Having just arrived the evening before, we spent the morning sussing out Monkey Mia and deciding how to spend our time here. In our browsing we noticed a few Emus idly exploring the caravan park looking for easy to grab food donations. Seemed a bit strange but they didn’t seem to be bothering anyone. Back in Narrandera, when they had their zoo, the Emus were kept behind a large fence and had these menacingly large claws with which to potentially eviscerate you. Thoughts like these seem to overwhelm when I see them only metres from our caravan….We’d noticed a beautiful and sleek catamaran making its way into harbour the night we arrived and found out kids were free if with a fee paying adult for any of their offered cruises. The boat was apparently the fastest across one of the major oceans on its very first crossing. It was also previously owned by Sir Myers – one of the wealthiest men in NZ and currently had much of the equipment used by Australia of America’s Cup fame– so naturally we felt we had to give it a go and bought tickets for the next morning. We’d also heard about a place called Ocean Park back on the highway, 28 odd kms back which apparently had hourly shark feedings and some other cool aquarium species like sea snakes, puffers and squid/cuttlefish. With the day quickly slipping away, Jen the kids and I trundled into Bessie and made our way back past Denham to the park. Our guide was this young long-haired and well tanned fellow who was a virtual compendium of aquatic knowledge. He seemed to be speaking in an almost stream of consciousness fashion, seeing one fish or aquatic species and then expounding almost every detail relevant about that species before moving onto the next and so forth. We were agog with information. The piece de resistance was the shark tank though – there were 4-5 lemon sharks and a tiger shark which he’d only recently caught himself and managed to transport into the aquarium. With half a dead fish he was able to stir the sharks up to a frenzy and had them jumping out of the water and locking their teeth into it – very exciting. Despite their reputation they are incredibly beautiful animals that move with immense grace and precision – I envy and admire their tact and efficiency of lifestyle. Back at the homestead we joined Mormor and Morfar down on the beach. Jen and I, in dire need of fitness, decided to take a swim around some buoys and a distant catamaran – after our shark venture we both kept a close eye on one another in the deeper water – waiting for that sudden thrashing and chomp into our wiggling flesh. Never happened but our imaginations were primed. Once back on shore (and safe from any sharp-toothed dorsal finned predator) a pod of 3 dolphins skirted by – maybe a metre or so off the beach. We followed them to the jetty and then they disappeared into the deep blue. Tomorrow we’ll do the 7:30 AM feeding session and hopefully learn a bit more about these incredible mammals.
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