Day 172 – 182 Shark Bay

Our roadtrip days for this time are numbered, so the decision was made to have a holiday (within the holiday, yeah, we deserve that!) before returning back home to Perth. 6 months travel does take it tolls. So early morning we packed up and started a long long drive towards Monkey Mia. We chose not to drive through Perth but to take a more easterly route, via Mount Magnet (getting our last fix of outback for now).

We had a stopover at Paynes Find to get some rest before reaching Shark Bay and finishing of almost 1300kms in 2 days. What’s worth a mention is the quick detour we took through Chapman Valley (before reaching Shark Bay) and the awesome Burnt Barrel BrewBQ Smokehouse. Those pork ribs, pulled pork and burnt ends were delicious!

We had hopes to stay our first night at Hamilton Station Stay, but once we got to Shark Bay, they had closed for summer. So we checked in to the caravan park next door. Heaps of flies, bearable in the evening but then came the morning... Wow, we’we never seen so many flies in one spot. Was like in a cartoon when you see someone surrounded by a black buzzing cloud! Quick brekkie (hiding from the flies or we would have swollowed one with every spoon of muesli) and a walk down to the water to see the stromatolites before continue our travel towards Denham.

We stayed one night in Denham, with the highlight being a visit to the Ocean Park Aquarium. A guide takes you through some of the local marine life – they have stone fish, sea snakes, sharks, turtles and lots more (the aquarium is also a rehabilitation facility for sick and injured marine life). Very interesting and well worth a visit.

After Denham it was time to do one last off road trip, Francois Peron National Park. 100km of boggy soft sand. We lowered the tyre pressure and off we went. Some great spots and Cape Peron is beautiful, but again, LOTS of flies. We stayed the night at the Big Lagoon, and luckily most of the flies stayed away from this side of the national park.

After our off road adventure it was time for some R&R after nearly 6 months on the road. Monkey Mia Dolphin resort was the answer. Renowned for its dolphin experience and normally a busy spot, but luckily for us, it was end of school holiday and not very busy at all. Most mornings we had the beach as good as to ourselves (not the dolphin experience, though, but Anna was still lucky enough to get picked to feed one of the dolphins).