March Long Weekend

The Walker Family went camping north of Harvey at Dwellingup for the long weekend.  Nearby Dwellingup is a forest preserve with plenty of camping spots.  As this was a long weekend and thousands of Perthites were heading south to Margaret River to drink wine and watch a Michael Buble concert, we bucked the trend and decided to head north.

Tent spot at Nanga Mill

During our camping trip we enjoyed swimming in the Murray River, exploring the trees and bushtrails, finding neat spots like a fish ladder (hopefully the water levels return after this year's drought) and a rock slide.  Lane Poole Forest Reserve and the Dwellingup area are known for its hiking trails and canoeing routes - we hope to visit it again in a different season.

On the Sunday, we did a side trip to the city of Rockingham and its best known attraction, Penguin Island.  Just a short 5 minute ferry (or if you are brave a 500 or so metres wade across a sand bar - best to know your tides!) across to a little spit of sandy island where thousands of fairy penguins reside away from land predators.  Unfortunatly, they just finished their summer molting and were all out at sea fishing.  But, the Discovery Centre has daily feeding of a few rescued penguins.  Spent the rest our time walking around the island, enjoying the beaches and snorkelling.  Now we can say, we have been to the southern hemisphere and we saw penguins!



Penguin Island - view from up top.

  

Fairy Penguins - the world's smallest penguin.

 


Penguin Island - note the sand bar to mainland.



After one more sleep in the tent we stopped on our way home in Pinjarra and the local zoo.  Great to see more Australian animals, reptiles, and birds.  Plus this was a family friendly zoo with a many places open for the kids to feed and pet animals.  Caleb's favorite was the koala.  Collin's favorite was the Tasmanian Devil - just because I've never seen one before.  Jackson's was the roos.  Becky liked the deer and alpacas, because they ganged up on Collin and stole his animal food bag.

Listen closely to the video... as Caleb tells us he knows it's a boy!  Email us if you think you know how he figured that one out!?

 

Below are more animals at the zoo.  Note: Many Aussie mammals are noctural (and smart) - its too bloody hot in the daytime to do anything! So, just as you see with the wombat, many were sleeping.


Wombat.




Pink and grey Galah that bit Jackson.

 


Tassie Devil - always liked the cartoon version, but obviously different in real life.







Koalas are just naturally lazy!



Hungry Emu video.  Usually it just stuck its head into Collin's feed bag.