Monkey Mia Midges

A slow start to the day with some house cleaning before the heat. We drove over the Peninsula to Monkey Mia. This is a private resort so had to buy a day pass to enter. There are resort rooms, a campground, restaurant, pools and a shop. It appears to be quite new and the campground was clean but lacking any shade from trees. People have asked the background to the name Monkey Mia, we have put an explanation into the photos.

As we were walking through the campground we happened upon an emu just cruising around. On the way back to the office a lady was shooing the emu away from her tent. The cheeky bird had pinched her toastie off the cook top, so it had definitely adapted to the human environment.

There is dolphin feeding which happens early morning, we had missed it today so will go back in the morning. After a restaurant lunch Julie sampled the cool seawater. Regan went to the pool area but was attacked by midges. Julie lasted about 5 minutes in the sand with the same issue so we both retreated back to the ute and managed to kill another dozen of the blighters as they drilled into our legs. Hoping we got away without too much damage. From experience in Derby and Cossack the bites take a day or so to show.

Headed back to Denham which by now was 33 degrees so after a break we walked down the hill into the village and visited the info centre. There is an exhibition about the sinking of the HMAS Sydney which happened when a German warship was found about 200km off the coast in 1944. It was just a bloodbath as both ships sunk. There were 645 on the Sydney and all were lost. Some from the German ship survived. The wrecks were only located a few years ago. We watched a presentation with a lot of eerie footage of the wrecks that are in water 2500 metres deep. There are still sailors shoes on the sea floor!

Back to camp for a swim as the temperature was up again today. We then had a Zoom birthday call for Pete in Melbourne. Such a different world with everyone bundled up in winter clothing.Read more