Wednesday, June 30, 2021

Waking to Nature’s Orchestra

We were woken this morning by natures orchestra. A melody of birdsong started pre dawn and continued on for most of the morning. Andy and I let the girls sleep in and headed off for a morning run around the 6km river loop as the sun was rising.



Post run we grabbed our towels and returned for a morning soak only to find Ella already soaking away!!

While eating breakfast we notice a steady stream of caravans and camper trailers leaving Wooramel and considered moving to a 'better' spot. Our investigations prove fruitful and quickly we packed up to relocate to a campsite with river views.

After another unpack (luckily it only takes 15 mins) it was time for another pre lunch soak!! Katy joined us this time. We lazed in the warm water until we become prunes


Lunch was low key - leftovers, wraps and 2 minute noodles. We continued to laze the afternoon away reading, sleeping, writing in journals and playing patience (a new favourite of the girls). Birds continued to chatter in the tree tops - budgies, red and grey galahs and parrots.


By mid afternoon we were all restless and headed once again back to the hot tubs. We left the girls making friends with a gang of kids. They entertained themselves with two friends - Grace (from Busselton) and Lucy (from the Gold Coast) for the rest of the afternoon.

For dinner we signed up for the Wooramel dinner. Held behind the hot tubs on a lovely grassy area, we enjoyed pre dinner drinks listening to Pete Byfield who sang well for a 65+yr old. The girls eventually appeared. Dinner was delicious - rice with a tomato beef stew, vegetable dahl, roasted pumpkin and damper. Well worth it.

 




Tuesday, June 29, 2021

Welcome to Wooramel

Post coffee, we left the sleepy town of Denham. On our return journey back to the North West Coast highway, we pulled in to have a look at Eagle Bluff. A boardwalk along a high limestone cliff overlooks the shallow waters of Henri Freycinet Harbour. It is a significant area as it marks the spot where Captain H.M Denham carved an inscription on a rock in 1858 from which the town derives its name.

The water below is a gorgeous turquoise clolour and clear enough for us to watch a dark shape move through the water. We decide this is a lemon shark and watch its progress. It was only a short stop here before climbing back into the car for the 2 hour journey to our next destination, away from the coast to Wooramel River Retreat.






The caravan convoy seems to have slowed, thanks to the 4 day lockdown in Perth.  Lunch stop is on the top of White Hill. At 29m in elevation, it seems to tower over the surrounding flat landscape.



By 2pm, we pull into Wooramel and check in. The Retreat is busy, far busier than we expected and sites are allocated on first in best dressed approach. We find ourselves towards the end of the allotted area. No river views but nestled amongst the tall river eucalypts. I should mention that the river is huge - over 200m across but completely dry. It runs only 2-3 times per year.



A quick unpack has us off to experience the artesian hot tubs - the draw card for us.

Tapping into an artesian basin 240m below the surface, the water down there is between 42 - 49°C. It cools as it ascends to 35 - 37°C - a nice temperature for soaking in! There were four hot tubs to choose from and they were never really crowded. We enjoyed relaxing in these tubs as the sun was sinking into the horizon. A fantastic way to complete the day.

Monday, June 28, 2021

Dolphins and Sea Cruise

We were up before the crack of dawn again - so much for a relaxing holiday!! By 7am we were on the road to Monkey Mia.

Monkey Mia dolphins have been fed by humans for more than 50 years. In the early 70's and 80's people would feed the dolphins as much fish as they wanted. Unfortunately this led to the dolphins becoming reliant on humans and not teaching their calves how to hunt and catch fish. This resulted in many calves dying from starvation once they were weaned.

Now days feeding is done in a much more stringent manner - under strict guidelines and performed by Rangers.. It is illegal to feed or be within 50 m of a wild dolphin. The Monkey Mia dolphins are offered food on their first three visits to the designated beach between 8 and 12. Only two dolphins are fed - Piccolo and Kia - and they are offered 3 fish per visit. This is equivalent to 10% of their daily food take - they eat around 10kg of fish per day.

The dolphin experience begins at 7.45am but you are only invited down to the waters edge once the dolphins are within the designated area. Today's dolphins decided to visit kept us waiting in much anticipation. Four dolphins finally arrived at 8.15am - we had 29 year old Piccolo, 24 year old Kiya (who are sisters) as well as 3 year old Pan (Piccolo's daughter) and  3 year old Jindi (Kiya's daughter).




Apparently there are around 3000 Indo-pacific Bottlenose dolphins around the Shark Bay area and 1900 of these are named based on the shape of their dorsal fin. In Pan's case she is quite distinctive as she only has half a tail flute after a narrow escape from a shark. 

On the waters edge were about 200+ people spread over 100m stretch. The ranger was walking up and down the line chatting about the dolphins and their lives while the dolphins were kind of following her. For us during this time, the dolphins hadn't come very close and we were getting a little disappointed. Our views looked something like this….



We had been down by the waters edge for over 20 minutes now with very average views of the dolphins, when two more volunteers arrived with buckets in hand. We were instructed to move out of the water - a sign to the dolphins that it was time to eat! Six luckily people were randomly chosen to feed either Piccolo or Kia a fish each. Somehow I was chosen and our family walked into the water really close to Piccolo and Pan! We decided Katy was to feed Piccolo the fish which she happily did. It was very cool and definitely the highlight of the experience.



Once the dolphin feeding was over, we exited the beach, another signal to the dolphins that our encounter had finished and they were to head out to sea. We headed off for coffee, passing time til our next activity a cruise.

We boarded the Aristocrat 2 at the Monkey Mia jetty, located adjacent to the Dolphin Experience area at 10am. Jade, our skipper drove the 2 hulled catamaran out to sea. Conditions were ideal - sunny, still with the surface of the ocean looking quite glassy.




We encountered a several dolphins on the way out. A few rode on the bow waves turning upside down as they did! We stalled another dolphin who was 'sponging'. This phenomenon is apparently rare to see. It refers to the dolphin sucking a sponge to it's mouth then diving down to stir up the sea floor hunting fish. 


Several loggerhead turtles heads would be spotted in the distance. These turtles are not fans of boats and quickly submerge out of sight.

We coasted over one area of sea grass meadow in search for a dugong and her cal that had been spotted yesterday. It was coming into the end of the season for these creatures as they migrate north to warmer waters. 

Our family loved Jade's explanation of why dugongs need warm water - all to do with farting!! As these sea cows have a fibrous diet, they expel lots of gas. In colder water, they tend to tense their muscles holding all the gas in which makes them buoyant so they float to the surface and become perfect dinner for a shark.

We motored over to the next sea grass meadow having had no luck spotting the dugongs in the first. It was only a short time later we saw two brown humps break the waters surface briefly. We had found them! Jade trailed this mother and her calf as we all eagerly watch as they disappear and surfaced again a few minutes later. It reminded Andy and I of our whale watching experience off Vancouver Island where once we developed our film (yes it was in the pre digital age!) we had 15 photos of nothing much more that a small grey hump!!



On our return sail, we all took the opportunity for a sea spa. We climbed down in a net on the back of the boat, then held on while the boat drove along with the water rushing up through the net and over us. Cold but a fun way to finish the cruise.


We made our way back to Denham for the Best Burgers at the local pub. I think the sign should have said the Biggest - as only one person in our family finished theirs.





Late afternoon, prior to setting up camp, we drove out to Little Lagoon. The water was clear, refreshing and shallow - we walked out about 100 m from the shore line and it was still only up to our waist! A quick dip completed our day.



Sunday, June 27, 2021

Unexpected Bush Fire

As we left Hamelin Pool Caravan Park, Katy exclaimed 'I liked that park the best so far! It had a good pool and lots of fun extra activities' Both Andy and I glanced at each other. It's always interesting to listen to your children's impressions of life!

Driving was minimal today. Within the first few minutes of starting off a small emu like bird darted across our path. We managed to avoid hitting it and wondered what it was. Later we found out that it was a Mallee fowl. On to Shell Beach we travelled, our first and only tourist attraction for the day. Shell Beach is made up of millions of the tiny Shark Bay cockle shell and not much sand. It was a fair trek over hard limestone / compacted shell ground to get close to the water. Then there was a wide band made up purely of shells and as the tide was low, a small section of sand to the lapping waves. 


We spent time sitting on the beach digging and looking at the shells. If one looked hard enough, there were more than the cockles there. Dad turned into a shell mermaid while we were there.

 

 

As we were leaving, we could see a smoke plume far into the distance and wondered where the fire was and whether we would come into contact with it. About 10 kilometres later we encountered a road block and joined the longish queue of cars, caravans and camper trailers. We exited the car to chat to the people in the car ahead for about 20 mins before we were escorted as a group by the fireman although we only drove a short distance before stopping again. The fire had 'flared' too close to the road so we waited again. This time we could clearly see the fire front adjacent to us and travelling mostly away! After another wait we resumed our driving and continued to seaside town of Denham. I'm sure the fireman were very grateful for the heavy rain later in the afternoon. For us it meant a chance to catch up with the washing.


Saturday, June 26, 2021

Stromatolites Unseen

We packed up, visited the bakery and collected a few items from the supermarket before hitting the road. Today's drive covered 300km with us finishing up at Hamelin Pool Caravan Park. All was quiet on the road until we joined the main highway where the caravan convoy started! I must say the traffic was busy in both directions!! Thankfully there were lots of opportunities to safely overtake.

We arrived at Hamelin Pool in time for a late lunch so we drove straight to the Stromatolites. Unfortunately the boardwalk was missing large sections thanks to cyclone Serosa so we weren’t able to view these (pointless according to Ella) living rocks.



It was then time to go back to the very ordinary looking caravan park to check in. Despite telling Andy that I expected it was going to be a very rudimentary park, as we drove in and saw the place, he said 'Do we really want to stay here?' 'Yep' was my reply as it had already been paid for. During the check in process, we were informed that there was a free talk on the Telegraph Station history at 3pm, an impressive view of Hamelin Bay from the hill at sunset and later in the evening viewing of the moons craters for a small fee.


Andy and I decided to participate in the Telegraph Station talk. It was housed in the old Telegraph Station building and divided into two sections. An informative DVD regarding the stromatolites and a talk on the station history. The stromatolites DVD was old but did the job. The talk on the Telegraph Station was actually interesting - learning about Morse code and the history of communication. The display of all things old was extensive!

 

Following the talks, Andy and the girls tested out the pool which on all accounts was refreshing! We wandered up to the top of the hill for another beautiful sunset. Gosh the West does these so well.


Dinner was simple - macaroni cheese with sides of bacon, mushrooms and tomatoes. Post dinner we took up the opportunity to look at the mooon though the impressively large telescopes set up for us. The full moon rising was amazing to view such detail through these telescopes. We watched the cloud wisp iPads over the moon and could identify the Sea of Tranquility and many craters on its surface. Ella went back later to take a photograph.