Francois Peron NP Shark Bay.

We only had 2 days to get to Shark bay before next volunteer month.

We stopped in Carnarvon again for shopping as Denham as only very small IGA shop. That only gets fresh stuff Tuesdays and Fridays.

We arrive on Sunday and spend the night parked at the Heritage homestead as the Rangers can not be there until Monday morning. One of them will drive in front of us into Big Lagoon campground

to make sure we do not have to stop for cars coming the other way. You remember its oneway in places with only little pull -offs to get out the way of other cars, which we can not do with the caravan in tow. Its bad enough on the sand track with van without having to move off or stop and start, once we are moving we keep going.

Stopping at the homestead means we sit in artesian hot water again and get to shower in the homestead showers as there is no workers there when we are there. The new volunteers from the homestead are also coming from Cape Range but they are taking 4 days to get there.

Monday morning its slow drive without stopping, into Big Lagoon, its 12km from the homestead to BiG Lagoon and it takes 40 mins for us to get there. There are more camp sites north of here but we do not look after them the rangers do. They are for small trailers and tents, and high clearance 4 wheel drive, as the sand tracks get very loose and deep.

After setting up and getting bookwork etc and induction to the campground we go for a walk around.

The part of the Lagoon in front of the camp, fishing is allowed from the shore , kayaking,swimming snorkelling , you can launch small boats to go out the channel to the sea for fishing. There is 2 old commercial fishermen that keep their boats here and go out to the ocean and catch fish to supply the local shops and restaurants. There is an old couple that come each year and catch enough fish to fill their freezer for the year.. They fish from kayaks, he is 90years old she is 80 something and once on their kayaks the young can not keep up with them.

There is a deep channel flowing from the sea in and along nearly the middle of the lagoon, it is deep and cold , I tried snorkelling it when the tide was coming in and had to get out as I was too cold. Even with flippers on I could not get too far against the current to get back to my starting point , I had to get to the shallows and walk back.

Lots of different families in the camp ground for the school holidays from WA and latter NSW and QLD. Also lots of backpackers from many countries and I do not know how some of them make it in to here let alone going further north in the park to Cape Peron. Not having high clearance 4 wheel drives or understand to lower tyre pressure for the sand track.

We walk around in the shallows a lot and around into the sanctuary zone and find a lot of baby Lemon sharks, sting rays and lots of shovel-nose rays that look a bit like sharks. Turtles are seen in the sea grass beds and the occasional Dolphin and Dugong.

Our first trip to the top of the park was with one of the rangers to help with cleaning as a ranger was on holiday. It was a long day starting at 9am after we had finished our Big Lagoon duties and we did not get back until after 5.30pm.

Its 34 km from the turn off to Big Lagoon to Cape Peron all on a soft sand track with very soft sections where people keep getting bogged.

We had to detour into all the places on the way to check campers and clean toilets and BBQs. And help out some bogged backpackers.

First you find Kraskoes Tank.

Its an old water holding area where a one legged man who rode his horse from Denham up to Herald bight on the east side of park to buy pearls and deliver mail once a week back when this was station land and pearling happened at herald bight. That is Pearl shell or mother of pearl collection.

He fell from his horse and broke his good leg and tried to crawl to the tank area but died on the way. Hence the name . He was found after his horse made it back to Denham without him.

Then you come to Cattle Well an area of beach west side that used to be used for cattle yards and water. Used now for fishing but is very hard to drive in very soft sand so we did not go in.

Then we get the turn to go to east side and Herald bight where you can camp on the beach used mainly by people who like to fish. This is where they used to collect pearl shell. Most of this was sent to England for Mother of Pearl decoration on hair combs ,cutlery and lots of things.

Then its the 3 camp sites with toilets and BBQs , South Gregories, Gregories and Bottle bay.

Then on to Cape Peron to put in a new sign and to look at the new board walk at SkipJack Point , both have no camping.

We returned up here a few times ourselves and snorkelled at Gregories beach and found turtles, sharks, dolphins and rays swimming below us at Skipjack point and along the coastal walk to Cape Peron.

We also went into Cattle well because a local tour guide said he had been seeing baby sharks in there. We did not see any.

Larry took a day off and drove to Steep point and the Zuytdorp cliffs , the most westerly point in Australia. I did not go as I new it would be a long hard day so I stayed back and looked after the campsite.

Steep point is 185km from the north west hwy of which 140km is sand track through dunes with 30kms of this very loose high clearance stuff. At the end of this point is Dirk Hartog Island which is being set up as a sanctuary for plants and wildlife endangered on the mainland. You can go over to it but its a very expensive ferry ride over to camp in a tent so we did not . Maybe

when the wildlife is doing well after their release.

The Zuytdorp cliffs are named after the Dutch ship which was wrecked on the cliffs in 1712. There has been plenty of ships wrecked here.

Larry was gone from 7.30am to 7pm .

We got to have a ride on one of the two catamarans that operate from Monkey Mia. We went out over the sea grass beds looking for Dugongs. We were out there for 4 hours and found 4 different Dugongs. We are not allowed to go too close to them as they are very shy. If they come to the surface for breathing and end up close you are lucky to get a photo as they soon see you and are gone.

Monkey Mia is where they still feed some Dolphins that come into the bay. There is a lot of controversy over this feeding and on how it started. Some say it started when some fishermen would throw out some fish and parts when they were cleaning their catch after a days fishing. The Dolphins soon realised that a feed was on offering when the boats came back and would always come in and they taught their babies to get a free feed. Some one thought this is a way of making money , bringing tourists in to see the Dolphins. It got to be a big money maker and we did see this in 2004. People could also enter a competition to name any new babies. A big resort was built around this and fees collected to take part. Over the last few years they have realised this should not happen like it was and under the Parks and Wildlife department only a few Dolphins are still fed and this is only a small amount between them all and only 2 or 3 times in the mornings. Slowly the amount of Dolphins getting only 1 or 2 small fish a day is getting less and if one dies then the staff have only a couple of days to get a new dolphin to take fish from a human . If it happens it can join the ones being fed but if they do not find one then thats it no others can be tried until another one dies.

We could volunteer to take part in this , but I did not want to, as to me it has got too much a money making thing. It brings so many tourists from all over the world that they are working extending the caravan park and resort so they are not going to stop feeding the Dolphins anytime soon. Back when it started it was just some Dolphins taking advantage of a free feed but since then it has really changed the behaviour of a few generations of Dolphins and the Sharks that feed on them.

Back at Big lagoon we found a living cone shell in the shallows while I was stood talking to some parents while their kids practised on their small kayaks. Cones are quite dangerous as they are a pretty shell that kids will pick up but they have a proboscis that they can shoot out like a dart with poison to kill their prey. Photo see its like a snail.

We also have stone fish here which are even more poisonous to humans as well as their prey food.

They are harder to see so we went to the Ocean Park Aquarium to see them so we could see what they looked like. We first went here in 2004 when the man who started it was still building it. It started to house rescued sea animals. It still has a rescued green turtle and a couple of reef sharks . The new owners have made it into more of an aquarium with lots of tanks of different fish from this area, but at least we got to see stone fish and how they hide next to a rock and how quick they are to catch their fish food.

During the time we had at big Lagoon we had 2 very young [ 2-3 year olds ]green turtles washed up dead and a sea snake. The turtles most probably starved and it was not they had eaten plastic . The rangers send some to Perth to be examined and most have starved they do not find many with ingested plastic around here. Further up the park at Herald Bay we had a Humpback whale beached it died they think it was an old one . Then another Humpback whale beached just north of Monkey Mia, this one the Park Rangers and Marine rangers managed to get back into the water and the last we were told when we were leaving ,it was swimming slowly . It was not in good shape-probably starving as they don,t eat while in these waters, and it was only an teenager not quite full grown.

We also had groups of Kite surfers here and one group giving lessons as the lagoon is a save area to learn.

There are lots of Thorny Devils all over the place especially when we first arrived. They would be out on the tracks warming up for the day and very slow moving. As it got warmer during the night you did not see so many just laying on the sand but its the start of mating season for them so thats another reason we see so many out and about looking for mates.

There is a large sand monitor that lives around the two camp kitchens , we see lots of tracks of it and some times see it.

We had a young one up close to the caravan then I found a very young one under the van.

I also found a mulga snake which is also called a King brown , it was trying to catch a bird or find an egg. The noise the birds were making made me look and they kept flying down to the ground in the bushes. So I looked and looked and carefully walked around to get a good look and I was about to give up as I could not find anything when I looked down at the bush at my feet and there it was .

We also had western bearded dragons and blue tongue lizard, spotted military dragons   in the campground also an echidna which we only got photos of on one day after following its tracks a lot of days.

After 6 weeks of this very nice place we had to leave the turtle training awaits.