Greetings from Cape Lodge in the heart of Margaret River.
It's been a pretty, pretty fantastic day! We left (sadly) the lovely Richardson Hotel at 0800 and drove the one hour south to Rockingham. Yesterday we were informed that the Ocean was too rough to go swimming (in the wild) with dolphins. I was quite miserable ... the feature would have looked awesome on the show.
Anyway, we met up with Terry Howson - who runs Rockingham Wild Encounters. His company runs the dolphin experience but also takes visitors over to Penguin Island. The journey - by ferry - takes two minutes ...
We arrived in time to meet Jane Dawson - "the penguin keeper" who I first interviewed about the "little penguin" (that's the species) aka blue penguin. They stand around 30 cm tall as adults ... and are VERY cute! Due to laws in Australia, I was not allowed to touch these birds ... okay ...
The penguins here are either orphans, abandoned or rescued penguins.
From there we jumped onto a glass-bottomed boat and went for a quick chug around the islands where we saw Australian sea-lions and pelicans. Both quite impressive.
We were just about to leave the island when three penguins came into the facility to weigh and name them! So, I DID get to play, cuddle and touch some Little Penguins! AWWWEEEEESOMMMMEEEE!
How happy were we? Ecstatic ...! After a fabulous lunch at the Wild Encounters Cafe, we jumped into the car and drove for 3 hours to Cape Lodge!
Lots of 80's, Beach Boys (Good Vibrations) and even Tim's dodgy iPhone selection kept us entertained.
The next few days are going to be exciting ... Cape Lodge and Margaret River look quite wonderful.
With my new friend - a Little Penguin!
Penguin Island
Great pelican shot ...
Jane and Tim the Penguin
