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.

They Will Not Be Forgotten

Australia, Part 1

  I am catching up and finally have made it into September and October when I went over to visit Patrick in Australia and BRING him BACK! :) Patrick had been living in Perth, which is in Western Australia, since the middle of May. I was able to get to Perth when he was at the end of his time there and we stayed in the city for about a week before heading over to Sydney.

Getting ready for Australia--Mom helped me narrow down my options :)

View going towards LA

  Let me just say one thing, if you ever get the chance to go to Australia (and I don't care when or for how long), DO IT! Don't hesitate, but immediately figure out the funding and go! I was blown away by the country and would absolutely jump in a second to move over there. It's really hard to describe why I loved it so much, but I just did. Aussies are very laid back and seem to be more simplified. Plus, as one of our cab drivers told us, every Australian has some form of water transportation, whether it be a kayak, a yacht, or a speedboat.

Entrance to Kings Park

Now, the only bad part about going to Australia was the flight getting there. I left on September 26 around 7pm Atlanta time, flew to LA then to Sydney and finally to Perth. I arrived in Perth on Friday, September 28 in the afternoon (Perth is 12 hours ahead of Atlanta). 

Beautiful tree in Kings Park

Overlooking the city center from the park

Perth

  I can't remember which days we did what, but one of the first things we did was to go to Kings Park which was a short bus ride away from Patrick's rental house (which was pretty sweet, if I say so myself). His building was actually right across from the entrance to the park and even though it was winter when Patrick was down there, there were still some nice days where he could go and enjoy lunch on the benches there. In Atlanta, we have Piedmont Park, which is gorgeous, but man, oh, man, this park is much larger and full of flowers and trees native to Australia. The park doesn't have a huge open area like Piedmont, but it has winding trails, great views of the city down below, and it did have a small area where musicians can entertain guests and there were even food trucks!

the Swan created for the millenium

Fountains in Kings Park

Free concerts in the park

View of the city

Patrick's favorite tree

The black building on the far right was Patrick's building (right across from the park!)

  One day, we rode a ferry to Rottnest Island (about 30 minute ferry ride) for the day and it was amazing!! Now I must admit that the start of the trip was a little rocky as we were late leaving the dock because the captain decided to wait on some people and then as soon as we started actually moving, we suddenly turned around! I was flabbergasted, but apparently there were more people who had shown up late and wanted to ride, so we turned around and picked up several more people. It's just the Aussie way, but this crazy American was a little impatient. However, once we finally got to the island, it was wonderful! Patrick and I met up with Ashley and her boyfriend, Matthew, once we got to the island and we rode on our rented bikes all over the island on the roads. My bike was really loud and not as smooth as everybody else's, but we had a great time.

Rottnest Island

Perth far away on the horizon

  Everyone started bringing in their boats into this little alcove, where we laid out for a couple of hours on the beach before touring the island again by bike. We saw a guy from Texas get bitten by a shark (it was really small like a little baby) on the ankle when he was trying to wade out and get his frisbee in the water and saw two seals frolicking around too. The group from Texas got really excited to see fellow Americans and invited us to first just hang out with them on their boat to spend the weekend with them on the island. We politely declined as the wife of the guy working as an engineer with the oil rigs was wallowing pregnant on a blown up raft on the beach (not in the water, but on the sand). Patrick tried to snorkle out to see them, but they were too fast for him. The water was much too cold for me to hop in there, but Patrick said he didn't think it was too bad (yeah right!).

A Quokka

Beautiful beach

Biking around the island

  After we finished biking the island (I put my foot down as I was starving!!), we ended up at a little cafe overlooking the main "port" of the island. Patrick and I shared some fish and chips and Ashley and I split a bottle of wine. (We had decided we deserved that wine as we had biked so far around the island!) We enjoyed a leisurely late lunch and were greatly amused by this little quokka (they are supposed to be nocturnal little guys, but this one obviously was smarter than most and figured out when the people eat, so should he). Not only did the quokka run back and forth under our feet, but we were surprised by a small child crawling after the quokka as well. It was quite a spectacle that made us laugh. It was also amusing to us that the same Texans we had met on the beach earlier found us at the restaurant! They tried to get us to spend the night on the island again, but we told them we were going to keep our tickets to return to Fremantle in the afternoon. They were very nice people and I'm sure they were just excited to hang out with Americans, but it was hilarious to us!

A Quokka trying to eat some of our fish and chips

Leaving Rottnest

Looking to the right where one of the lighthouses is located

The best seats in the house

Watching the bikes being loaded and the next group of people ready to leave the island

All the bikes on the back of the ferry

Perth far, far away

Little Creatures Brewery in Fremantle

  Once we made it back to Fremantle (Freo--apparently, Australians like to use abbreviations for most everything), we walked around for a while until we found this gelato place Patrick loved. It was pretty good, but we found even more divine gelato in Sydney, but I'll talk more about that later. Ashley and Matt were eating at Little Creatures Brewery and we grabbed a drink with them before heading back to Perth where we met up with one of Patrick's coworkers, Brandon, who cooked us a fantastic dinner!! He surprised me with kangaroo (kind of like steak), lamb, steamed veggies, and smashed sweet potatoes. It was absolutely delicious and it was wonderful getting to know him! Brandon, if you come across this, I expect to see you in Atlanta in the new year! Up next will be one of my favorite places we visited--Penguin Island! :)

Labor Day Weekend

Taco Mac with Em and Al

  I have already talked about the Big Peach Sizzler that I ran on Labor Day (best PR for a 10k then), but I failed to mention that some of my best friends came into town too! Emily drove up from Florida and Katie drove down from Nashville to come to the season opener for Auburn versus Clemson. Though the game was a total bust, we had a great time together! 

Mimosas on Saturday morning

Nosebleed section

Lovely Allison

Ashley, Katie, Allison, me, and Elizabeth

War Eagle!

  Of course, we ate at Tin Lizzy's and then once we got home on Sunday night, none of us could sleep so Emily, Katie, and I all stayed up talking. We even called Kate and made her reminisce about our old apartment in Auburn and lots of our memories since we couldn't convince her to come down from D.C. We even practiced some Pinterest hairdos (the waterfall, shown below). And we completely wore Wrigley out! I miss my girls so much, but the weekend turned out pretty wonderful (well, of course, not including the game)!