Shark Bay

Start your trip here for a good orientation on the Shark Bay area and why it's a world heritage site.

Monkey Mia is a marine park best known for its dolphins, members of the bay's population of 2000 Indo-Pacific bottlenose dolphins (Tursiops aduncus). Several families regularly come inshore in the mornings, where five (and only five known individuals) are hand-fed by the rangers; you may be able to participate. There's a long-running study of the dolphins, for instance into their family structures and maternal behaviour, and their use of sponges as tools to winkle out small prey. Boat trips explore the bay, and ashore there's a 4 km nature trail curated by the Malgana people.

This displays the local marine life, and organises tours.

Where this great continent narrowly escaped being called Eendrachtsland and annexed by France. It's 80 km long by 10-15 km wide and is desert scrub. It's accessed by a ferry barge from Shelter Bay near Steep Point - this sails daily but you must have 4WD and a booking with the island resort. Australia's west coast was discovered in 1616 by Dirk Hartog, who named it after his ship Eendracht meaning Concord, and affixed a pewter plate ashore engraved with the names of the senior crew. (That plate is now in the Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam.) In 1797 Louis Aleno de St Aloüarn staked France's claim here, but the bottle containing his annexation deed has yet to be found: if only more territorial claims were resolved this way. From 1869 the island was a sheep range, but "Return to 1616" is a long-running project to restore the original habitat. All sheep, goats and feral cats have been removed, and native beasts re-introduced: the mulgara, dibbler, chuditch and, er, craft distillers??