Saturday 17th December 2022
As we’ve got a hire car, we thought we’d drive to Rockingham today then get the ferry out to Penguin Island. This island is home to the Little Penguin, the smallest penguin species in the world. We’d booked the 10am ferry, but arrived just after 9am. Unfortunately the 9.30am ferry was fully booked so we had a little while to wait. There’s a cafe by the ferry, and they had some hot sausage rolls which looked very good. We decided to give one a try, and bought one to share. It was an exceptionally good sausage roll, beautiful meat and crisp flaky pastry. Probably one of the best sausages rolls we’ve ever eaten.
We boarded the ferry just before 10am, and it’s a very short journey to the island (less than 10 minutes).
The island itself is very picturesque, with some lovely beaches. There’s lots of wildlife on the island (mainly birds and lizards), but it’s very rare to spot a Little Penguin in the wild (they spend most of their time at sea).
There’s also a discovery centre on the island, which houses rescue penguins. The most common reason for penguins to end up at the centre is injury due to fishing ships and nets. The penguins are fed daily, and we went to the 10.30am feeding, where you also get to learn a bit about the island, Little Penguins, and the work the centre does.
The island itself is very small and quick to walk around. Unless you want to spend time on the beach, you don’t much time to visit Penguin Island (which is a good thing for us, as we’ve got a plane to catch this afternoon).
We got the ferry back to Rockingham, drove along the coast, then walked to the hill to Rockingham Viewpoint. There are stunning views over the bay, and on a clear day it’s so beautiful.
We ate lunch at Rustico, a tapas restaurant overlooking the beach. We went for the set menu, which is served as five courses of two tapas dishes. The food was excellent, and we particularly enjoyed the chorizo (which had a slightly sweet glaze), the tempura prawns (which were so plump and juicy with a beautifully light batter), and the pork belly (with its perfect crackling).
After lunch we drove to the airport and dropped off our hire car. Our flight to Adelaide was with Jetstar, who have a 7kg carry on limit so we weighed our bags and put enough stuff in our pockets to get below the weight limit. It ended up being unnecessary as our bags were never actually weighed, but we’d rather be safe than sorry. It was very quick getting to the gate. Probably a combination of no passport control and a very quickly security screen (we didn’t even to remove liquids, which I was surprised about). The flight was late, but other than that was pleasant enough.
We got a Grab car from the airport to our hotel, the Adelaide Riviera Hotel. Adelaide is 2.5 hours ahead of Perth, so by the time we arrived it was very late (almost 11pm). There’s a dumpling place, Dumpling Planet, right by the hotel that opens very late. So we went there for a late dinner, and shared a portion of shrimp wantons in chilli broth and pan fried pork and chive dumplings between us. I especially enjoyed the shrimp wantons, and the broth had a lovely chilli kick to it.
Emma and Pete’s Asian Adventure 