A holiday in Western Australia in 1996
Margaret has wanted to go to Monkey
Mia to
see the dolphins for a long time.
In late September 1996 we flew to
Perth, hired a car and made our way along the coast via Yanchep,
The
Pinnacles and Kalbarri to Monkey Mia which is about 850 kilometres
north of Perth.
At Monkey Mia wild dolphins quite freely
come right in to the shore to interact with humans.
They just seem to
like the company of humans and are as interested in us as we are with
them.
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The
rangers select a few people to
feed the dolphins and one day I was lucky. The dolphins are fed only
one third of their daily food so they do not become dependent only on
this and still maintain their hunting skills.
Here are some more scenes from Monkey Mia: |
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Not
far from Monkey Mia is Shell Beach, 100 kilometres long, made up of the
shells of a small mollusc that thrives here. In places the shells have
cemented together to form a mass known as coquina which is sawn into
blocks and used as a building material.
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Also
nearby is Steep Point which is the
Australian continent's westernmost extremity.
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These
are the most
ancient surviving life forms known on Earth. These stromatolites
consist of matted sheets of blue-green algae that trap sediment,
gradually building these distinctive shapes.
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The
bay
supports
hundreds of dugongs. The gentle, curious sea cows are mainly vegetarian
and graze on seagrass. When lactating they are not unlike human females
giving rise to the mermaid myth.
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Click
here to see The Pinnacles,
another interesting site on the way.
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Creation Date: 8th October 1996 Last Modified: 28th January 2019 URL: monkeymia.htm |
Kalbarri | ||
