Perth - Monkey Mia road trip, Western Australia

Every good road trip starts from a cafe with a cinnamon bun, right? Tamaki and I met in Cinnamon and started to plan our 4-night, 5-day trip to Monkey Mia and back. Monkey Mia is located around 850 km north of Perth and on the way there there is lots to see and do. We just had to find out what.

The cinnamon bun aided me with decision making and it didn't take long for everything to be planned and booked. The route would be: Perth - Kalbarri - Shark Bay - Monkey Mia - Geraldton - Perth.

After our plan was made, we of course needed to celebrate it by getting dinner in a local hot pot restaurant. It was so cool! I had never been in a hot pot restaurant where the ingredients were delivered to us on the belt and you could count the prices from the plate colours. I ordered kimchi base, of course, with some pork belly, and ended up adding lots of mushrooms. Delicious!

But back to the road trip...

Day 1 - Perth to Kalbarri

Perth - Yanchep - Jurien Bay - Sandy Cape - Hutt Lagoon - Kalbarri

So on the first day we met at the car rental spot around 10AM. Funny quincidence was, that whilst I was standing outside of the car rental spot, my boss walked by and asked, what I was doing here. I reminded him that it was my day off and I am leaving for a coastal road trip. He seemed to be ok with it.

This time, learned from the first road trip, our car was a little bit bigger. It was just for the two of us but it felt so much better. We had space for our luggage and space to be more relaxed. We both also had great playlists for the road.

First stop was at my co-workers house in Yanchep. She had promised to loan us a beach tent and some fly nets for hiking, which of we were extremely thankful later. After picking up the stuff we continued driving to Jurien Bay for lunch and sight seeing.

Jurien Bay's one main sight is the small pier by the water. It was good to take a small walk after all the driving (and the driving yet to come) and just chill for a moment.

After Jurien Bay we stopped just a little to the north at Sandy Cape. The sand was white and the water was so warm and clear. But the Cape was clearly protecting the beaches from the wind, since immediately as we walked up the hill to the other side EVERYTHING was filled with small sand dust. My ears were hurting for days after and I couldn't get all the sand out.

Next stop came after a couple of hours. It was nearly sunset and we reached our last pit stop before reaching Kalbarri - Hutt Lagoon. The pink lagoon is a truly pink, but not as pink as in all the pictures. Maybe it depends on the time of the day and year as well, but for us it looked more like very light pinkish, partly white. With editing the photo, I can bring out the pink in it.

Kalbarri is a nice coastal town but not much to do. We made our way to our motel and got some dinner right before the restaurant closed. On our way back the motel lawn was filled with kangaroos.

Day 2

Kalbarri - Shell Beach - Shark Bay

In the morning we woke up quite early, got ourselves breakfast from the local bakery and headed to Kalbarri national park before the heat got too awful. Maybe, for the heat, we should've left even earlier. It was nearly 40 degrees from a cloudless sky. We didn't have the possibility to do the longer 9 km loop hike, since during summer you'd need to be there by 5AM to make the hike before the heat gets too much to bear.

So, we just took the shorter hike to see the famous Nature's Window and surroundings. This was the first place we were super happy to have the fly nets around our heads. Australian flies - I had forgotten how awfully relentless they are. They were everywhere, in my mouth, eyes, nose, ears, and honestly, I can't think of many things that drive me crazy so fast as these flies. I heard how many of the people who walked by were envious of our fly nets, and I would've been too. (Fly nets were removed for posing in the pictures. You can see them later on this post, though.)

We also drove to the lookout on the other side and took some pictures of the beautiful landscape. We tried to spot some animals from high above but couldn't see any emus or kangaroos. We did, however, meet a guy whose cars front window was completely shattered. Some other travelers asked him if he needed a lift to the nearby town. We heard that he had been surprised by a kangaroo on the way to the Nature's Window and the kangaroo had just jumped on the glass and away. I think I saw a TikTok video of this... Anyways, I drove more careful the rest of the way and we both kept an eye on any movement on the road side.

After a looooong drive to Shark beach area, we found a beautiful but very windy beach, Shell beach. There was just us and another group of three friends. We decided to relax and went to the water and took some pictures together. The water was so clear and the sand white and filled with small shells as the name of the beach points out.

At some point my friend asked if I saw some movement in the water further away. Two black dots were slowly moving towards us and around us. The water is not deep, not even knee high, but as it was so windy, we couldn't be sure what the creatures were. We ended up seeing them more close, and after some googling came to the conclusion that the two calm swimmers were actually guitar sharks. Their nose looked like a shovel, but they moved like a shark and they both had the sharklike fins.

Shark Bay in February was quiet. Summer is not the best time to go to Monkey Mia and Shark Bay, since it is so hot and super windy! It was clear that it was not the touristic season, but maybe in the end that was a good thing - we got to enjoy the nature just on our own.

Day 3

Shark Bay - Monkey Mia

Not much driving happened on the third day, as Shark Bay is only 24 km away from the Monkey Mia resort. We drove there directly in the morning, and it was such a good decision. The day was lovely and on the Monkey Mia side of the bay it wasn't as windy either.

Monkey Mia is beautiful. We couldn't check in to our room yet, so we decided to take on the heat and go for a short hike around the area. There was no one - just me and my friend walking on the red dunes until it swapped into a white beach with clear water. And there we already saw so much life. We saw small and quick shovel nosed rays and a bunch of reef sharks just swimming by the beach hunting the same fish as the multiple pelicans and other birds by the water.

We were constantly waiting to be surprised by an angry emu, but actually ended up seeing our first emu just strolling among the tourists in the resort village. After the hike, we went into the water by the beach. There are rules in Monkey Mia that if you are in the water, and the local dolphins come by, you should go out of the water to give them space to hunt for food, so we didn't stay in the water for long as there were around four dolphins swimming close by once in a while. There are Park Rangers around, who also tell you about the dolphins.

We did see them very close by the next morning, when the resort had its local dolphin feeding hours. We gathered on the beach to watch how the dolphins came by to get their daily portions. The guide explained to us, that there are nearly 200 dolphins living in the Monkey Mia area, and though many of them visit the area during feeding hours, the rangers only feed 5 specific dolphins that can be identified by their fins. The rangers only feed these 5 dolphins around 10% of their daily need, which doesn't discourage them from hunting and gathering up with other dolphins. After the feeding experience in the morning, some of the dolphins stayed on the bay to hunt for more fish.

We sunbathed and enjoyed our time in the relaxed atmosphere. In the evening, we had dinner at the resorts pub style restaurant.

Day 4

Monkey Mia - Eagle Bluff - Hamelin Pool - Geraldton

After the dolphin feeding experience already mentioned above, and breakfast, we headed back to our car and started driving south.

First stop was at Eagle Bluff Lookout. We stared at the clear waters below and counted many sharks and rays though they were quite far. We took a walk to find a famous Elephant Rock, and we found it! I did not realise it was so small though, for some reason I was looking for a much bigger rock formation but maybe the perception in the pictures had deceived me.

Next stop, not too far from Eagle Bluff, Hamelin Pool. I wanted to stop here, though I had heard that the pool has been closed for a long time because the boardwalk was damaged in 2021 in Cyclone Seroja. According to the website, it should've been fixed by the end of year 2022, but it was already 2023 so we didn't know what to expect.

We walked the short route to the bay and saw that the boardwalk was still closed. There were other people admiring the beach and rocks as well, but as there wasn't much to see for now, we turned back and continued our drive - a long way to Geraldton.

In the evening we walked around the small town of Geraldton and went to buy groceries for dinner. When we were ready, we headed to our airbnb, and weren't quite sure what to expect of it. It was located around 30km south of Geraldton, and according to the pictures it was in a beautiful spot, but very small and self contained. We drove to a dirt road according to the directions we had received and kept on driving until we reached a gate that kept the sheep away from the main road. We drove in from the gate, carefully closing it behind us and kept on driving.

The sand got more loose and there were some steep up and down hills to manage. The final hill to our cabin was the most difficult one, and sun was not our friend. It was the evening sun shining directly from front of us when I nearly reached the top, and I had to stop mid hill as I didn't have a clue where the road continued. And that's when I realised that I couldn't make the car go forward mid hill because the sand below the tires was so loose. I had to roll the car down the hill, park it there and walk to see where the road turned to. After the sun had set, I went down hill to drive the car next to our cabin.

This airbnb was definitely one of the best I have ever been to. The views were amazing, and the owner lived nearby and helped us, when there was no water coming to the cabin. Everything was solved quickly and we got to enjoy dinner and sunset on the porch of the cabin.

Next morning we walked down to the beach and saw sooo many yellow Golden Ghost Crabs. They looked so funny as they ran away in a group and dived in to the ocean from the beach.

Day 5

Geraldton - The Pinnacles - Perth

Last day of our road trip had arrived. We still had the whole day, as I would return the car the next morning.

We drove straight to one of the most famous sights near Perth, The Pinnacles in The Nambung National Park. The Pinnacles are natural limestone formations that date back around 25 000 - 30 000 years, and in the park you can go explore them either by foot or by a route made for the cars or both, as we did. I wasn't sure what to expect, as I had seen some pictures from the Pinnacles but it was amazing and I loved every minute of our tour around the park.

The limestone formations are something I have never seen before and there are SO many of them. It was so beautiful and I felt like I was walking and driving in a maze created by nature.

Our trip didn't quite finish there. We ended it spectacularly by going shopping to IKEA and then had some sushi afterwards. I was exhausted but happy, glad to take a break from driving - but at the same time I started planning for my next move since I was going to leave Perth behind me after mid March when my contract with the current employer ended by my own decision.

I did end up liking Perth - the beginning was a little bit of a struggle. But the great weather and beautiful city with excellent food and many events raised Perth in my eyes, but not enough to stay there for the rest of the year. Maybe one day I will return, who knows - but if I do, I will need to buy a car.