After spending a night in
Northampton, where my son was photographed an inordinate amount of times by tourists (it seems to be a thing with his very blonde hair as it has happened several times in the past), we were off to Monkey Mia.
Again, pronounced ‘my-ah’ and not “me-ah”.
The drive would still take a few hours; however, the scenery really became more impressive as we closed in on our destination, so the time passed rather easily. I was amazed to see trees that were growing horizontally and not vertically. The cause: an almost constant, and at times, strong prevailing southwest wind.
We were officially in the North West when we crossed the 26th parallel (see pictures). This was an exciting moment for me. Why? Well, in short because I am a dork. A sign that actually states I am passing a line of latitude, I’m all about that.
The big attraction with Monkey Mia is the dolphins, and not monkeys, as one might assume. Bottleneck dolphins, about 300 of them, freely swim inland from the harbor and interact with humans. The biggest draw occurs during the morning when marine biologists feed the dolphins.
Crowds of people line the beach to witness the dolphins having breakfast. The marine biologists randomly call on volunteers to feed the dolphins. By their own admission, it helps if you’re a kid.
Good thing we had Sydney and Dominic. Sydney was picked to wade out with mom and feed one of the dolphins some fish. As parents we were thrilled as this really enhanced the experience. Dominic was also called upon to do the same thing, cementing the vacation in the upper echelon of Brandolino family trips.
The feeding, complete with narration about the dolphins from the marine biologists, lasted about 30 minutes. After which, we decided to hang at the beach and frolic in the ocean. It wasn’t too long before the dolphins came back to make friends.
At first it was an awkward situation. As the dolphins approached, it appeared as though a shark may be coming by for a visit – or brunch. After all, we were in Shark Bay (I’m not kidding, that is the actual name of the body of water). So the instinctive thing to do was to corral the kids onshore and out of the water. Eventually, calmer parents prevailed and we realized that, duh, these are dolphins.
The dolphins came right up to us. I mean like from me to you. Wait a minute; I’m on the other side of the world. Scratch that. Well, you know what I mean – they were within arms reach. Loosely speaking, we were swimming with the dolphins.
Very cool.
We decided to break the trip into two segments for our journey back home. The segments were divided by spending a night at a farm stay in rural Western Australia (I realize that is a bit redundant). They seem to be the thing to do in Western Australia as there are many to choose from all over the state. We thought the kids would love the animals, and most importantly…it was relatively cheap.
The owner arrived with his family from the UK a few years back and never intended on working and running a farm, let alone playing host to tourists on the farm. I guess that's the charm of Australia. The beauty of the country makes you want to stay and do things you never thought possible. The farm was literally miles from anywhere, which was the beauty of it.
The farm stay was home to llamas, emus, sheep, and cattle. But enough of my in-laws...
I’ll pay for that comment no doubt.
The kids were able to feed some lambs and ate dinner with the ostrich right outside the window. I think we were all a bit intimidated by the ostrich. Our accommodation was surrounded by tall grass and the ostrich would just pop up out of and scare the daylights out of you! They were neat to watch though, they moved their neck so simply, or more like it rolled. Kind of like doing the “worm” (old school break dancing move – yes, I used to break dance).
However, what really sticks out in my head is the night sky.
With so much light pollution nowadays, it’s becoming increasingly more difficult to see celestial bodies. Not the case in Western Australia. Remember, it’s the Australian state that makes up 1/3 of the country’s size, but has less than 10% of the entire population. Light pollution is much less common here.
One doesn’t realize how many stars are out there. Before that night, I certainly heard of the Milky Way, but never did I actually see it with my own eyes. It was almost overwhelming, even over stimulating. Never had I seen so many dots of light in the sky or the cloud-like Milky Way.
After some amazing stargazing I heard a creepy sound nearby. Not wanting to find out what kind of creature was lurking around the farm late at night I booked back inside, but not before I shouted goodnight to the ostrich, sheep, and horse outside my door.
http://ninghanpark.com/default.asp?pagename=home
http://www.discoverwest.com.au/western_australia/monkey_mia.html
