Waiting for the Dolphins
Trip Start
Feb 03, 2008
1
8
33
Trip End
Aug 16, 2009
Bunbury,
Australia
Thursday, May 8, 2008
I smell the beach and from it my childhood. Salt air used to make me cry, it smelled so much like home to me.
The sun lights up Koombana Bay in front of us, and I trick my eyes into seeing the dolphins at every rise and fall of the morning water.
A cormorant sits on a buoy a hundred yards away and taunts us with his wings spread. Is he warning the dolphins away? I wonder.
Marilyn falls asleep on the sandy planks of the boardwalk from the Dolphin Discovery Center to this stretch of the beach, where the dolphins either by training or habit are said to come every morning to fish along the shallows, and, at the same time, make handfuls of early-rising tourists extremely happy.
Just our bad luck that, while we spent two stunningly beautiful early mornings on the beach in Bunbury, the dolphins decided they weren't hungry.
Dan had come to see the dolphins years before, before he had moved away from Australia. Chasing 10-year old memories, and, to be honest, fueled by the promise of a shop that sold emu meat pies, we set off before daylight from Mandurah to drive the one and half hours to Bunbury
Bunbury sky
. The sun started to show itself about thirty minutes into our drive so we pulled off the highway for awhile to try to photograph the sun over a reservoir or lake we were passing.
Then, when we got to Bunbury, we passed the entrance to the discovery center without knowing it and got distracted watching a flock of about 25 pink and gray galahs cavort around and on a street pole. The variety and beauty of the common parrots in Australia astounds me.
However, these two stops cost us a morning with the dolphins. When we got there, the discovery center staff told us the dolphins had already come and gone. It was now 8 a.m.
We went down to the beach for awhile anyway, hoping that the dolphins would come back (the helpful but doubtful volunteer staff at the discovery center told us that they might), and then decided to try again another day.
On the way back we did find the emu pie place, and it was the promise of eating the pies again that next week pulled us and Dan's mom and stepdad out of bed early for another drive down to look for the dolphins.
This time we drove straight to the discovery center, arriving so early it hadn't opened yet. We finally figured out how to get down to the beach through the public park a few hundred yards away instead.
Birds flitted around the sand dunes that separated the beach from the road and gave us something to watch along with the ever-brightening clouds as the morning progressed.
I scanned the bay with the zoom on a camera and did manage to find one dorsal fin of one dolphin, but no one else believed me, even when I showed them
Look close...it's a dolphin
. At nine thirty breakfast became a priority over the dolphins, and we drove into Bunbury town and did a little shopping at the local bookstores before heading back to Mandurah and the Peel Zoo.
Disappointed about not seeing the dolphins, Dan and I still had hope for another place I had read about in the tourist literature I had picked up from our car rental company. Penguin Island seemed to be an interesting place from the brochure, but no one we talked to had thought it was of much consequence.
It turned out to be my favorite sight on our whole trip to Australia this time.
Penguin Island is known, of course, for its penguins. The Australian variety of penguin is much smaller than its southern, ice-dwelling brethren. It also has deep blue feathers-black or gray, but blue in sunlight. They call this penguin the little penguin, or with that twist of uniquely Australian lingo, the fairy penguin. (Australia is also home to fairy lights, fairy floss and fairy bread, all of which continue to mystify me.)
The island is a bird refuge which has about 10 rescued penguins living in captivity. This is the main attraction, but at the time we were there the seagulls and pelicans were also nesting. A small five-minute ferry ride takes visitors to the island from the mainland.
The seagulls swooped nervously over the dock and boardwalk to the penguin enclosure, trying to guard their pitifully exposed blue and gray eggs.
After picking on the seagulls for awhile by taking pictures of their eggs, we went to the afternoon feeding of the penguins
Bunbury Beach flower
. The captive penguins live in a small building. In the center of the building there's a small swimming pool with exposed, glass walls and a rock feature in the back. Around the pool is a sandy track and more rocks as well as the penguins' nests. And around that is a wooden viewing platform for penguin enthusiasts.
The attendant wears a park uniform and sits on a camp stool to feed the penguins out of a bucket. The penguins are shy at first and hide in their wooden boxes that serve them as nests. The attendant walks around the enclosure and then they know it's time to eat so they waddle out of their nests and run around the enclosure with the attendant walking after them to give them some exercise. Then she sits down and they gather at her feet, ready to feed.
Their food is small baitfish, of a few different kinds. The attendant tells us that some of the penguins are so picky that they won't eat some kinds of fish at all, so they have to be careful to have enough in the bucket that all of them can get their fill.
One penguin seems to be kind of a loner, and remains in the pool, swimming in circles while the others go up to the attendant and take the small fish from her fingers with greedy beaks. She throws a few live fish into the pool and the penguin dives through the water so quickly it's hard to believe it's the same species as the adorably ungainly penguins ruffling their watertight feathers and waddling back to their nests.
After the feeding was over Dan and I left his dad to enjoy a pipe while we walked around the island. On the headland a path was blocked to allow the nesting pelicans some privacy, so we continued down to a small but perfect beach on the other side. The Australian coastline itself is so beautiful I'm amazed that Aussie tourists go to Bali or Thailand on beach vacations.
Walking back to the other side where Karl and the ferry were ready to go back to the mainland for the last trip of the night, some other tourists told us that some wild penguins were either nesting or hiding under the boardwalk. We knelt down and watched them for awhile, but they were clearly frightened so we soon left to wade in the water and wait for the ferry.
In all, three perfect days along the Indian Ocean, waiting for and finally watching sea life.
