Rockingham

There is a quaint, little town just South of Perth called Rockingham that we decided to visit today. They have great wildlife and we really wanted to hire a kayak and just stroll around. Today, however, we had a cool front blowing in, so the winds were a bit too strong for us to kayak (especially by the end of the day); therefore, Jeremy and I decided to take the ferry across to Penguin Island and then take a boat ride to admire all the birds, underwater life (it was a glass bottom boat) and sea lions.

We really enjoyed watching the sea lions. They were all quite funny. Apparently, all the males come further south (to the Perth area) to eat so that the females can stay with their young up north (Geralton area, which is about 5 1/2 hours north of Perth) without having to travel so much for their food. Very interesting!


The "main attraction" are the smallest pequins in the world. They inhabit Penguin Island which has the largest colony of them in WA. In order to protect them as much as possible, there are 10 that live in captivity because of varies reasons they can no longer survive in the wild, so now the Department of Environment and Conservation take care of them and they are the ones you see in the pictures. They also help the ones that are in the wild not to be photographed or disturbed by humans as much. Quite cute little guys if you ask us. They were definitely fun to watch :-)


This cute little guy was moulting. They moult their feathers once every year. Apparently they eat as much as they can for about two weeks and that is what they live off for the week that they moult their feathers and then grow new ones in. Quite interesting!