Our Shark Bay Holiday - Morning of Day 1

Well Day 2 really, as Day 1 was spent driving up to Shark Bay. For those who don't know, Shark Bay is a World Heritage area, located about 800km north of Perth. About 10 hours drive including stops. This was our first holiday as a complete family since we left Tom Price a year ago.

We spent the first morning in and around the Francois Peron National Park, which includes the beautiful resort of Monkey Mia. If you get up early enough (we didn't), you can watch the feeding of the dolphins on the beachfront. The rangers feed the mothers and calves up to three times, first thing in the morning. They are wild dolphins that have been coming into the bay for years. We arrived just as the mothers were herding the calves back out to deeper water - beautiful.

So the kids jumped in for a paddle...

And watched the tour boat coming in and going out...

Relaxed on the sand...

And buried themselves - as kids do!

Followed by a lunch of cold sausages in the carpark...

Then we let the tires down and went four-wheel driving in the National Park. The first bit it easy and takes you to the old Peron Homestead - the peninsula used to be a sheep station. The whole peninsula is now fenced off with an electric fence and they are removing all the goats, sheep, foxes, feral cats and rabbits.

Then it gets into the soft sand and there are lots of tracks that take you to remote beaches and camping spots. We drove the short 10km track to Big Lagoon...

It was great to blow the dust out of the fourbie, having not used it for anything but city driving for a while. We had a wander and then drove back out. The kids had a snack...

While Dad reinflated the tires.

A wonderful morning was had by all - even if the older two weren't all that appreciative of the bumps in the tracks!!