Volunteers at Monkey Mia DOLPHIN Resort

Friday 10^th October – Wednesday 15^th October

We had our induction about the dolphins in Monkey Mia and how a normally working day is there. Monkey Mia is located in Shark Bay World Heritage, which is one of the most popular tourism destinations in Western Australia. Visitors come from all over the world, to experience the wild encounters with the dolphins. 

The dolphins visit the beach every day, and five specific female dolphins are offered fish three times daily. The feeding times are up to the dolphins. There are days when they don’t visit the beach, however those days are rare. The rangers constantly have an eye on the beach and report to us (the volunteers) which dolphins are in the area. We write the times and the dolphins names in the diary. There’s about 1600 dolphins in the bay and surprisingly enough, the rangers can tell the difference on most of them. 

In the office where we are, there’s a thick book with pictures with dorsal fins and about 200 different of them. They are the ones visiting the beach regularly. All dolphins have marks or rakes from either boat propellers and/or shark bites. 

When the rangers discover that some of the five dolphins we feed, are in the area, we start an experience. That means we have 25 min. to prepare the fish for the dolphins, while the rangers gather the visitors on the beach and tell them the history behind the dolphin project in Monkey Mia. 

The indo-pacific bottlenose dolphin story started in 1950’s, when local fishermen began sharing their catch with some local dolphins, which followed them into the inshore area. The dolphins continued to follow the fishermen, and when the jetty was built they began to seek hand-outs. 

In 1964 a lady hand fed a dolphin from her boat and soon the feeding became a routine for the dolphins. Over the years the dolphins grew trust to humans and with time, also got fish from the beach, by locals and visitors. As a result to that, the dolphins lost their wild instincts and their ability to hunt. The calves of some overfed dolphins starved to death because of neglect by their mothers. 

The public feeding was stopped immediately, when this was discovered, and today the dolphins are only fed under strict supervision of Departments of Parks and Wildlife officers (rangers). 

They only get a small amount of fish from us, actually only a snack between 300-500g per feeding. That keeps the dolphins wild. Their average food intake is between 10-12 kg per day. So they are able to support themselves in the environment and hunt naturally, plus they teach their calves the important survival skills. When the rangers have finished their speech, we go down to the beach, with the fish in buckets. 

Sometimes there are only two or three dolphins at a feed, and other times we have all five of them. Again it’s up to the dolphins. We take it as a good sign when they don’t show up. It means that they get enough to eat from their own hunt. 

It was a bit chaotic one of the days, when we had some dolphin males in the area as well. The males are not fed because they tend to be more aggressive towards humans and other dolphins. At this specific feeding, they were interacting with the females and tale slapping in front of the whole crowd, right on the beach. It was quite entertaining, but also a bit dangerous for us in the water. Quickly the males left the feeding area again and we could begin picking people out from the crowd, and invite them to hand feed the dolphins - what everyone is there for!! 

The dolphins are very gentle and nice to us, one of the dolphins are pregnant, at the moment she loves to rub her big belly on our legs, others put their nose between our legs, or push our legs with their fins to swim backwards. We’re not allowed to touch them, but they touch us all the time… It’s amazing! We work 4½ hour per day, and most of that time is spend on preparing the fish and interacting with the dolphins, the rest of the time is almost just spend on relaxing and chatting to the other volunteers.

Shark Bay

A normal day in the parking lot 

The volunteer office

We have each dolphin record and family tree in the office. 

View from the office.. Loved it!

This was the best reason to get early up in the morning

Erik loved having Surprise (the pregnant dolphin)

Piccolo

Pure enjoyment from Piccolo's point of view

See you later Piccolo

While the dolphin feeding is taking place there is one of us volunteers, distracting the pelicans further up on the beach. It’s not at every feeding the pelicans show up, but most of the times we have to be there and entertain them. If we don’t do so, they will steal the dolphins fish and make the experience on the beach difficult for everyone. 

The pelicans know they get a piece of fish from the yellow bucket we bring out, and during the dolphin feeding they sit and stare impatiently, at the yellow bucket. When the dolphin feeding is over, we throw a small piece of fish to each pelican. 

A few times we couldn’t distract them enough, and they flew right down to the dolphin buckets. With help from the rangers, and a tempting fish, the pelicans returned to the yellow bucket. It’s a long time we need to distract them, with JUST a bucket. We don’t want to feed them too much, that will just result in more pelicans coming to the beach, and then they will lose their ability to hunt just as it happend with the dolphins.

In Monkey Mia there is only one resort, and it’s the one and only place with accommodation. An unpowered campsite is $16 each per night. We found that very expensive, but on the other hand, we didn’t pay anything to be in the volunteer program. Most places we know about, charge money, when it’s got wildlife involved. So we were lucky that this was free. 

We were also lucky to be able to work for our accommodation, instead for paying. The working hours were the same whether we stayed at the campground or at the hostel, so we moved into the hostel for three days to get some value out of our shitty work. One day we cleaned their tour bus, the other day we cleaned the ceiling for spider webs in the outdoor area at the restaurant on the beach, and swept the whole outdoor area. 

During the two days we stayed at the campsite, we already got quite annoyed and frustrated over the wild emu’s there. They were stealing food, and we couldn’t sit outside with the back of the car open without an emu sneaking around us and looking in the car for food. They are so use to humans and know where to get easy food. To begin with we found it funny, but when the emus started to attack the dogs around the campsites, and walked into people’s tents, we kind of lost our interest in them. The rangers should start a program with the emus, as they did with the dolphins. The issue is, that they can’t earn money on them!!!

The forbidden emu dance....

I was sitting where the emu stands, seconds before this picture was taken.. They get that close!

The experience and interacting with the dolphins has been amazing and absolutely magnificent. 

We really enjoyed every moment working there, and is thankful for the opportunity we were given. Normally people book the volunteer work well in advance. We were lucky to get on the program just a few days before we arrived. We will never forget those big bright eyes looking up at us, and the natural smile these creatures have, it's nothing less than fantastic. I left a piece of my heart with the dolphins at Shark Bay!

Piccolo (my favorite)


Working With Wild Dolphins Video

New adventures and challenges in Western Australia

Monday 29^th September – Tuesday 30^th September

We left Emerald Springs and all our worries behind...

Now we were going south, down to Katherine and then further on into Western Australia - apparently the most magnificent state in this country. 

In Katherine Erik arranged to get our aircondition re-gassed. It has needed to be re-gassed since we bought the car. We haven’t desperately needed it before, but considering the warm temperatures, we couldn’t survive without it now. It was a fantastic feeling to now sit in the car and not being soaked in sweat within 5 minutes. 

In the afternoon we uploaded our blog, by using the wifi in Katherine’s one and only shopping center, we headed south/west. We had about 460km to the WA-NT border, but needed a good night sleep before driving that distance. We drove just 231km this day. 

The next day we calculated on our autogas consumption and figured we would make it to the next autogas pump in Kununurra, if we just started to drive on petrol for the first 70 km. Unfortunately we had calculated a bit wrong… In the afternoon we were running out of gas and the car was too hot to use the petrol. Bummer! 

My little mechanic says that the problem is when it gets too hot in the engine compartment (40 degrees outside temp+midday+hot engine) there’s a component in the petrol injection system that shuts down. That’s the reason why the car won’t run on petrol, but the autogas injection system apparently don’t use the signal from that component, so it works fine all the time, no matter how hot it gets. 

Anyhow, we pulled in to a rest area and tried to cool it down by parking in the shade and opening the hood. We considered staying there for the rest of the day, and drive when the weather would get chilly at night. After an hour or so, Erik tried to start it and it seemed to be working fine, so we took the risk and continued our journey. We drove just about 20km and then it died again, this time in the blazing sun. We cooled it down and drove another 20km. Then it died again. This story repeated itself one more time, after that we used our last autogas, and we finally reached Kununurra (Western Australia, WA) 115km later. 
Just as we thought our problems were over, we discovered that the gas station in Kununurra, had had a leak on their gas tank, so the hose wasn’t in use at the moment, and hadn’t been working the last couple of weeks. They didn’t know when they would get it fixed – things takes time in the isolated world! So there we were... We had about 400km to Halls Creek (the next auto gas station). 
We got a bit concerned on how that journey would turn out, but there was nothing else to do than to try and drive in the night time. Maybe the car would be cold enough to let us do so! 
To our big luck it worked fine for the first 100km, but died just 5km before our planned break at Doon Doon Roadhouse. A friendly local towed us the last 5km. We cooled the car down for a bit and afterwards reached Turkey Creek (93km south) with no further issues. So one thing is sure now – it is the heat that’s the issue. 

We saw countless wildlife on the roads from Turkey Creek and south. It was amazing to experience horses running free on the roads, cows hanging out with kangaroos and countless big (red) kangaroos jumping across the road. We love driving at night time, since it’s the best time to experience wildlife. All locals warn us about night driving, but it’s just a matter of driving carefully enough, so you don’t risk hitting the wildlife. Even with a unhappy car we still managed to drive 706km this day. 

The next morning after a good night sleep we reached Halls Creek and Migaloo - our jeep, got the autogas that he had been thirsty for – the same with our wallet. Ha ha, cause autogas is only around 2/3 of the petrol price. 
It was a bit of a shame that we missed out on Lake Argyle and the Bungle Bungle ranges in Kimberley - both places is supposed to be spectacular, but with the car problem in the back of our minds, we wouldn’t have been able to enjoy them anyway. 
We reached Derby tuesday afternoon and did a station stay 20km out of town, at Birdwood Downs. They offered sunset horseback riding and riding lessons – something that Erik has been dying to try since we left home. All tours were regrettably fully booked – and by the way very costly. So it suited us okay that they couldn’t fit us in. Total km = 685. 

Erik is trying to become friends with kangaroo's..
They were too shy and jumped away straight after this picture was taken.

The Kimberley is full of these beautiful Boab trees.

Wednesday 1^st October – Saturday 4^th October

We arrived in Broome, the western edge of the Kimberley. It had been a short day on the road, only 248km. 

Broome is a magnificent town that exports pearls around the world, produced on sea farms. It’s a good 2000km to the nearest capital and is a true nature wonder. It’s got mangroves, mudflats and crocs on one side, the other side has got turquoise waters and a beautiful long wide beach stretch, called Cable beach. 

We had been told that there was one caravan park in the town that could provide accommodation in trade for a couple of hours work. So we drove around and asked at the different park entries to find the right one. Eventually we found it. 

It’s located close to Cable beach and an unpowered site is usually $35 per night, but for 1 hour and 15 min. leaf raking we could stay there for free. For us it was a great deal. 

It was a beautiful area to stay in, and we relaxed and enjoyed the facilities at the campground. Even in the shade it was ridiculous hot, and due to the almost unbearable hot weather, we finally pulled ourselves together and got our mosquito net sorted out – which meant that we now could open both front windows and the back during the night, without getting eaten alive by mosquitos and other small devils. 

Cable beach was amazing, although we weren’t big fans of all the stingers in the water and on the beach. They are or can be really dangerous. There were a lot of people in the water that didn’t seem to care about them, but I couldn’t drag myself into the mystic water – I just didn’t want to be stung by one. Erik had a quick dip and was lucky to survive! Haha! It isn’t the season for the deadly ones at the moment (the box jelly fish), but anyway! 

We enjoyed a few drinks and the view from the beach bar, and later on we splashed out, and ate unhealthy burgers. 

Friday we drove out to Gantheaume Point - a lookout point with fabulous red sandstone rocks overlooking the turquoise waters of the Indian Ocean. 

In order to reach Karijini National Park on Monday, we had to leave Broome and work our way down there, and hopefully the guys at the park would be able to fit us in, on the canyoning trip, we tried to book. We drove most of saturday and planned to stay at the Eighty Mile beach. A corrugated dirt road led us to the caravan park and it was beautiful out there, but we found the campground to be kind of a rip off. Before we left and hit the road again, we accidentally bumped into the family that towed us, the first time Migaloo was complaining about the heat. It was odd to meet them again about 2000km from the last place we met, and about 4 weeks has gone by since… After all we just got confirmed that Australia isn’t as big as everybody says!! 

Back on the empty road we were surprised by the great wifi connection, so Erik skyped with Ib his friend, for a long time, actually most of the night. We go to bed so early when we sleep in the car, it’s getting dark early, like around 7-8pm, and since we can only hang out either in the car or outside with all the weird bugs, we prefer to go to bed early, and then get up with the sun in the morning. It’s impossible to sleep in anyway. To damn hot and bright! 

We pulled in north of Port Hedland and stayed there during the night. Saturday = 572km.

Ready for a night with air and without mosquitoes in the car.


Working hard......

Cable beach

The stingers on Cable Beach

Playing with my camera

Gantheaume Point...

Eighty Mile Beach...

The beach is that way...

Sunday 5^th October

Most days on the roads we plan to sleep near by a roadhouse or town, where we most likely can get a liter of fresh milk in the morning. We love our cereals in the morning. Out of all our food and beverage it is the only thing we actually aim for as being cold, when we consume it. So we are really not asking for a lot! We got our $2 FRESH COLD milk in Port Hedland. 

The town itself isn’t tempting to explore, I would consider it as a ghost town. The only people living there is miners. So we quickly ventured south and inland towards Karijini National Park. 

We got a message saying that they would fit us in on the adventurous tour, so we were happy and excited. The trip down there was horrible, due to all the road trains going the other direction and hitting our windshield with stones. Very annoying! 

We stopped at Munjini roadhouse, just before the park. We spend some hours there, because Erik really wanted to watch the Formula 1 on their TV. When that was finally over, we had shared a big meal and none of us were hungry for dinner. 

We drove into the national park, paid the entrance fee and slowly worked our way up to the Eco Retreat Resort (the place where the tour started form the next morning). We drove on a very badly corrugated road for about an hour, in the glare of the sun, which almost made us blind. We couldn’t see anything in front of us! It was awful! 

Since we already paid for the entrance fee and the canyoning trip was $255 each, we took the risk and camped for free on one of the parking spots in the park, even though we knew it was illegal. We figured that the chance of getting caught was very small since we haven’t seen a car for over an hour. And who would patrol those bad roads anyway! Km = 477.

Breakfast with cows walking around the rest area

A lot of the grey nomads live in their motorhomes, and they've got everything with them on the roads!
 Impressing, but slow!

Salt mineral mine in Port Hedland

Everything is the same colour in the outback.. The red dust colour!!

Worst gravel road ever.

Monday 6^th October

It was a big day for us. We were excited about the canyoning adventure (called The Red Gorge Adventure). It was time to test if our adrenalin pump still was working, or needed a recharge! Canyoning is a mixed up word for canyon/gorge, abseiling, climbing and rafting! 

The day started early when our guides kitted us out with wetsuits, outdoor shoes, harnesses, helmets and inner tubes. We ventured into the first gorge (Knox Gorge) and dipped our warm bodies in the freezing pool. After a sunny stroll we were off to the restricted area, with the gorge shrinking rapidly to a single body width. We met one of the guides, who had set up a 5m abseil. Awesome. We walked carefully on a rough, steep and slippery surface before we sat down on a natural slide, pushed off and over a 3m drop into an enclosed pool. It was a lot of fun and we would love to do it again, but once over the edge, there’s no way back up. 

We controlled our own abseiling the second time, down to the next pool. It was shady and cold, we escaped by crawling up and in between some rocks and on the other side, we jumped into our tubes and paddled towards a little sunny “island”. Time for lunch. 

Soon we were back on our inner tubes, and we paddled across long and tranquil pools. Our surroundings were absolutely spectacular - the vertical red gorge walls raised 100m above us. It was magnificent. We had a little break before we headed into the Hancock Gorge, the guide sat up a rope leading through the Centre of the Earth (as they call that place), and we climbed up the steep, tight and slippery cascades. We walked though small pools on narrow edges. As we ascended the 9m climb we were all a bit exhausted. A traverse along the cliff with our security ropes clipped into the anchor rope, we slowly left the restricted area and entered Kermits pool, our final swim. 

Soon we were through the final gorge and finished at the car park. It was 4pm, we had been out all day, and it’s been an action-packed and adrenalin-charged adventure. It’s without a doubt the best day we have had in a long time.

Afterwards we socialized with a family we met on the tour – they were great. They were from Perth, a good contact for us to have, since we are heading that way soon. We were actually pretty exhausted from the long day and the drinks we had, but we didn’t want to sleep illegal again or pay the camp fees in the park. 

We drove just outside the park and got our beauty sleep, on a free campground 70 km away. 

 Ready for a adventurous day

Red Gorge Adventure Video

Tuesday 7^th – Wednesday 8^th October

We were meant to do a mine tour, near Tom Price. Would be great to learn about all those mines, we pass all the time, but unfortunately they don’t run the tour for less than 10 people. And since we were the only ones there, there was no way they would do the tour. Instead we started our journey further towards the west coast. 

We reached Exmouth in the afternoon. I skyped and catched up with my friend Musse, meanwhile Erik was busy and searched for information about the national park and the dive sites. Australia’s largest fringing and most accessible reef, Ningaloo Reef is located just north of the town. It’s stretching 300km south. There are a number of snorkel sites only 50m offshore, and it has more than 500 species of fish, which makes it a must-see for snorkelers, divers and nature-lovers. 

Erik planned our stay in this area. We started close to the Cape Range National Park by watching the sunset from Vlamingh Head lighthouse. At the top of the hill we had a brilliant view, all though the sunset wasn’t anything special. We drove into the national park straight after. The wildlife that we experienced on the road was going beyond our wildest imagination. We really didn’t think that the amount of kangaroo’s could be so big in one “little” area. It was crazy and we loved it! 

When we got to our beach campsite we were joined by a kangaroo mom with her little joey (that’s what the babies are called) in her pouch. She stayed around our campsite most of the night, together with a lot of glowing spiders in the low grass. The weather got chilly at night again, and we’re pleased with the colder temperatures – the same is the car – no more “running on petrol” problems. We drove 732km. 

The next morning we snorkeled with colourful fish at popular Turquoise Bay. We drifted with the current along the beach, but had to take care and make sure we got out of the water in time, before the current carried us away. At noon when we got signal on the phone again we booked a dive at Navy Pier. It’s in the top 10 of best shore dives in the world! It sounded very promising to us. 

The dive site was quite small, easy to navigate and apparently we couldn’t get lost. We all got the opportunity to go self-guided. We found it as the perfect opportunity to try it for the first time, together off course! Under the pier we saw an amount of marine life,that we have never seen before, in such a little area. 

There’s a bunch of big groupers that always hang around there. One of them is called George, he’s very friendly and used to divers. It’s the only fish that we were allowed to touch, if we got the change. George likes to be tickled on his chin, and sometimes won’t leave you alone, if you don’t tickle him. It’s the weirdest fish ever, but off course we wanted to meet this guy. Unlike all the stories he wasn’t in the mood for a tickle, even though we tried to tempt him. During the dive Erik was mostly focusing on filming and I was navigating us around the pier. We had an amazing dive and simply loved to be in control of our own dive. 

That afternoon we continued our further travels south and away from the costly national park. 

Km = 138. 

Our house 

Unfortunately a common sight on the roads 

 Emu is an uncommon sight.. But definitely more enjoyable than the road kills.

 Curious kangarooo

Australian Bustard.. A huge bird!!

Navy Pier Diving Video

Thursday 9^th October

We rose early in order not to be caught sleeping illegal on a rest area. We drove to Coral Bay, an absolutely stunning bay, very family minded and very idyllic. We spend half of the day on the crystal clear beach. The most fantastic thing about this place is that there is world class snorkeling just off the beach (Ningaloo Reef) and at the same time white sand and shallow water in the bay. 
It’s a perfect place and we wished that we had the time to stay longer, but the day before we got confirmed that we could work as volunteers with dolphins further south. So in order to reach Monkey Mia (the dolphin place) in time, we had to get back on the roads again the same afternoon. 
We stocked up with food and supplies in Carnarvon and then worked our way down south. Thursday it came to 412km. 
Friday we reached Monkey Mia just in time for our induction. We planned to volunteer for 5 days there. Distance this day = 281km

 Coral Bay