Up in the dark to head to Monkey Mia for the first Dolphin Experience of the day. They do 3 each morning. The Experience was actually done quite well (for the dolphins) in our opinion. They don't let people touch the dolphins and only let half a dozen people feed the 5 dolphins one fish - and only certain dolphins are fed.
After the feeding, we headed back to the car for corn cakes and avocado/banana for breakfast followed up with a coffee at the resort while we waited for our "day" cruise. Sailing out again on the Shotover we were on the lookout for dugongs, Apparently, they are quite shy creatures and are often hard to find. Eventually, we did discover a single dugong who did give us a bit of a sighting before disappearing. They come up to breathe about every 3 minutes so guess it's understandable that they are hard to see.
Back on shore, we had a chat Mary at the National Parks Office about the likelihood of the Francois Peron National Park being opened after the rain. She was very helpful and rang around all sorts of people but still couldn't find out what was happening. She thought we should have been able to drive as far as the Peron Homestead and go in the hot tub but when we drove past the intersection it was still closed.
In the afternoon we went for a walk around Denham to have a look at the buildings that had been built from coquina shell blocks. The first was St Andrews Anglican Church. In addition to its uniqueness of being built from shell, St Andrews also has an interesting history. The building was opened and consecrated on 6 June, 1954 with funds provided from the "League of Help", a group based in England dedicated to erecting churches overseas, following the bombing of St. Andrew's-by-the Wardrobe Church in London during World War II. The stained glass window depicting the cross of St. Andrew and the pews came from St. Andrew's Church, Subiaco. The shell blocks were quarried from the beach at Hamelin, many of them being sawn by the then Rector of Carnarvon, the Rev. Ron Hobby. The supervision of the construction was carried out by Mr. R.J. Davies of Perth, with two Italian stone masons and an Estonian carpenter.
We then checked out the Old Pearler Resturant and actually booked a table for dinner. A seafood Platter (including lobster) for two ($115) - very yummy.
The restaurant was built by an Englishman, Tim Hargreaves, in 1974 taking three to four years cutting and layering the shell blocks to competition. Interestingly the railway sleepers used for the doors and windows frames were originally cut for the Kalgoorlie Railway line but were used instead of the Carnarvon Jetty and the tables and settlers were from timber salvaged from the original Peron Station Shearers Quarters.
