We had decided to add in a little detour to Monkey Mia after chatting to one of the guys in our hostel. He had been there a few days earlier and really enjoyed the dolphin interaction session. When I say a 'little detour' it actually saw us driving over an hour in the wrong direction to get there as it's only got 1 way in and 1 way out and that 1 way is about 150km long, but we had a feeling it would be worth it! After 7 hours on the road, we pulled up at Monkey Mia Dolphin Resort where we had booked a dorm and were pleased to discover we had a 4 bed dorm to ourselves! The resort itself caters for all budgets from camping/dorm rooms right through to beachfront villas and the facilities are excellent: tennis courts, swimming pool, restaurant and bar. The best thing, though, is the fact that the beautiful beach is just seconds away so we enjoyed a walk along there. We were both exhausted and had another early start the next day, so after a quick look about and some dinner we headed to bed.
 
The alarms went off at 6:45am and, after putting it off as long as we could, we finally got ourselves out of our very comfy beds, got dressed and made our way down to the beach . We were instantly rewarded for getting up so early as there was a beautiful sunrise coming up over the beach. A crowd had started to assemble on the boardwalk ahead of the 7:45am briefing. We were entertained while we waited by a very confident and inquisitive emu who tried to steal people's cameras and phones as they took photos of him! At 7:45am, one of the rangers explained how the session would work: at 8am we could all go and stand by the water's edge to wait for the dolphins to come in. Once one did, we could move deeper into the water and watch as the dolphin swam up and down in front of us looking to see if there was any fish about that she could catch. If there was she would put on an excellent show for us demonstrating their fishing skills and therefore wouldn't need feeding. If, however, she didn't find any of her own fish the rangers would choose volunteers to go in and feed them. We didn't have to wait long before Piccolo and her son Piper came swimming in. We could see a few other dolphins playing just out past the jetty but they didn't come in close . Piccolo put on an excellent show for us, swimming up and down not far from our legs! Every now and then she would lean onto one side to look up at us properly or look right at us and smile! The ranger explained to us that actually their smile is a permanent fixture and is no indication of their mood! From time to time, Piccolo would swim out to sea to check on Piper who, by now, was off playing with the other dolphins! It was really lovely to watch! After quite a few laps, she hadn't found any fish of her own so we were all asked to move back out of the water and just those chosen were allowed to enter the water and feed them. As the feeding process started, two other dolphins came in for some breakfast: Piccolo's mum Puck and another female. Unfortunately, we didn't get selected to feed them but we had a brilliant view and had really enjoyed being so close to such beautiful creatures again.
 
Once we were showered and packed, it was time to get back on the road as we had another long day of driving ahead. We made a couple more stops before leaving Shark Bay: Shell Beach and Hamelin Pool . Shell Beach, as its name suggests, is a 60km beach made entirely of tiny white cockle shells. From a distance it looks a bit like snow but up close you can see each individual shell and when you step on them you can hear the crunching sound! We've no idea how there are so many shells in this one area but it's very beautiful. At Hamelin Pool, there is a boardwalk which takes you over a large area of stromatolites. What are stromatolites I hear you ask?? Well, these are columns that are formed by Cyanobacteria and are the earliest life on earth. Apparently, they were part of the reason the earth got oxygen in its atmosphere as they are oxygen producers which is how they existed long before anything else. They tell scientists much about how life developed and evolved. To us they just look like normal black rocks but you can see the oxygen bubbles constantly coming to the surface from them and they can grow up to a centimetre a year.