Darren Capes, famous Aboriginal walking leader from Denham, once put it in such a spot-on manner. " It is not enough when you just see a country, you have to feel it". Many people told me that I should just skip Denham and go to Monkey Maya for a day. I arrived in Denham late night and it was just too dark to really enjoy the town. What started as initially just a stop turned into a social and environmental experience full of joy. I made so many friends, learnt much from DEC(Department of Environment and Conservation) workers, got involved in many social events and last but not least.....I received so many hosting offers from locals who were not Couchsurfers. However, I had signed the lease of my wonderful apartment by the sea and preferred my own privacy where I can cook for people.
Denham has a lively history starting from famous sheep shearers up to discoverers of the shipwreck the Zuytdorp. The town has interesting ethnic diversity because the Aboriginals were descendants of the Indonesian pearlers mixed with whites and Aboriginals. Current research is conducted whether the survivors of the shipwreck the Zuytdorp mixed with the Aboriginals because their skeletons were never found.
I learnt new skills like kayaking with tiger sharks nibbling my boat from underneath, improved my fishing skills and even learnt how to fillet a fish. Because the restaurants were not allowed to sell fresh fish, we needed to catch the fish ourselves. Many Australian travellers come here just for fishing and at night you see many people fishing breams, mullets and squid from the jetty. The first thing that I needed to learn was how to estimate how many bowels each type of fish had and where to start cutting without all the treasures flowing out and spoil the good meat.
Most people meet in the bowling club and I found out that there was a lot of fun stuff to do in Denham. The vast turquoise tapestry of ocean surface changing its colours gradually to deep blue was the most impressive scenery that I could watch from my dining room everyday. I visited the conservation workers(DEC or Department of Environment and Conservation) in the Francois Peron National Park everyday and could find out a lot about their work. First hand experience with real people in Shark Bay
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