Our Road Trip, first stop Monkey Mia, Shark Bay.

We started our trip at 4.15am hoping that if we got the boys gently out of bed and into the car they would stay asleep or at least fall asleep again straight away. But, no. We had two very happy little boys that were ready to be wide awake. It didn't take Jacob too long to give in though, I think he fell back to sleep around 5.30am. Ollie a while later, he got hungry and so we had some croissants first.

Jacob keeping himself entertained:)

On one of our toilet stops we came across these, the boys found them quite funny. Jacob thought that they used to hold milk!

A few hundred kilometres north, and the middle of the afternoon, we arrived in Monkey Mia. This is found in an area called 'Shark Bay'. I don't need to explain why it's called Shark Bay:) However, contrary to the name 'Monkey Mia' there are no monkeys there.

After checking in, we decided to leave unpacking the car until we had been on a walk to stretch our legs and see where we were staying. Jacob was also very keen to use his bike:) Now, other than being a convenient place to stop a few nights before driving further north, I REALLY, Really wanted to see the dolphins that live there. So we went to the beach and saw a couple of them just gently swimming around as the sun slowly set:) There was also a convenient path alongside the beach, so while I sat, Jacob rode up and down the path, more times than I can remember!

We headed back to our room to find that an emu was wandering around looking for food. We cooked on a BBQ for dinner and then put the boys to bed at 7pm. The room we had did not have any separate bedrooms (a little disappointing) but as we had been up early, Gareth and I decided to go to bed at 7pm too! Needless to say, we all slept great!

The dolphins at Monkey Mia have been there for a lot of years and had developed a routine of coming in to the bay in the mornings any time between about 7.30am and 8.30am. 5 of them are also fed a few fish as part of this routine. Not enough that they relied on them though. So as we were up, we made our way down to watch. A couple of the dolphins came but had to wait for the other dolphins to arrive before they were fed. The boys watched them for a while, but slowly they got bored. So Gareth took them off to the pool so I could stay and watch in peace. Thanks Gareth:) As I mentioned only 5 of the 15 or so dolphins that come in are fed. They each have a bucket and a certain amount of fish each, depending on their size etc. It was interesting watching the dolphins go to their bucket and wait patiently for everyone to be ready. Everyone has to be out of the water for this (apart from the volunteers who look after the dolphins). Then people are picked from the crowd to help with the feeding. I had a dolphin positioned right in front of me, however, children were being picked, then an older lady, Then the volunteer paused and looked around for the last person. I must have looked really keen as she smiled and picked me!! I was so happy! I even managed a little video as I was doing it. The dolphin I'm feeding is called 'Piccolo'.

There were also a couple of pelicans hanging around.

After being fed the dolphins swim off, so I made my way to the pool. I found the boys getting warm in an artisan hot tub as the pool was freezing! We then drove to the Francois Peron National Park and drove on a 4WD only track, we saw some great views and even spotted the dolphins again! On Sunday we decided to go to Denham for a play and lunch before going to 'Ocean Park'.
Ocean Park, is an Eco-friendly marine centre. It is very simple, the staff were extremely informative and easy to listen to, and told some great stories too. There is also a cafe which has a great view of the ocean.

The shark lagoon had some big sharks in however, due to the season being winter it was difficult to see them clearly. We were told that the water is very clear in the summer and so a lot easier then.After Ocean Park we went back to Denham and drove on a track around 'Little Lagoon' to get the boys to sleep:)

For our last night in Monkey Mia we went to the restaurant in our resort. The weather was really windy and so everyone stayed inside to eat, except us! The waitresses thought we were mad, but it meant we didn't have to keep the boys still and quiet and Jacob could ride his bike when he wanted!