Au Revoir Perth

This week I visited an Island named after Penguins - there is genuinely no way whatsoever that this could end badly.

Penguin Island was by far the highlight of the trip so far. Located off the town of Rockingham, 45 minutes south of Perth, Penguin Island is home to Sea Lions, Dolphins, Birds, Lizards, and of course, Penguins - the smallest kind of penguin in the world I might add.

After having to wake up at 7 (ouch), I was picked up along with 13 others and taken to the picturesque Rockingham, weather was perfect at 38 degrees and there were barely any waves whatsoever which is always good when you're kayaking. After a quick meet and greet we paired up in the 2 man kayaks and went dolphin spotting. Apparently this is usually pretty difficult but we got lucky and met a mother and child after a couple of minutes, so I decided to get my money's worth out of my GoPro...

After another kilometre of kayaking (they use kilometres here and its confusing) we headed past another small island that housed tens of sea lions. We were told that usually they are pretty curious and tend to cause a bit of a splash but today they fancied lying in the sun and played dead - still cute though and we got pretty close so not a problem. I did try and get pictures but I was a bit too shaky and it came out crap.

Penguin Island itself was pretty stunning and ridiculously interesting - shout out to Alfie from Guernsey, our tour guide who knew everything and was a decent laugh - and gave you panoramic views for miles (miles not kilometres). After a really interesting tour and a few tourist pictures (hence the failed attempt of me trying to kiss the rock that looks like a dog) we had a penguin talk from the keepers on the island and watched them get fed - again, standard tourist. 

In the afternoon we had some free time and so I took the opportunity to go snorkelling for the first time in my life... Loved it. After the initial 10 minutes of struggling to understand how you can even breathe underwater without dying it was relatively easy and really enjoyable, will definitely be doing it again soon.

 After a fantastic day out and about I went back to my standard exploring and cricket for the rest of the week. After watching England narrowly beat India on Friday I got the luxury of watching us getting demolished by Australia 2 days later, lovely. Both games where interesting due to the fact I was essentially the sole English fan at both games, surrounded by 5,000 and 10,000 opposition fans respectively. Got given a lot of hefty looks, especially at the Australia game which created a decent atmosphere and a decent day out.

I leave you with two pictures, the first a firework shot from Australia day on Monday because everyone loves some fireworks. The second was the sunset of the city skyline on my last day in Perth on my way back home - stunning.

I am about to upload 100 odd photo's from Perth onto Facebook as I clear memory on my phone etc for the sights that I will soon see in Melbourne.

Hope you're all well! X