Penguin Island

In the past week, I’ve gone to two super cool places. One of them is Penguin Island, and the other is Bells Rapids.

Penguin Island is actually really close to Rockingham and Shoalwater Bay, which I’d mentioned in a recent post. Penguins are very cute and also my best friend’s favorite animals, so I definitely wanted to check it out considering the last time I had seen penguins was in South Africa. I was chatting with my Estonia hostel-mates and they decided to join me on the trip. It was nice to explore with them.

We set off around 9am and took the Mandurah train line from Perth CBD down in the direction of Rockingham. We then hopped off the train and transferred to a bus that took us right by the visitor center for Penguin Island. Stopping to get some snacks first, we then went to the visitor center to buy our tickets.

This is currently penguin breeding season and unfortunately, the penguins have not been breeding. As a result of this, they are limiting visits to the island to only 45 minutes. Instead of going on hikes around the island, you can only go to the Discovery Center, where they care for injured/abandoned penguins. Instead, the visitor center employee convinced us to take a cruise which includes potential dolphin and sea lion sightings, as well as going to the Discovery Center for 45 minutes. Hell yeah!

It was nice to be on the water and it wasn’t long before we had dolphin sightings, which was really cool. I’d seen dolphins before in Florida and Hawaii but haven’t ever quite gotten solid pictures of them. And this time, there was even a baby dolphin which was super cute.

We also were able to see sea lions at a place called “Seal Rock,” which is quite incorrectly named since seals don’t really hang out there… just sea lions.

There’s also “Whale Rock,” which looks like a whale.

We arrived to Discovery Center at feeding time and one of the employees was telling us about the penguins as she was feeding them. One of the penguins is around 25 years old, which is the oldest little penguin in the world apparently!

After our visit with the penguins, we took the ferry back to the mainland and hung out at Shoalwater Bay for a couple of hours. It was really nice to lay in the sun and just relax. There was a dolphin that even swam by us as a couple times as we were laying out.

I’m looking forward to it getting warmer outside so I can have more beach days. I haven’t even snorkeled here yet, which I’m excited for. Rottnest Island is supposed to be excellent for snorkeling, so that will be on my list of things to do as it starts to heat up. It has been in the 60s during the day, occasionally low 70s, but in the next few weeks it should be heating up a lot.

And now… onto Bells Rapids!

Bells Rapids

My Australian friend picked me up a few days ago and we drove about 45 minutes northeast of the city to go do a hike at Bells Rapids.

People can even do white water rafting here and we saw some people in the rafts as we arrived. Actually, they may have just been kayaking since the water levels weren’t too crazy at this time of year.

The hike was lovely and not too strenuous. We saw some small spiders, heard some pretty birds, but mostly it was just a really nice hike with plenty of “grass tree” plants and good conversation with my friend.

We even saw a waterfall off in the distance but it was either on another trail, or inaccessible. Funnily, I hadn’t pictured waterfalls in Australia but they definitely exist!

Reflections: Push and Pull

I want to start adding a section for these posts that deal with just general updates… so I will begin that now. Reflections!

The main thing this week has been preparing for my new job. I can’t actually say what the company is due to my contract, but I’ll have two roles. One is a deckhand on a cruise vessel that goes around the Swan River, and the other is a catering/hospitality role. It will be interesting, because I’ve never done anything like this before. Hopefully I like it.

That said, I’ve had a lot to do to prepare. They require a number of certificates – Responsible Service of Alcohol, Senior First Aid, and Covid Hygiene.

All of these certificates cost time and money which threw me for a bit of a loop, but after talking with my Australian friends, I can apparently claim the cost back when tax season comes around.

The RSA and Covid Hygiene classes were online and easy enough, but Senior First Aid was a little more daunting. I had to do an online portion and then had to go in for a four hour class where we had to be assessed by the instructor (a former marine and overall very cool, educational woman). While I was a little worried I wouldn’t pass, and that the class would be overwhelming… it ended up being a really cool experience. I feel a lot more confident doing CPR on somebody if necessary, and even handling snake bites and bandaging wounds. Hopefully, I won’t need to, but it’s a good skill to have.

I also had to go into my job for a uniform fitting. I have a bunch of different outfits since I have two roles. The catering role has two outfits per shift, and the deckhand has two outfits per shift. I’ll be doing a lot of wardrobe changes haha. The deckhand outfit is really cute. I also was surprised to find I have to pay for some of the outfits. I have spent all this money on clothes and certifications and haven’t even had my first day yet! I start on Tuesday, so we’ll see how it all goes down. I’m really hoping I love it.

I think at the moment, I’ve been feeling a bit of a “push and pull” – as highlighted by the header. What I really want is to be on the move. To keep exploring, keep experiencing new things every day… but I want to be in Australia for a while still, and getting a job out here (in a new, interesting field of work) will really help me supplement that.

And while I want to be constantly exploring, I also want to settle down in Perth for the moment. I’ve made some friends and want to see what it’s like living and working in a new place. I believe I mentioned before, but my plan is to stay in Western Australia for half the year, then go to Eastern Australia for the other half. Then head to Asia from there. I am flexible, though. We’ll see how it all pans out. I think right now I am feeling a hesitation to settle down, but if I want to stay here for a while, that’s what I’ll have to do.

Another interesting development is that I’m going to be renting a room from my friend. He has been wanting to convert his office into a spare bed and he’s started making the transition and offered me to rent it out from him, with no commitment. It could be a week or two or however long (within reason). So I think I’ll be making that move in the first couple weeks of October, which will be such an upgrade from being in a hostel.

I also heard my FIRST American accent since being here, while I was walking to my uniform fitting. I had to ask her if she was American and sure enough… she was from New York, so we were chatting for a bit. It was such a nice treat to hear after three weeks of being here with no American accents whatsoever.

I’ve also been finding it kind of hard to connect with people back home. Both parties are trying, but having the time zone change really interrupts the style of communication, which is a bummer. It’s only temporary while I’m traveling, but it is weird that my family and friends are sleeping for the majority of the hours I’m awake and vice versa.

And lastly… to share some fun slang I’ve enjoyed hearing.

Are you keen? = Are you interested?
Heaps = A bunch
Do you reckon? = Do you think?
He’s cooked = He’s fucked up (on meth, because it’s a huge problem here in Perth lol)
He’s a troll = He’s gross

And one of my favorite expressions I’ve heard, from my friend… “I’d rather shit in my hands and clap” hahahahaha.

I think that’s it for now. Lots of stuff to catch up on. I feel like this is half travel blog, half journal.

By next week’s post, I will have started my job. So we’ll see if I love it or I hate it or somewhere in-between.

Sending you all my love, and also this drawing of a kangaroo paw that I made!