Penguin Island

Its a small island situated off the coast southwest of Perth. Visitors are strictly prohibited from being on the island except during specified daylight hours from mid-September to early June. This means that only a small population of captive penguins can be viewed. However, there are many other sights including nesting seabirds and a 500-strong colony of pelicans.

Whats most interesting is the 700m long sand bar that links Rockingham(mainland) to the island itself.

On days with high tide, the sand bar is totally submerged.

However, on days with low tide, you can actually walk on it!!! Its around knee height at best.
However, the risk of being swept away by the tide is there. Coupled with the gust winds and unpredictable waves, its no wonder many sand-bar walkers lose their lives while attempting to walk to the island. haha.

For me, I'd rather pay a few dollars for the ferry ride over. LOL

The sand bar creates a stretch of shallow water in the area. This means that fish swimming from one side of the sand bar to the other will have to swim quite close to the surface of the water in order to cross over the bar.
Thus, its a perfect spot for birds-of-prey to hunt for their food.
The moment they see a fish near the surface, they will dive in to grab it.

Kite-boarders nearby having fun:

Weird looking building near the coast. Its actually a hotel.

How to celebrate Australia Day (Part 2)

For most other Australians, Australia day is a public day to chill out, have some gatherings/BBQs and watch the firework display.

Air show and water display started since noon on Swan river.
Roads are condoned off to make way for several street performance
As night falls, pple start to gather along the banks of the river to wait for the fireworks display to start.
Come of them started camping/ BBQ-ing as early as noon.
At 8pm....








Great 20min firework display, with Perth's city landscape as the backdrop...

How to celebrate Australia Day (Part 1)

Australia Day falls on 26th Jan.
It is a day which Prime Minister Julia Gillard will never forget - She ganna attacked by a group of aboriginals protesters during a prize ceremony event in Canberra.

Julia got dragged to safety by her security team:



She lost a shoe along the way:

One of the protesters holding on to the lost shoe... haha.. (sounds like a Cinderella story...)

Haha, so 狼狈

Chinese New Year Feast

Reunion dinner dishes:
Salmon-covered Yu Sheng


Sharks Fin soup


Seafood: Lobster/crab etc...

bla bla bla...

Not too bad... There's a lot of good chinese food in Perth.

Happy Lunar New Year to all!

Boat Fishing

Ben's (Johnny's friend) boat:

Launched off from Hiliary's Harbour


Bad day.... fished for 2 hours without a single bite...


Ended up taking pics instead...
Check out the cute "sea-dog" on the boat.

Garden Island

Another island off the coast of Rockingham. Long and slim in shape.
Nothing much to blog about this place as it is a restricted island used as a Navy base.
The most interesting thing is this 4.7km bridge which links the island to the mainland...
which I UNFORTUNATELY am only able to view from the mainland side...

Security check-pt:
Posing around some monument (on the mainland side of course)

Cape Peron @ Rockingham

In an attempt to get a better view of Garden Island (restricted access) from mainland, we drove to the edge of Rockingham and walked up to the highest viewing point.



At the top, we found this old bunker. Probably used as a lookout point to search for enemy ship approaching.

Splendid 360 degree view..




Very strong wind that day. Coupled with the slope along the coast, the onshore wind produced a good updraft. Great day for flying PK's glider:
(Its the pink model plane in the middle of the pic)