up onto the shore in places, and is blown about by the wind. On the leeward side of the point, there were blankets of the stuff on the side of the hill. Nice to walk on, firm but with a little give – like a nice expensive plush carpet!!!

We were up early Monday morning (29/9), to get to Monkey Mia in time for the all important Dolphin feeding at 7:45am! Along with, it turns out, about 350 other people…. (that number is not made up – it’s what they put on the board!)! The rangers identify the dolphins by their dorsal fin, and refer to them by name as if they were their kids! 3 of the 5 that they are allowed to feed came in for the first feeding (these are wild, well perhaps lets say ‘not caged’ dolphins), and they get fed a few pieces of fish each. Not enough to make them lazy and stop hunting.

With the huge crowd I considered it unlikely that we’d get called out to come close and feed one of them (about 9 people did all up), but the girl managing the feeding of Piccolo (one of the three) must have liked the look of me!

We had till early arvo to hang around and fill in (till the cruise), so we spent some time on the beach. This little bird is obviously over-tame as it was wandering around annoying people – biting there toes and anywhere else it could!

Then there was the cruise! It started by going to a nearby pearling farm/pontoon (Blue Lagoon Pearls), where we went on-board and the bloke cut an oyster open and showed us various things about how they grow the pearls. That was interesting, as we hadn’t done a pearl farm tour yet. They are doing some interesting things like inserting an opal, or a gold nugget, into the oyster to create a layer of pearl all over it. Once harvested they dissolve some of the pearl off the top which results in a beautiful opal/gold set into pearl material. Shape that nicely and put it in some jewelery, and it is gorgeous.

Here are the pink snapper that appear when they throw some oyster guts off the side!

Then it was on to wildlife searching, and taking in the nice scenery. Fortunately the scenery was relaxing and enjoyable from the front of the boat, as we didn’t see a lot of wildlife! Ok, we did see one Dugong from a distance, and I got this amazing shot…..

Here is some good looking wildlife…

Here is one of the tour blokes looking for actual wildlife (I hope…).

We did see a number of dolphins at different times.

The boat has a boom net, at which the boys had a go. Daniel was the keener of the two boys – staying in for longer at faster speeds.

So though we didn’t see all that much in terms of wildlife, we did have a very nice time out on the water and at a reasonable cost (surprising given it is based at Monkey Mia!).

Our activities for shark bay now over, and the sunlight fading into darkness, we completed the 130km’s or so back to the hwy. We had a very nice time in shark bay, well worth the visit, but would recommend one of the locations a little further north if you are after a holiday spot for an extended stay.