Around Straya
On the Sabbath that we were in Monkey Mia we went for a day trip up the cape to Cape Peron and Skipjack Point. What a beautiful place! Amazing red dirt meeting a turquoise ocean with a large amount of animal life. The animals seen here were black tip reef sharks, sting rays, manta rays, dolphins, lots of sea birds and goats.
Gerson and Ezra took the car to Skipjack Point so that we would have the car there for us and me and the girls walked the 1.5km walk from Cape Peron to Skipjack Point. It was thriving with butterflies, goats, insects and sea life. It was a little bit of a hot, slow walk since Sophia wanted to walk a lot of the way and could not be hurried and then Priscilla started complaining about the heat and Hadassah kindly carried her on her back. Fortunately Gerson and Ezra came and met us some way in to check if we were ok. We arrived at SkipJack point to hear that there had been a 3 metre shark chasing a big manta ray in full view! We were disappointed not to see it but we got to see dolphins hunting fish and they were zipping through the water at great speed! We also saw black tip reef sharks, sting rays, manta rays and a very cute, juicy, fat caterpillar that had very big eyes!
History
Around this area was where William Dampier anchored on the coast of WA. He wrote in his journal that there was plenty of sharks and his seaman had caught quite a few of them and that they loved eating the meat!
Cape Peron is named after Francois Peron. He was born in France, 1775 and while travelling as a naturalist on Baudin’s expedition was among the parties exploring Shark Bay in 1801. In doing so he made some of the earliest recordings of Shark Bay’s wildlife and first people. It is in his honour that the Francois Peron National Park is named.
