On our way there, we stopped to look at ancient life forms, called stromatolites. These are what kickstarted life on Earth as we know it. And they still exist! To the untrained eye (like mine) they look just like rocks, but these are actually organisms, consisting of several strands of clustered bacteria. I think it's pretty cool to have seen them.
We then went on to Monkey Mia, basically the name of the resort. The Monkey Mia Reserve is a little area, surrounding the resort. You can't acces the resort without entering the reserve, thus you'll always have to pay the extra acces fee.
We parked our campervan at the campground, went to the beach. On the beach were several pelicans, seemingly undisturbed by the humans around them. We had fun watching them (as you can read in this previous post). Just off the beach, we saw several dolphins foraging in the water, pretty amazing.
The next morning we went to the beach for the 'Dolphin Experience'. This is what everyone comes for. Wild dolphins being hand fed by people. According to all the brochures is has been the natural behaviour of the dolphins to visit this spot for years. Now the reason the dolphins started coming to this spot was actually human behaviour: fisherman throwing them leftover catch. I wouldn't classify that at 'naturally showed up', but to each his own. The Department of Parks & Wildlife decided to regulate dolphin encounters through the Dolphin Experience.
I'm still not sure whether I like it.
Based on the information DoPW give, they try to do it in a way that is least disruptive to natural behaviour do the dolphins. They feed only 5 selected individuals, the other dolphins never get handouts to minimise contact. They give no more than 10% of their daily intake, forcing them to continue hunting. The interaction is 20 minutes so mothers go back to calves, all spectators must stay out of the water, no touching, etc.
But feeding wild animals, fully capable of fending for themselves...
But then again, before DoPW stepped in, the human-dolphin interaction went wild, calves starved due to neglect (a death rate as high as 90%!) and several dolphins attacks occurred. At least it is regulated now. And on the day we went, it took a full 2 hours for the first dolphin to show up. So they don't seem too dependent on the handouts. The funniest thing at the whole experience though was watching the pelican trying to wiggle himself in between dolphin and fish bucket. He got more attention then any dolphin I saw.
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| Stromatolites |
We then went on to Monkey Mia, basically the name of the resort. The Monkey Mia Reserve is a little area, surrounding the resort. You can't acces the resort without entering the reserve, thus you'll always have to pay the extra acces fee.
We parked our campervan at the campground, went to the beach. On the beach were several pelicans, seemingly undisturbed by the humans around them. We had fun watching them (as you can read in this previous post). Just off the beach, we saw several dolphins foraging in the water, pretty amazing.
 |
| Pelican ruffling its feathers |
The next morning we went to the beach for the 'Dolphin Experience'. This is what everyone comes for. Wild dolphins being hand fed by people. According to all the brochures is has been the natural behaviour of the dolphins to visit this spot for years. Now the reason the dolphins started coming to this spot was actually human behaviour: fisherman throwing them leftover catch. I wouldn't classify that at 'naturally showed up', but to each his own. The Department of Parks & Wildlife decided to regulate dolphin encounters through the Dolphin Experience.
I'm still not sure whether I like it.
 |
| Dolphin waiting for a handout |
Based on the information DoPW give, they try to do it in a way that is least disruptive to natural behaviour do the dolphins. They feed only 5 selected individuals, the other dolphins never get handouts to minimise contact. They give no more than 10% of their daily intake, forcing them to continue hunting. The interaction is 20 minutes so mothers go back to calves, all spectators must stay out of the water, no touching, etc.
But feeding wild animals, fully capable of fending for themselves...
 |
| Pelican trying to snatch a handout |
But then again, before DoPW stepped in, the human-dolphin interaction went wild, calves starved due to neglect (a death rate as high as 90%!) and several dolphins attacks occurred. At least it is regulated now. And on the day we went, it took a full 2 hours for the first dolphin to show up. So they don't seem too dependent on the handouts. The funniest thing at the whole experience though was watching the pelican trying to wiggle himself in between dolphin and fish bucket. He got more attention then any dolphin I saw.
 |
| Shell Beach |
After lazing another day at the beach, and a boat tour (which wasn't that good, but we did to see dugongs!) it was time to move on. Driving off the peninsula we made a final stop at Shell Beach.
In the sunshine it looked as bright white as any tropical beach. But a closer look reveals it isn't sand, but millions and trillions of tiny cockles. These live in the super saline water, where most life doesn't survive. (A sand bank allows the tide to go in, but not to go out, the water vaporises, and the remaining water becomes ever salter.) As the cockles die, they wash up, and form this beach.
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| Shell Beach |
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