Kalbarri – Monkey Mia

We left Kalbarri at 10am (seems to take ages to pack the van up because you have to make sure everything is secure!!). Our first stop was at the Billabong Roadhouse for a coffee break and lunch – we have a little table that folds out of the van (tis rather handy!) so we had a sandwich with some flies by the roadside before continuing on. Billabong is denoted as a place on the map but it’s just a roadhouse – somewhere where you can sleep, eat and get fuel. We’ve learnt that the majority of places on a map of Australia are actually just roadhouses and their environs.

The journey to Monkey Mia was due to take 5 hours in total so it was just a quick stop. We had to re-fuel at the next roadhouse which was at Overlander before entering the Shark Bay Heritage Site to Monkey Mia. The road seemed never ending and we thought that we would never get there. Along the way there were some lookouts so we stopped at one, which looked over the ocean which was a lovely turquoise colour. While we stopped, we had another coffee break (Rich was starting to get the shakes…!) We accompanied this with a much welcomed chocolate Hobnob (courtesy of Charly; ta love - they went down a treat!!)

We arrived at Monkey Mia about 4pm and checked in to our shared en-suite room as they didn’t have any campsites available. The room was fine and you had a balcony to look over the sea so that was nice and we were right on the beach front. We got settled in and then sat on the balcony to watch the sun go down over the ocean. We had an early night as we had to be up early the next morning to see the dolphins – which was the main reason why we had come to Monkey Mia.