Clockwise Around Aus: wildlife

Showing posts with label wildlife. Show all posts

Sunday, 13 November 2016

Busselton, the Jetty and the Underwater Observatory

Busselton is referred to as the premier holiday destination for WA in loads of the information brochures. I think that's because of the direction the beach faces, so it is very sheltered from the almost constant (at this time of year) winds. All I knew about Busselton is that it has the longest timber jetty in the Southern Hemisphere and an Underwater Observatory at the end. I don't want to offend or upset anyone but I don't see why it is quite so wonderful and why the caravan parks ask so much. It is a nice enough town, but I didn't find it as pretty or as appealing as some other places we have seen or stayed on our travels. We didn't have swimming weather so we didn't get to enjoy the beautiful beach/bay, so perhaps that clouded my impressions a bit.

The accommodation at Busselton is very expensive, with most of the numerous caravan parks wanting over $65/night for us to stay, and one wanting $89/night. Admittedly it does look pretty special with its 3-4 pools, one of which is heated and one with a giant waterslide, but we aren't on holidays and that was way too rich for us! We headed slightly out of town to stay at the Adventist Camp. It is just like a caravan park but without all the bells and whistles, but the showers were hot (although they do have a 5 minute timer!) and we had power and water, the kids had a playground and it's right on the beach.

Given that all I knew about Busselton was the long jetty and Underwater Observatory, we had to do both of those. The ticket for the Observatory also includes a ride on the train along the jetty, which of course made Rory's day. The train is pretty cool and it was much nicer to catch that than try to walk the 1.8km jetty with Rory, especially as it only has a rail on one side. Rory also has a tendency to just stop walking when he's had enough and I think Greg or I would have had to carry him most of the way.

I loved the Underwater Observatory. I just love reefs and the fish they attract. The jetty is so long because Geographe Bay is so shallow. At 1.8km out from shore it is still only 8m deep. The jetty pylons are covered in coral, sponges etc and there are so many pretty and colourful fish that swim amongst them all. We saw quite a lot of fish, a starfish, crabs and an octopus. The octopus was pretty hard to spot, and the young lady running our tour pointed him out to us. There are windows at 4 different levels of the Observatory so you can see the differences in plant and fish species as you descended to the sea floor.

Sydney 3328km away

And this is just for Tilda to remember: the Busselton Maccas has a very awesome playground. I've got to admit, I wished I were a kid again so I could go and play in it. The half-clear slides were pretty cool and pretty fast.

Tuesday, 8 November 2016

Rottnest Island

When I was in Year 3 we were given an assignment on an Australian animal based on a letter of the alphabet. I was given the letter Q and I remember telling my teacher, Miss Harris, that there weren't any animals that started with Q. She told me about Quokkas, so that's what I did my project on. When I was in Yr 6 my family did a 6 week trip to Perth and back and part of that was a trip to Rottnest Island to see the Quokkas. I remember really enjoying the island then and thinking the quokkas were awesome, so I was pretty keen to introduce my kids to them as well.

Rottnest Island was great! The kids fell in love with the quokkas, with Rory wanting to bring one home with him, and the whole island is very beautiful. We caught the bus, rather than taking or hiring bikes, as we would have needed a seat or trailer for Rory and it all seemed rather complicated. While I think it made it easier for us, I do think we missed out on a lot as we couldn't just pop in to the different beaches and lookouts. We were constrained by the bus stops and, while the buses went every 30 minutes, a couple of times of waiting and there goes an hour or more. I feel like we didn't have enough to time truly enjoy and explore the Island and would love to go back again and stay on the Island to truly enjoy all it offers.

We weren't sure what the quokka finding situation would be like, if we would have to go hunting for them or what the go was. There is no concern about not seeing them as there are quite a lot that hang around the small collection of shops that sit together near the wharf. There were quokkas sleeping, hopping about and eating food out of people's hands and off the ground. The grocery shop has plastic barrier doors to stop the quokkas from entering. Tilda and I had a great time imagining all of the things a quokka would get up to, and all of the tasty treats it would try, if it managed to sneak into the shop.

There are lots of beautiful, sheltered beaches and bays and many of them looked like they would be wonderful places to snorkel. Greg had looked at the weather and it was going to be 21 degrees and pretty windy so we hadn't bothered to bring our swimmers or snorkelling gear, but the water looked so beautiful I think I would have been tempted to go in, no matter how cold it was.

There are 2 lighthouses on the Island. We ran out of time to climb the one in the middle and I was disappointed about that. I think it would have been great to be able to climb up and look at the whole Island and its surrounding water. We did check out the one closer to the town, but you can't go in it and poor Rory was so disappointed as we had told him we would go to the other lighthouse.

The Wadjemup Lighthouse (the one you can climb in the middle of the Island)

There is a place where you can see New Zealand Fur Seals. As we were walking to it, I could see some rocks off shore and I wondered how hard it would be to spot them, or if they would even be on the rocks in the middle of the day. Once we got to the look out, there was no wondering any more... there were about 10 -15 just playing about in the shallows right below us, floating on their backs, sleeping and (not seriously) fighting. That was very exciting and not something I had expected to see. I could have stayed and watched them for ages but I didn't want to miss the next bus.

We had 6 hours on the Island and it really wasn't enough. Perhaps on bikes it might have been, but using the Island bus, it just wasn't enough and I am already planning to go back and stay on the Island one day.

Tuesday, 25 October 2016

Rainbow Jungle, Kalbarri

Rainbow Jungle is a tourist attraction and is Australia's Parrot Breeding Centre. It is filled with many native Australian parrots, as well as some exotic species. Tilda loves birds, and we took hundreds of photos, hence this gets its own blog post. If you are ever in this part of WA I thoroughly recommend spending the money ($44/family) to check out this place. We spent 3.5 hours there, enjoying a lovely lunch at the onsite cafe, as well as all the birds. About half of our time was spent in the open aviary where around 100 native birds are free to fly around. There are nesting boxes and bird-built nests scattered throughout the space and if you take your time and look carefully among the plants you are rewarded with so many different birds, doing what birds do. There are bird feeding dishes filled with seeds and fresh fruit pieces, and you can see lots of the parrots on these. They are not tame, by any means, despite having people visiting regularly and I like that because it feels much more natural. I got to see some birds here that I had hoped to see in the wild, but that we hadn't seen, like the Princess Parrot.

The photos are a mix of Tilda's and mine and I am so proud of how well she did. I think I have the bird's names right, but some may not be.