We based ourselves in Denham a small town rather than stay in Monkey Mia which is one big resort 30  mins away. I didn’t think I’d like Monkey Mia as I thought it would be over developed you have to pay $15 just to enter the resort,  however we were pleasantly surprised. They have done an excellent job of keeping the beach and surrounding areas in their natural state. Dolphins have been coming in here for years. It was popular when we were backpacking 30 years ago. It was great to see that they now no longer let you go within 50m of the dolphins. They do have three dolphin feedings every morning but it’s only about 5 locally caught fish each so the dolphins get less than 10% of their daily intake so do not rely on it. Some days they do not come in at all. It’s all about the dolphins, not the tourists, which is great.

Went to a local restaurant called ‘the Old Pearler’ and the entire building is built out of blocks made of coquina shell. The restaurant was built in 1974 by an Englishman, Tim Hargreaves, who took 4 years to cut the bricks by saw from the ground.  The shells are bonded together by pressure and come from the Hamelin area. There is also a church here made from the same bricks. Apparently the bricks make extra ordinary coolness in the hot summers of the north west. A very quirky building.

We stopped off at the shell beach and it is just shells mostly coquina shells.