HiWay Home: Wednesday 2nd May 2012 Monkey Mia

I am so excited about today..I saw Monkey Mia on TV a few years ago, and thought I would love to go there... it's hard to believe I'm actually going to see it today...

Our neighbours Peter & Bernadette and 2 of their friends Dave & Gale are also going today so we decided to do it together..

Up bright and early and set off for Monkey Mia which is about 28 kms from the park at 7am... Once there we were greeted by EMU's !!! and they also had camels there too...

The dolphins come into shore around 8am for the first feed so we wanted to be there on time to meet and greet them...and we were not disappointed...We had to stand in the water knee deep in a long line and just wait ....and there they were ... so cute all Mummies with their babies...and then the male ones followed...they swam up and down for a while, waiting to be feed and they came so close to the shore and to us..it was awesome....

Once the fish came down which they were to be fed everyone had to get out of the water and stand at the waters edge...and wait and pray to be picked to actually feed a dolphin..they only received 3 fish each... so you can imagine my overwhelming excitement when I was picked to feed one .... !!!!!!

He smiled at me to say "thank you"

Once I got over that excitement, we all went for breakfast at the resort, and relaxed till we had to board the "Aristocat 2" for our cruise...which is the only boat licensed to interact with the marine life in the exclusion zone.

Once on board and on our way John helped to hoist the sail...

No sooner had we set sail we saw a huge huge Manta Ray....

And of course dolphins they were playing around us all the time....so graceful in the water..

Dave..Peter..Gale and Bernadette

The skipper dropped the boom net and John and Dave decided to have a go as it looks like fun...

Bernadette & Gale had a go too...

I don't think any of them would have been keen to get in there if they had seen this 3 metre tiger shark first... it was so big and he came right up to the side of the boat...

Chris went up on the mast to look for Dugongs as they are really hard to spot, they eat the sea grass off the bottom of the ocean, and only come up for air every 8 minutes...BUT we were very lucky we actually saw 2 separate ones during the day...

We also visited the Pearl Farm where they culture Black Pearl... we also got to meet Jamie who for those who watched "Farmer wants a Wife" will know who I am talking about...btw he's still not got a wife...We were shown how they actually culture the pearls and even get them to grow in different shapes, one being a heart and one a dolphin, they have also worked out how to insert a gold nugget and culture around that... I would have loved to have bought one but VERY expensive..