Australia, Part 2: Penguin Island

  Patrick booked us a kayak tour around Penguin Island and it turned out to be one of my favorite places we visited while we were in Australia. (If you know me, this comes as no surprise since penguins are my favorite animal.) Our main tour guide was pretty funny and amused us all day long. He picked us up in Freemantle in his van and we picked up several more people to make up our little group and drove to Rockingham. The wind was pretty strong and we had to kayak into it. I was in the front of our kayak with Patrick in the back controlling the rudder. It was definitely an interesting experience to say the least!

Come out, Piggy!

  We finally made it over to the first island which is home to many sea lions, but the wind was so strong that we didn't get to hang out and take pictures like our guide said he normally lets everyone do. Instead, we paddled on over to Penguin Island. Once we arrived, we started setting up for "morning tea". I love morning tea; I think America should definitely implement morning tea just to break up the morning and keep everyone happier. I know it would help us slow down and take a moment each day. Anyways, while we were setting up our tables for morning tea, one of the girls who worked at Penguin Island came over to us and said they were having an extra penguin feeding if we would like to go over and see it. However, our tour guide was adamant that "no, no, we are just fine having our morning tea right now and we will see the penguins at our scheduled time." I thought it was hilarious. The Aussies (at least our tour guide) take morning tea quite seriously!

Seagull eggs

  After morning tea was enjoyed, we headed in to see the Little Penguins. All of the little penguins that we saw are rescues even though Penguin Island used to be a huge habitat for the little penguins. Boardwalks were added around the island because the penguins make nests on the ground and they kept getting stomped on by people and have almost wiped out their population. There is only one male penguin named Piggy because one day he ate 250 fish in four hours during a show. Pretty impressive! Piggy wasn't yet awake for our show, even though one of the workers tried her hardest to coax him out of his nesting box with a fish.

  Once we had seen all of the little penguins, we ate our lunch and got ready to explore the island. The island should probably now be renamed Seagull island because they were everywhere. It also serves as a nesting grounds for pelicans. As we walked around, the seagulls were sqwaking at us as we neared any of the nests which were everywhere! We got to see the speckled eggs in the nests and all ages of seagulls. I think the fuzzy babies were the only type of seagulls I like. We made our way all around the island and finally got back in our kayaks towards the shore. The wind had finally calmed down and was at our backs which helped us have a very smooth ride in. I'm glad we took the kayak route to the island because there is a ferry that will drop people off on the island, but it was definitely cooler to be able to kayak back and forth.