Everyone’s heard of Monkey Mia, and most have probably been there. I’ve been before – travelled the 25km on the deeply corrugated road to stand waist deep in the water and pat the many dolphins that swim up to the shore line each day for a feed of free fish. Not anymore! Now there’s a Nomad friendly bitumen road, an Interpretive Centre full of Parks staff who manage the Dolphin Interactions, and this season’s record number of visitors on the beach seeing the dolphins was 750! I’m glad our visit wasn’t quite that busy. There were about 100 people at Interaction 1.

About six dolphins came to shore today. They are all females and were nursing their calves at this time of year. They all have names, and they know the drill when it comes to a free feed.

Mums and calves hang together

The staff make sure each individual dolphin only gets a certain amount of fish, so that they still know how to survive in the wild. They really look after the dolphins’ wellbeing.

Despite the reputation of Monkey Mia, I have to say that I’ve had so many much better experiences with these very intelligent animals. Like watching them surf the waves at Tallows Beach, just near the Byron Bay Lighthouse. Or seeing them compete with the surfers for a wave just last week at Red Bluff. I like the natural habitat for them.
As for Fergus and Harry, they said they both preferred seeing the pelicans that day! There are a few that hang around the beach there, so we did our share of picture taking with the pelicans.