Sea kayaking with seals and Aussie penguins!

 A low pressure front moving down the west coast of Australia has meant that it's rainy and grey in Perth this weekend (which isn't all bad, hopefully it's put an end to the bush fires that have been plaguing the Perth area for the last week or so).  

During the week however was completely different with blue sky's and sunshine so I took the chance to go sea kayaking south of Perth of the little town of Rockingham with Rivergods a local kayaking tour company.

After being collected in Perth city center at 7:45 by Liam the incredibly cheerful and knowledgeable tour guide I was brought down to Rockingham to meet up the other two members of the tour and after a quick briefing on the do's and don't of kayaking we hit the water!

The first thing we did was to kayak across the shallows to Seal Island which true to it's name is a nature reserve where a colony of seals live.  As we approached one of the seals came over to play with us, splashing us, resting it's muzzle on our boats and throwing seaweed at us!  He/she seemed to be enjoying him/herself!

One of the seals on Seal Island (not the one who threw seaweed at us!)

The view of Rockingham from Seal Island

After our visit to Seal Island we headed across the water to the larger Penguin Island where WA's largest colony of Fairy Penguins live!  On the island is a wildlife center dedicated to the Penguins and other birds and wildlife on the island.  While we didn't see and penguins in the wild (they are shy and probably out hunting in the surrounding seas) there are ten or so penguins who live full time in the wildlife center as they can't be reintroduced into the wild for various reasons (age, injury etc.) who we did get to see while they were being fed - they were very cute!  

During the feeding their handler told us about them and the wild population, one heartbreaking statistic was that when the handler started working with these penguins about 20 years ago there had been 2000 pairs on the island, now there was only 600 pairs. One had to wonder how much our (and all the others like us) visit to the island contributed to their decline. 

A penguin on a mission

Penguins!

Before the penguin feeding time we had time to walk around the island (on the beaches and boardwalk only, it's forbidden to leave them as it would upset the birds nesting on the island) where we say pelicans, cormorants, terns, skinks, and even a snoozing seal!

One of the local seals snoozing on Penguin Island

A curious skink on Penguin Island

After a fab picnic lunch and a snorkel in the island's sheltered bay we headed back across the water to Rockingham and Perth.  I'm told they do a 5 day kayaking safari up in Monkey Mia up north, I think that will have to be added to my list!

Christmas Down Under

It’s been four years since we left Reunion and settled down to life in the French city Toulouse within sight of the Pyrenees.  Since then Aurélie has been working away and I had been travelling back and forth with work.

 One Wednesday back in March last year as I was was preparing to fly out to join a project in Australia I got a call with the voice on the other end saying that the Australian borders were being shut at midnight on the Friday and there was no way to get a flight that would get me from France into Australia in time.  After saying "bugger" a few times we talked over the situation and agreed that we would just hang on until the boarders reopened in a few weeks or a month, two at the most and and I would jump on a plane then and fly out....

Cue five and a half months of waiting until, in August, the company I am working for  was able to get the paperwork organised to allow me to travel to Oz and after a false start (the airline cancelled my first ticket (economy class) so that they could sell an additional business class ticket) I was on a series of business class flights to Perth!

Stepping out of the the airport into the Perth springtime I had to immediately get onto a bus to be taken to  two weeks of strict quarantine in the faded luxury of the Regency Hotel, two weeks confined to my room with food being delivered to outside the door in paper bags... pretty relaxing really!

Anyway, since then I've been based in Perth working on a project up north in the Pilbara (where I am as I write this) while the rest of the family have remained behind in Toulouse.  It's not the first time that I've been away for a long but it was the first time that I missed Christmas at home with the family :(.

Which is all a long roundabout way of explaining how I ended up spending Christmas in Western Australia far from home!

I was lucky however as I'm working with a group of other international orphans one of whom was super organised a camping trip down south for Christmas which I joined along with!

Not having a vehicle here I decided to hire a camper van at Travellers-autobarn an Aussie van rental company that specialise in camper vans and to be honest I couldn't be happier with the van I got, not too big to drive easily and plenty big enough for one or two people (and a good bit comfier that the tents the others were in!).

My Christmas Home

The other orphans (two couples) packed up their cars and tents and on Christmas Eve we all headed down south of Perth to a campsite called Martins Tank where we spent a lovely Christmas in the sun enjoying the company, good BBQ food and the nearby Preston beach!  

A night time visitor

Traveling light (not!)

Christmas Lunch!

Before heading back to Perth I decided to take a tour of the South East coast, starting at a little place called Hamelin Bay with it's beautiful beach and crystal clear sea.  Then heading north, stopping every so often to make a note of something interesting that I resolved to come back to visit during my time here!

Hamelin Bay

It's tough being unable to get home at the moment but there are far worse places to be stuck in than WA so I count myself lucky and look forward to when we can travel internationally again - note I didn't to when things get back to normal, lets hope that the world takes the disruption that the pandemic has caused to change things for the better!