The Shark Bay area is so much more than Monkey Mia. I just hadn’t realised, and will so happily come back up here for a full week, to kayak, snorkel, swim, relax. There’s really good fishing as well !

Monkey Mia itself was a bit of a disappointment. The dolphin feeding was very organised; I understand that the dolphins must be kept as wild as possible, and that the dolphin feeding must be controlled so they don’t get too much food or touched by too many people. However, I’ve had more interaction on the Swan River with dolphins, and we had some great views that day as the dolphins cruises past the beach in shallow water.

The campsite was so functional, so well set up to manage large influxes of people, and so utterly sterile. No grass, just crushed shell and each campsite crowded in with the next. Again, I understand why, but won’t go back.

Dinner our last night, however, was so good it made up for a lot – duck rillete, steak for Andy and local snapper for me with puréed carrot and orange sauce on a bed of creamy potatoes, followed by dark chocolate torte with orange sorbet 😍 Good service, casual atmosphere, just a lovely meal.

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I said the location is fabulous, and it is amazing. A few photographs of the beach, Denham, the drive into Monkey Mia ….

A high point was a visit to the local aquarium, a converted snapper nursery, staffed by enthusiastic young marine biologists. We saw sharks being fed, and heaps of other marine animals, while being given a great rundown on habitat, life cycles and what to eat sustainably.

I never realised the difference between poisonous and venomous;

• Poisonous is dangerous or deadly through ingestion e.g. puffer fish is poisonous and if you eat the wrong bits you’ll be extremely sick. Moray eel is poisonous as well
• Venomous is dangerous or deadly through injection e.g. if you stand on a stone fish or get spiked by a lion fish, you’ll be extremely unhappy. But you can eat lion fish no problem, as long as you remove the spikes. Not sure if you’d want to eat stone fish, they are remarkably ugly

The things you learn on a good aquarium tour, and the best news is that calamari are totally sustainable.

A quick pack up in the morning, and off to Ningaloo.

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