Denham and Monkey Mia 27th to 31st August

Kids waiting for the train to leave

Kids standing in front of the train at the end of the Jetty

Hannah driving the train

Hannah and Louise with the Catfish

Hannah with a painting of the One Mile Jetty on the train

At the beginning of the World Heritage Drive

Stromatalites

Stromatalites

Shell Beach

Kids playing on Shell Beach

Thorny Devil that we found crawling across the road

Stingrays swimming

Lookout before Denham where we saw Stingrays and Sharks

Louise and Hannah feeding the dolphins at Monkey Mia

One of the Dolphins at Monkey Mia

View from the beach at Monkey Mia

Turtle swimming around the jetty at Monkey Mia

Pelican hassling a dolphin trying to get some food

Pelican at Monkey Mia

Kids enjoying the beach at Monkey Mia

Kids enjoying the beach and watching the tide come in quickly at Monkey Mia

Sitting enjoying the beach at Denham

Well we left Cape Range NP and headed towards Denham with us aiming to get to a roadside camp just south of Carnarvon.  We arrived in Carnarvon and took Hannah  to see if we could do the one mile jetty train. Yay it finally happened and we had one very excited girl. It was the one thing she wanted to do in Carnarvon. Hannah and Louise even had their photo taken with a cat fish someone had caught. While on the jetty we saw someone else catch a pink snapper, which got Jacob rather excited. While we were doing this Strick went and did a couple of jobs including filling up with diesel. He also had to get something for our battery on the trailer as we were having trouble with the fuses keeping our camp lights on. It isn't a good thing when the lights go out while you are cooking tea each night.
Once we had satisfied Hannah's desire for the train ride we headed south out of town to find a roadside camp we had been told about.
The next morning we headed into Denham via a couple of tourist attractions. The first was the Stromatalites and a boardwalk. The drive into Denham is a World Heritage Drive with the Stromatalites being apart of this. They are the sign of what the earth used to be millions of years ago.
Our next stop on the drive was Shell Beach. This was amazing to see and really hard to believe until you do see it. There isn't sand it is literally all small shells. The salt content is very large causing the high contents of shells. Going over to the beach the kids found it interesting to read that the large amount of salt helps you float more, although you also come out being able to see a layer of salt on your body. Jacob found the layer of salt on his feet when he had finished. You could definitely taste the salt on your hands after you wet them. They used to make bricks out of the shells as they found they would naturally bind together.
Our next stop before heading into Denham was via a lookout that had a board walk. We were able to spot large numbers of sharks and stingrays in the water. There was a large group of stingrays that we watched manouver around an island.
Our next stop was into Denham and finding the caravan park we were going to stay in. Once set up the kids made themselves at home in the park finding some other kids to play with. Again it was nice to finally have a shower as there hadn't been one since our night in Exmouth. Although the water did have it's fair share of salt (wasn't a nice taste when you were cleaning your teeth). We also needed to go and find a supermarket to get a few things. We have discovered Denham is only small with 2 supermarkets that are more like your corner stores. We decided we would make do and that the food we had carried since we left as back up contingencies would be a good stop gap. We also did our usual and visited the Visitor Centre and had a general look around town.
Our first full day in Denham (after catching up on washing) was spent driving around and seeing the sights. We saw Little Lagoon and visited the World Heritage Discovery Centre at the Vistors Centre, where we learnt all about the area including the Flora and Fauna. We learnt more about the HMAS Sydney that disappeared and they later found had sunk in battle. There are memorials all along the west coast in relation to the HMAS Sydney.
We then visited the local pub for a drink in the afternoon, so that we could say that we visited the western most pub. It was the 'Old Pub' in Denham. The kids also had a play on the foreshore and we lazed around for the rest of the day with the kids catching up on some of their diaries.
Our second full day at Denham we ventured out to Monkey Mia to see the Dolphins. We were required to be out the by 7.45am as this was when the Dolphins were being fed for the first time in the day. The kids were keen and rather excited. Louise was chosen to feed the Dolphins, with Hannah joining her for the experience. The name of the Dolphin that they fed was called Surprise and we were able to get the profile for Surprise after we finished. We learnt that with the Pelicans they would chase and annoy the Dolphins to try and take their catch from them. The Dolphins definitely put up a fight to protect their catch. We saw some of this and boy the Dolphins can move.
After feeding the Dolphins we visited the Resort for a buffet breakfast with our children who aren't used to a buffet breakfast with all the trimmings they had more than enough to eat.
We then spent most of the day wondering around the beaches, the girls played life size chess, Jacob played some beach volleyball with Strick and I and occasionally Hannah. We saw the Dolphins swimming around outside the feeding times and doing what they do, we also saw a couple of Turtles which was rather exciting. We watched the tide come in rather quickly with a little island Jacob had called his own, disappearing rather quickly. When the kids had had enough we ventured back to camp where they then went swimming in the pool in the caravan park and played with the kids in the camp next door. Strick and I spent the rest of the day beginning to pack up so that we were ready to move on the next day towards Kalbarri.