Seal Island

On Saturday the 3rd of February I (Ellen) went canoeing to seal island together with cousin Eric and one of his friends (Tim). Seal island is a very small island before the coast of Hillary’s (14 km North of Perth city) and about 5 km out of the shore. You can park very close to the shore and we carried the canoes to the waterline and filled them with all the gears we wanted to bring. Eric and Tim brought their light diving gear and took my snorkel gear.
After only a few minutes on the sea Tim’s rudder at once didn’t function anymore. He and Eric first tried to repair it on the water, but then saw that a metal pin was broken and the rudder was beyond repair on the water.

Eric and Tim went back with his boat and changed it over to another boat Tim had at home (about 10 minutes drive from the shore). When they came back the trip could start to seal island.
It is a very small island and we saw one seal laying on the beach.

We went snorkeling and diving and one seal looked regularly what we were doing. When I was struggling with my flippers, one of the seals was looking very close by to see what I was doing. I think he didn’t understood why my feet and flippers were separated :-). One seal was curious about our boats and approached me when I was eating my bread.


A lot of motorboats had anchored in the neighbourhood and people were swimming and fishing.

After a while we back to the shore were Eric and Tim stopped for some snorkeling at some rocks close to the shore. I went back to the shore to paddle back a long the shore in a slow manner. I passed doggy beach where dogs were playing around and some horses with their riders took a see bath.
When I came back on our leaving point Peter was waiting for us and took some pictures of our arrival.
Here you can see some more photos…..

Bells rapid walk

The fourth of February we had another walk, this time organized by Sandra and Xander. The route is called the Bells Rapid walk. As you can see clearly in the pictures, it definitely does not look like any rapid ;-)

Reason for this is the lack of rain (well, maybe not total lack, but clearly not enough of it). The yearly kayak / canoe event (The Avon Descent) almost did not go through because this Bells Rapid is part of the track...

More photos here.