Mornington Peninsula Weekend Part I

The Mornington Peninsula is Southeast of Melbourne, about an hour and a half away. We spent the weekend camping there with friends (Adam/Emily, Nigel/Kristy, Todd/Alena), and we had a great time. For $30 a night, you can reserve a campsite on the foreshore, which means that this was our awesome view when we set up camp on Friday night.

After setting up camp, we brought some drinks and music down to the beach (a one minute walk from our tent!) and watched the sun go down.

On Saturday morning, we headed to Portsea Surf Beach on the ocean side of the peninsula (we were camping on the bay side). We had a nice hot day, so we practiced our surfing and hung out on the sand.

We also had some beach games going, such as cricket. Todd is showing off his baseball skills here (six of the eight of us on this trip were Americans!).

The whole reason I originally organized this trip was because I had bought a Groupon for a boat ride that lets you swim with seals and dolphins. So on Saturday afternoon, Zack and I headed to Sorrento Pier to catch our boat. We first stopped at a snorkeling spot where you can sometimes see leafy sea dragons, but we couldn't find any. I did find this big carp at the bottom though.

There were some other fish, like these black and white ones (I don't know what type they are), but overall, the water was pretty cloudy and didn't have much.

Next, we headed out in search of the dolphins. I was excited about this part of the trip, because I don't think I've ever actually seen a dolphin (maybe one at a distance once-I forget).

They couldn't find the dolphins, so they took us to view these birds (called gannets) in the Pope's Eye area. They were pretty, but they weren't dolphins!

The fuzzy one in the middle is a baby.

Then we boated around some more, looking for the dolphins. They still couldn't find them, so we went to go check out the seals. Less than five minutes after I had gotten in the water, they decided the waves were too choppy and called everyone back to the boat. I got close to this structure, but only for a minute or two. We never did find the dolphins, so they gave us a voucher for 50% off our next visit. Major bummer. The whole boat trip was kind of a bust, and I wish we had just stayed at the beach with our friends!

On Saturday night, we all headed to the Dromana Drive-in Cinema to see Pitch Perfect. We enjoyed a beautiful sunset, some drinks, and a few ice cream treats while waiting for the show to start. Wrapped in a sleeping bag while sitting in a camp chair and drinking a cider was the perfect way to watch this cheesy (yet funny and cute) movie.

So that was the start of our weekend in the Mornington Peninsula. My next post will be about our Sunday activities.

Emily, Alena, Kristy, and me (the gals on the trip). I think our husbands were busy eating ice cream (at least mine was!)

Life on a Longtail

On one of our days in Koh Phi Phi, we took a full day longtail boat tour. The first stop was Monkey Island, where we got out and fed the monkeys and took pictures of them. Some of the bigger ones were quite aggressive and kind of scary! The one to the left has a baby; see it?

The next stop was for some snorkeling. It was here that our little "waterproof" camera went kaput. Here is one of the final shots I got from it. The snorkeling couldn't compare to the Great Barrier Reef, but it was still pretty awesome. 

We then went to Maya Bay. This is where the movie The Beach (with Leonardo diCaprio) was filmed. Though it was pretty crowded with tourists, including several longtail and regular boats, it was still gorgeous. The whole bay is surrounded with giant green limestone cliffs; you almost can't believe a place like this exists in real life.

The next stop was Bamboo Beach (I think). We may have done some more snorkeling first. Anyway, this beach was the most unbelievably beautiful beach I have ever seen (or probably ever will see) in my life. We shared the white sand and crystal clear warm water with just a few other people for a couple of hours, and it was heaven; I could have stayed there forever!








After some more snorkeling and the viewing of another beach with monkeys, we hung out on the boat and waited for the sun to go down. Another beautiful sunset was the perfect way to end our day on the longtail boat!

Zack is living the life at Maya Bay!

Rottnest Island

On Valentine's Day, we took a ferry over to Rottnest Island. It took about half an hour to get there from Fremantle, and it was beautiful! Cars aren't allowed on the island, so we rented bikes and took our snorkeling gear to a place called Parker Point. On the way, we saw some of the native quokkas, marsupials that are only found in certain areas of Western Australia.

Once again, we were quite impressed by the snorkeling. My little camera with its plastic waterproof case doesn't take the best of pictures, but hopefully you can get the idea of some of the fish we saw (more are posted on my Shutterfly site). The farther out we went, the better the coral got, the bigger the fish got (we saw some huge ones), and the more scared we got about encountering a shark!

Zack relaxes at Parker Point.

Covered in the white powdery sand!

Now this is the way to spend Valentine's Day!

A small bluebottle jellyfish on shore.

After hanging out at Parker Point for awhile, we headed to Little Salmon Bay, because I had heard the snorkeling there was good too. We saw a few bluebottle jellyfish on shore, but we took our chances and headed out anyway. By the way, blue bottle jellyfish are called Portuguese man o'wars in other parts of the world. Anyway, we both felt a few small stings on our legs while we were in the water, but the fish and coral were awesome, so we kept swimming. Zack headed back into shore after a bit, but I stayed out there and swam out in the deeper water.

As I was coming back into shore, I saw a jellyfish in the shallow water and swam away from it. Apparently I swam right into one, because suddenly my neck was burning! I stood up and started throwing everything off...the camera that was hanging around my neck, my snorkeling gear, etc. Luckily, Zack was standing on shore watching me (because he was afraid I was going to get attacked by a shark in the deep water!), so he ran out when he saw me sort of freaking out. "My neck!" I yelled, and he saw a jellyfish wrapped around my neck, tangled in my braids and swimsuit! He had to pull it off of me. It must have been around my right shoulder and upper arm, because that was burning as well. After he got it off of me, I ran up on shore and held a towel around me saying "ow, ow, ow" for about five minutes. The pain felt like when you have a really bad sunburn and somebody touches it. Imagine that but constant! The next five minutes felt more like a bee sting, and then it started itching. The next day, it still itched and hurt again when I took a shower. A week later, I still have red marks on the back of my neck and wound around my upper right arm. Fun stuff!

Zack washes off my snorkel equipment at Little Salmon Bay after my jellyfish attack.

Luckily, we needed to return the bikes and catch our ferry back to Perth soon after our time at Little Salmon Bay anyway, so we left after my jellyfish stings. I guess I learned my lesson about going in the water if you see those darn bluebottles on the beach!

Rottnest Island was a beautiful tropical paradise (minus the jellyfish) and a great place to spend Valentine's Day. We had a leisurely ferry ride back to Perth, where we had a nice Italian dinner and walked around the city a bit before heading to the airport for our overnight flight home. A long weekend in Western Australia was a wonderful break in the middle of February!

A view of Perth from our ferry back from Rottnest Island.

Yallingup and Fremantle

On our Monday in Western Australia, we spent the day at Yallingup Beach. There were several surfers, and we rented surfboards, but we weren't good enough to hang with the pros who were surfing on the huge waves over the reef. So we swapped in our surfboards for boogie boards, but the waves that weren't over the reef were crashing right on the beach, which left us basically no room to ride. So we used the boards as beach beds instead. Oh well! Here you can see Zack relaxing on his board trying not to get too much sun.



We did enjoy the snorkeling on the reef at this beach. While nothing will ever compare to the Great Barrier Reef, we were able to see some pretty awesome fish and even some decent coral. Keep in mind that this is shark country. On nearby beaches, four men have been killed in shark attacks in recent months, including one American expat! Yikes-we did get a little scared when we were snorkeling out in the deeper water.

That night, we drove to Fremantle to stay the night at a neat hotel attached to an Irish pub called Rosie O'Grady's. Fremantle is a cute little town right on the ocean and about thirty minutes away from Perth. It had several blocks of fun little shops and restaurants. We ate at a Mexican place, and it was actually pretty good (which is rare for Australian Mexican food). Check back tomorrow for a blog post about our last day in WA!