Spank my Monkey Mia!

Trip Start May 28, 2009
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Trip End Ongoing


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Flag of Australia  , Western Australia,
Saturday, June 27, 2009

 2nd stop- Monkey Mia. What a tourist trap! If it wasn't for them feeding dolphins (in the name of research, honestly!) there would be no reason for anyone to drive out to this lonely, desolate peninsula, which is why I presume they keep feeding them! Monkey Mia, amazingly enough, has no monkeys. In fact you'd be hard pushed to even find a tree to put a monkey in up here! They have 3 reasons as to why its called 'monkey' mia. 'Mia' means 'home' in Aborigine, and then they claim that the 'monkey' part comes from a pearling ship named 'Monkey' landing here in the early 19th century, and so sparking the pearling industry here. The other 2 reasons are that the sailors who landed here all had monkeys on their shoulders, and the 3rd is that 'monkey' is an old Australian slang word for 'flock' of sheep, which the settlers started to keep when they landed. Take your pick!
 When we arrived, the sun finally came out, so we managed to eat steak 'n' chips outside for the first time in 12 days (yep, I counted!). The resort has everything you need (all at a price of course) from camping accomodation to swanky beachside retreats Nico & dolphins
Nico & dolphins
 . There is a bar, restaurant and takeaway, all of which are plastered with the 'once in a lifetime' tours and cruises that the resort conveniently offers. We stuck to the free touristy thing of seeing the dolphins being fed. Every morning you can elbow push and shove your way to paddling knee-deep in the waters with the dolphins, which, yes, is a rare treat to be done for free. They'll pick people at 'random' to help feed the dolphins, but I'm afraid I had to be at least 2 feet shorter and a hell of a lot cuter to be given that privilege. By the 2nd day, the rain had caught up with us again, so we holed up in our van and got drunk, as there was nothing else to do, unless we wanted to drive another 150km back and forth to see any of the island's other 'attractions'. We decided to forfeit our third night here, otherwise we might jump ship, just like the monkeys did!
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