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!
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| One of the seals on Seal Island (not the one who threw seaweed at us!) |
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| 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.
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| A penguin on a mission |
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| 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!
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| One of the local seals snoozing on Penguin Island |
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| 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!
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