Something that had been on my bucket list since I was a kid was to feed the dolphins at Monkey Mia, and while we were on our Coral Coast road-trip I was finally able to get there.

Monkey Mia itself is not a proper town, it is a conservation park with the RAC Monkey Mia Dolphin resort being the only accommodation and facilities. It is located about a 25 minute drive from the down of Denham and so if you don’t want to stay at the resort, I recommend staying in Denham and just driving out to Monkey Mia in the morning for the dolphin feedings.

We left Denham around 7am to get to Monkey Mia by 7:30. You need to pay for entry to the park, however this then gives you free access to the dolphin feeding. There are three “sessions” between 7:45 to 12pm with the first one being most popular. The second two feedings don’t happen at a set time, it depends on when the dolphins want to come back and when the guides and volunteers are ready. The morning we were there the first feeding took around an hour from start to finish, and then the second feeding happened around 9:30am.

The experience starts by lining up on the jetty, where a guide will give you some ground rules about how to properly interact with the dolphins. You are then brought down to the beach where you line up along the water and watch the dolphins frolick up to the group. Once the dolphins have arrived you are invited to walk into the water. You only go in about ankle-deep and so you don’t need to be in bathers (unless you want to!) and you can keep your handbag/camera/phone on you.

Now for the slightly disappointing part, only a few people get picked to feed the dolphin each time so most likely you won’t actually get to hand over a fishy to these beautiful animals. I still thoroughly enjoyed my morning, and the dolphins come right up to the coastline where you can see them splash about. If you are lucky enough to be selected to feed a fish then your whole group is able to go out so you can take even more pictures up close.

You can go to all three sessions on the same day if you like, but you need to go to the visitor centre to pick up a new token each time. For the second feeding we sat up on the jetty and watched from the distance which didn’t require another token.

There is a restaurant, bathroom facilities and gift shop which anyone in the park can access. You could definitely make a half-day outing with the feeding, followed by breakfast and then some more swimming along the beach (outside of the dolphin zone).

Feedings happen all year round, so no matter what time of the year you visit you would have the opportunity to go out.

Have you ever seen dolphins up close?