Monkey Mia

I wasn't sure what to expect at Monkey Mia as I have heard so many mixed reviews about it. I guess your experience is very much dependent on what you expect or hope to see/do. I had heard that only a few people get to interact with the dolphins so I was prepared for that. It cost $24 to enter the National Park, and it's not included in the WA National Parks Pass. Greg was very much of the opinion that we were there so we should do it, while I was more skeptical about the value of it. But I am glad we went as the dolphins were pretty cool and it is an incredibly beautiful part of our country.

The dolphin feeding is a very controlled experience. They start at 7:45am when you meet the rangers for a briefing and there can be any number of people there.... up to the high hundreds on occasion. They only feed 5 of the dolphins that call Shark Bay home, based around a stringent set of criteria, and that depends on whether or not they turn up for a feed. This is to prevent the dolphins becoming dependent of people, too lazy to hunt and not to lose their natural instincts. It's a great idea to protect them so well....  but being there on a day when there are hundreds of people would suck.

After an explanation of the rules you get to move down to the waters edge, in single file, and they talk some more about the rules, dolphins, dolphin behaviour and research, and the dolphins that visit Money Mia. After a bit more of a talk you all move into the water about mid-calf deep and the dolphins cruise within a couple of feet of shore while the Rangers talk. You can observe them up close, with some of them rolling onto their side for a closer look at the people, as well as watch them snack on little fish near shore or hunt a little further out. Eventually the Rangers stop talking and volunteers bring down some buckets with fish in them for the dolphins that are present. At the first feeding only 3 dolphins were present and they all got only 2-3 fish each, as they are only allowed a total of 10% of their daily feeding requirements to be feed to them. The rest they must obtain by hunting for themselves.  Volunteers pick people out of the crowd to feed the dolphins 1 fish. Tilda got picked but chose not to feed the dolphin, which was fair enough. If you don't like contrived and very controlled things, you wouldn't enjoy this and I can see why some people have gone away very disappointed. We were there with about 50-60 other people so we could all stand in the water and have dolphins come quite close. On the busy days, you wouldn't be able to do that.

We hung around for the other 2 feedings to watch as well. Each day they only do a maximum of 3 feedings before midday, and only for the 5 dolphins that are currently being fed. There were 3 dolphins at the second feeding and only 1 came in the for third.  They kids really enjoyed learning a bit more about dolphins and watching them up close.

After the dolphin experiences we spent some time exploring the beach and the kids happily splashed in the water. The water was too cold and it was too windy for a swim, which was a pity as it is so beautifully blue.