Denham doings (part 1)

Sadly it's time to leave Gnaraloo. After packing up the van we have our last snorkel and say our final farewells to the Ningaloo Reef, a special friend to us all. We realised this morning that we had been snorkelling within the Ningaloo Reef for around 4 weeks!!!  Next stop Shark Bay.

Even the goats came to say farewell. It was in this part of the world that we all learnt where the nickname silly billies came from. These crazy goats enjoy nothing more than running alongside the car then when you least expect it, decide to cross the road!!!

Due to its remoteness this parks' office has probably the best stocked shop we have seen to date. As there was no one in the park, the office was only open for 30 minutes a day. Lucky we had come prepared!

Heading back to civilisation, to restock and refuel.

Back at the Blowholes for another look and this time the swell has picked up compared to the last time we were here.

Just another beautiful sunset...

We finally arrive in Denham, the main town that services the Shark Bay Wold, sorry, World Heritage Area and it is the most westerly town in W.A.. Shark Bay became W.A's first world heritage listed area in 1991. 

The next morning we head off to visit Ocean Park. It has large ponds filled with all different types of marine life and an artificial lagoon stocked with sharks. They run educational tours and do regular feeding of the sharks daily. It is run by qualified, and those in training to become, marine biologists and their enthusiasm and passion for this project is contagious.

Here we learned about the difference between real eels and wannabe eels. The main star, the Moray eel.

Enjoying the cheeky turtles. Here we learned how to identify the difference between the Loggerhead and Green turtles.

This, believe it or not, is not a pile of rocks but a deadly stonefish. If you look carefully you can make out its mouth on the left and the black dot is its eye. A very important lesson learnt here is that hot water, as hot as you can handle is the best treatment, should you ever be unfortunate enough to come into contact with one of these nasty fish. In fact, hot water, not urine or vinegar, is the best treatment for any marine stings.

A stunning looking lionfish saying..."Whadda you looking at??"They are pretty to look at but not to touch as its spines are full of poisonous venom.

Up close and personal with some sharks. The main varieties here at the moment are the Lemon and the Nervous Sharks. Would you believe that they had a Lemon shark named Linda????

A rewarding cool drink at the Ocean Park cafe after an incredibly informative lesson. 

Not a bad sunset taken from the back of our caravan site in Denham.

Tomorrow we are off to see the famous dolphins of Monkey Mia. Monkey Mia is about 23 klms from Denham, and is most famous for the bottle nose dolphins that come to visit the beach daily for a feed. They come in to shore from about 7.45am and are given up to 3 feeds and, to add to the excitement, one of the regular visiting dolphins recently gave birth to a pup. Early to bed, early to rise.......