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Question: there is a request to write the blog in Flemish. I know several non-Flemish speakers were following us in the beginning. If they are still reading, we will of course continue in English. So, pls leave a quick comment or send me a mail if you want to keep it in English. If we dont get any, we will swap to Flemish.
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Day 13 - Pinnacles Desert and Yanchep National Park
Day 14 - Fremantle prison and Penguin Island
Day 15 - Margaret River Wine Region

3 days at once to be talked about so I will keep the reflections a bit shorter than usual to prevent you from having to take half a day off and me from having to spend the rest of the evening writing :-) And there is a lot to talk about: being attacked by seagulls, seeing koalas, Olivia virtually part of a kangaroo family, a meet-and-greet with the local penguin community, strange rock formations (version 3), the most beautiful beaches in Oz, Doing time in the toughest prison of Australia and finally, sipping excellent Malbec and eating great food.

So, where do we start? 2 days ago when we decided to go for a day trip out of Perth to see a to-date still unexplained geological phenomenon and some great fauna. That geological phenomenon is called "The Pinnacles", another fantastic type of rock formations. You remember Uluru? 1 giant rock sticking out of a flat surface, about 3,6km long? Right, do you remember Kata-Tjuta? 36 rocks sticking out, still big but less big than Uluru? Right. And now The Pinnacles: thousands of rocks sticking out of the surface but never higher than 3 metres. Quite an amazing sight and rightfully called a highlight of WA.

The same day we went to Yanchep National Park where we got to see loads of wildlife. We saw quite some wildlife on the road as well by the way, mostly kangaroos, all dead (except one which we saw jumping in the wildflower fields), roadkill. Not that unexpected if you see that the highway runs right through the middle of a natural park... But so, loads of wildlife af Yanchep. We saw koalas! Pretty boring animals actually (during the day): sleeping and scratching themselves, that is it. Then the family of kangaroos was much more exciting: Olivia was able to walk almost between them while they were eating grass. And we can now confirm: small kangaroos are indeed carried in their mom's belly. We saw several two-headed kangaroos :-). Also spotted some nice birds which were harder to photograph.

Day 14 started with Fremantle Prison. Called the toughest prison in Australia, active since 1850 until 1991, closed because too inhumane... Still with the same facilities for the prisoners in 1991 as in 1850: a bucket for toilet (shared with your fellow inmate for 16 hours per day) and no electricity in the cell. The "yard" was made of concrete, in the plain sun (when it is 40 degrees, it is 55 in the yard) and up to 150 criminals would spend 8 hours per day in there. It was about 30*10 metres. 5 toilets, at the back of the yard. 1 (!!) guard, at the front of the yard, protected behind bars, seeing probably just the 10 guys standing right in front of him. Guards would only interfere for life-threating fights, if they could see them at all...

The contrast to our afternoon activity could not have been bigger: Penguin Island, an island full of little furry penguins (only that type, "Little Penguin", is on the island) with a feeding of 11 previously injured penguins that you could watch. The penguin feeder was crazy about Olivia ("beautiful blue eyes!!"), Olivia about the penguins and the penguins about their food.
Just when you would expect all the horror from Fremantle Prison to be out of our day, came the real horror: we were attacked by seagulls protecting their nests. Not just one or two seagulls, no, the island is inhabited by 1000s of seagulls and ALL of them were protecting nests. Remember the movie "Birds"? Exactly the same, almost. Hanne's mother-protector-instinct was tested immediately when we walked onto the island: while walking with Olivia in the buggy past a nest, she got attacked by a fierce seagull. She had two options: defend Olivia OR run and leave Olivia all by herself completely defenseless against the agressive bird. You can guess what happened. (no worries: Olivia survived and does not seem to have any physical nor emotional damage :-))

That evening we arrived in a cozy Bed&Breakfast: super friendly guy, awesome beds (mega difference vs our "are you sure there is a mattress on it?" lousy beds in the apartment in Perth), a jacuzzi (!!) and the perfect breakfast. But before talking about the breakfast, we had diner in a (real) restaurant for the second time in Australia and the food (catch of the day Barramundi with mustard mash potatoes and celery mousse) was amazing!

Today was a day where there is less to talk about. We expected the Margaret. River Wine Region to be like Tuscany. It is when it comes to: loads of vineyards, loads of wineries with free tastings and great food. It is not when it comes to the Tuscany "vibe" and landscapes. That being said, the highlight of our day was (beyond any doubt) the beautiful beaches. Simply amazing and literally got Hanne to say "WOW" even though the Lonely had warned us we would say "WOW" once seeing that Yallingup beach view :-) We also saw whales jumping out of the water (we have it on picture!) although it was quite far away. Hanne calls it a slightly disappointing day, mostly because she is no fan of beach or wine tasting and we have seen whales before from up close. I quite liked it though, sipping my excellent Malbec later in the day.

Voila, three days in one go. I will upload some more pictures later tonight. Tomorrow we go to the South Coast for some Tree Top Walking!

Ciao mates.