After an exceptional short drive (3 hours) we arrived in Denham at our next Couchsurfing host Paul and his young labrador bitch (we didn’t know this meaning of the word) Birra. First some words about his “apartment”: It looked like an old fabric building with a container in the back for office and sanitary. This container is Paul’s home and the rest of the hall is filled with 4-5 boats and a couple of cars, not the worst to have so much space. We could even chose one of the three guest rooms. Unfortunately the house has a power problem but Paul didn’t want to explain us the details. That resulted in a long cable from his neighbor’s house to the apartment with a switch for all electric tools in the house. This was, however, quite funny as we had to unplug the light to make a toast or boil some water. Not surprisingly, the shower was only cold. But also some words to Paul… In German we say a water bear. He is the manager of a pearl farm and in his spare time he goes fishing a lot. So he spends almost more time offshore than onshore (which hopefully explains the German word…). But don’t get us wrong, he is an exceptional nice, uncomplicated, funny and happy host! Again a wonderful Couchsurfing experience, it really starts blowing us away!
But now let’s come to the highlights of Shark Bay:
Denham is in the middle of the world heritage area close to the national parks of Monkey Mia and Francois Peron. Shark Bay is one of only 5 places in the world fulfilling all 4 criteria of a world heritage area: earth’s history, active evolutionary processes, natural beauty and habitat of threatened species.
Earth’s History: Shark Bay comprises one of only 2 populations of stromatolites worldwide (well, that’s what was written on the information board). Stromatolites are/were one of the first forms of life on earth, which contributed in creating the earth atmosphere (for more details, please read the Wikipedia article, we are not a lexicon…). These bacteria died off almost everywhere, as they are an easy prey for predators like fishes. They only could survive here, because the water is so extremely salty, that no other animal is able to survive there. That may sound very interesting and exciting, but in the end, stromatolites are optically nothing else than hard, dry stone-like mud hills.
Natural Beauty: Well, the word says almost everything. One of the main reasons for shark bay to get this distinction is Shell Beach. A kilometer wide beach, existing only of little shells (no sand at all). These shells were early even used for building houses 😉 Additionally to Shell Beach there is the colorful coastline of Francois Peron National Park, which is only accessible by 4WD, unfortunately.
Active Evolutionary Processes: In Shark Bay it’s said to be possible to watch the Evolution in live, whatever this may mean. One of the reasons for this distinction is, however, the diversion of life form in the sea and on land. One example is the huge amount of sea grass along the coast, giving dugongs a natural habitat (one of the last on earth). In addition, there are hunchbacks, dozens of different turtles, dolphins, countless different kind of fishes and of course the typical kind of land animals of Australia. The enumeration also explains the last point biological diversity.
Monkey Mia
We also saw the “world-famous” Monkey Mia. Like you heard a couple of times, there is an animal which is fed by the people living there. In this case it’s dolphins. Three families of dolphins come daily to three feedings, which are strict controlled. Only 5 chosen dolphins of the around 25 of them are fed and each of them gets only 500g per feeding (a dolphin eats around 12kg of fish per day). These rules are necessary, since the dolphins should continue hunting by themselves. If they don’t, their children will never learn hunting. Earlier at the beginning of the feedings a couple of young dolphins died just because their mothers didn’t show them how to hunt as they were always swimming to the feedings.
Since we both are curious and don’t like to get facts without explanation, we asked ourselves why only 5 of the dolphins are fed. That’s why we asked one of the scientists of Monkey Mia (yes research is going on here, not only feedings 😉 ), who gave us a quite funny and unexpected answer: Obviously and not surprisingly the number developed historically. The dolphins which were fed before were continuously fed, just better controlled. Another reason is, however, that it seems to be quite difficult to train a wild dolphin to be part of the feeding program. Once they tried to include another dolphin into the program, by giving it a fish. The dolphin took the fish, but came back later with an even bigger fish as a gift for the scientists… 😉
There are only three feedings per day before 12 o’clock, another rule of the program. If one dolphin comes only to one feeding in the morning, it will be fed only once, even if it comes back later in the afternoon. During these feedings, some lucky visitors (we heard during the main season there are sometimes more than 800 people at one feeding) are allowed to feed one of the dolphins. Kerstin was lucky enough to get chosen at our second feeding! However, the picture turned out totally badly (but the remember stays anyway 😉 )
But there is more to see at Monkey Mia except the feedings. It has a wonderful beach to stay there for the day. Some dolphins come to the beach during the day, even out of the feeding hours. If you’re lucky a dolphin will cross you while swimming or snorkeling (touching them is, however, strictly forbidden). One may notice that they try to accommodate animal protection, research and tourist attraction (the entry is apparently quite expensive). Having a look on the rules for tourists and the fact that the dolphins don’t have to appear for the feedings this seems to work fairly well. The scientist told us the dolphins understand the feedings and the appearance at the beach as a social event, they may attend or not if they wish to. The feeding itself is obviously very touristic, a fact we didn’t like too much (even though it was a little highlight!)
Francois Peron National Park
Of course we didn’t want to miss the national park, but it figured out to be accessible by a 4WD only. It’s even so difficult to access that people are asked to reduce the tire pressure at the entry. Paul told us that a lot of tourists enter the park and have to be rescued as they often undervalue the track. Since we couldn’t access the park with our car, Paul asked us to take us on a trip with his boat around the national park. Unfortunately the weather was too stormy the next day why he had to withdraw the offer.
However, the remaining parts of Shark Bay heritage area are worth to visit as well. There are a lot of beautiful beaches (e.g. Little Lagoon) and lookouts where one can see wales and even dugongs if he is lucky (we didn’t have so much luck…)
Paul invited us to a bowling match on Friday. For all of you who are not used to the Australian way of Bowling (we didn’t have any clue) it is more a combination of advanced boggia with little bowling balls (just ask Wikipedia if you’re interested in the rules). It was apparently a lot of fun, since most of the people were dressed with Halloween customs (some girls even had a bavarian dirndl). Additionally Paul asked us to taste a Shark Bay oyster which are definitely a matter of taste (Kerstin loved them, Tobi not so much… 😉 )
We also visited the Ocean Park in Denham, which includes only animals of Shark Bay. Some of them are injured and will left back to freedom if they become healthy enough. While we were there they hosted a turtle which ate a plastic bag. Poor thing! 🙁 Another one lost a foot, but our guide told us it has very good chances to recover. The tour itself was unexpected good and informative and crowned by a shark’s feeding!
That was our two weeks west coast tour. At the next day we drove back to Perth. The rented car was all good, even though there was some red sand remaining in the car, but the guy who inspected it didn’t look too detailed 🙂 Since we already found two couchsurfers for the following week, there was only one thing to do next: Job Search!