After a late arrival in Perth from Christchurch the previous evening, I must have been mad to get up at the crack of dawn to travel out to Rockingham beach for a wild dolphin swim encounter – although, my daughter and I were really looking forward to it. Perth is the capital of Western Austarlia and is situated where the Southwest coast meets the Swan River. Rockingham is a suburb of Perth with a beautiful sandy beach, and it took less than an hour to get there in the minibus which picked us up just down the road from the hotel. It was a beautiful sunny day, and even at that hour of the morning it was warm and lots of people were already up and about: jogging and cycling before the day really hotted-up.
On arrival in Rockingham, we had to wait a short while until we could board the boat where we were kitted out with wet suits and snorkel equipment. We also had to wear a coloured belt, depending on which group we were put in. It was a nice small group of only 16. Hot drinks and biscuits were provided throughout the day and a great buffet lunch was served up after the swim that consisted of salads, sandwiches, meats, cheeses, dips, etc. – all really nice and tasty!
So, the boat set off in search of dolphins! The Perth Wildlife Encounters team have been operating its Swim with Wild Dolphins trips since 1989. They don’t feed the dolphins or teach them to do any tricks, so it is just a case of them spotting a pod of dolphins and assessing their behaviour. The team were very knowledgeable about the dolphins and explained that dolphins were quite like humans in that they would split up into male and female groups: the females would be off looking after their young and the males would be showing off to each other and play-fighting. Anyway, luckily, the perfect pod was sighted quite early on, so it was all action stations and on with the snorkels and into the water with your assigned group. Each group got three encounters in the water, and it was just magical being able to see these amazing creatures under the water in their natural habitat - a couple of dolphins even jumped in and out of the water right in front of us. It is worth mentioning that you don’t need to be a good swimmer to do this trip, and if you haven’t used snorkel equipment before the friendly team will show you how to use it. The length of the encounter also depends on how early dolphins are spotted.
Once our water encounters were over for the day, the team put the engines on to create a great wake at the back of the boat which the dolphins love, and they followed the boat for a while jumping in and out of the water. It was then time to get dried and changed again ready for the lovely buffet lunch – we were all starving by then!
