Make a Smilebox photobook

Half Year Mark Reached

In Jan. we reached our half year mark of being in Australia. It has gone quickly, but seems like forever since we have been home.
Australian's are mourning the loss of lives and property due to the fires in Victoria. The Australian's are pitching in and people all over the continent are giving to help the 7000 people left homeless. In all the bad of the fire one sweet animal rescue stands out as spectacular. A fireman spotted a koala walking raggedly along the burnt forest floor and stopped his truck as the poor koala gave up and sat. He quickly got a bottle of water for her and she eagerly drank the water. As she was easing her thirst she reached out and took the fireman's hand and continued to hold it until she finished drinking. She is now in a wildlife rehab clinic to recover from her burns. The national geographic website has put the rescue video on the web if you wish to see the fireman interact with the wild koala.

I wanted to include some photos of another island we went to, Rottnest. This place is facinating. It is a beautiful island with an unusual animal, a quoaka. It is a marsupial and looks like a big squirrel, beaver, kangaroo mix. The name of the island originated from the Germans who thought the quoakas were giant rats so they named the island "Rottnest" meaning 'rats nest'. The Aboriginals named the animals and the name remains.
Elise was facinated by the quoaka and spent most of her time watching and feeding them the leaves they eat. Mikaela also spent a fair bit of time watching the quoakas. See pictures below:


You can only access the island by boat(unless you are Nathan and are going to swim there, part of a four man team next Sat. more on that later.) There are no cars on the island. There is a store, theater, restaurants, hotels, campgrounds etc... but no cars or private dwellings. We brought our bikes on the boat and camped on the island. We snorkeled and saw some amazing sea creatures. There are reefs right by the island, causing many a ship to sink, but allowing for spectacular snorkeling right off the coast. Carson and Nathan made it on their bikes the entire circumference of the island and enjoyed fishing and biking.
It was nice not to worry about cars when we allowed them to take off. I will add a smilebox of the island pictures, it will probably appear before this set of text.
I can't believe we have been here for 6 months - we miss you all and hope you are well! (See below for a post about Penquin Island another island we visited.)

Make a Smilebox slideshow

Summer Vacation 2008-2009

Hi everyone,
We spent the kids holidays from school trying to do and see as much of Western Australia as we could. We found places we will never forget and got to spend time just enjoying everyday life in Australia.
On one adventure we went to Penguin Island, a small island off the coast, south of Perth. Here a population of Little Penguins (that's their actual name) live and breed. This is the only place they are found in Australia. You can walk to the island via a sandbar if you don't mind getting wet and having to swim a distance, otherwise you need to kayak there or take the ferry. The little penguins were molting when we were there, when you look at the pictures you can see the old feathers turned brown and fluffed out from the new black feathers. There are some native lizards to the island and they are large and harmless except to your picnic. Nathan had a fever the day we went and we left him with all our gear, picnic lunch etc... to rest under a tree while we went snorkeling and exploring. He covered himself with a towel and fell asleep. While we were away, and he was asleep, the lizards found our picnic lunch and began helping themselves to the food. When we got back one lizard was crawling over Nathan's face as he lay asleep guarding our belongings.

I have included a smilebox more pictures of Penquin Island - I dedicate all slideshow to Kyle, Carson's friend, from back home - who was an avid penguin enthusiast.