Tiger and Goanna's Top 12 Adventures of Western Australia! 

It's the one-year anniversary of our time together in Australia! To celebrate, we'd love to share some of our favourite places (or a few we still want to visit) in the state where we met. A bucket list for all of you following our adventures from a distance.

Our friends and family were disappointed to learn we'd extended our visas another year (but can you blame us?). We'd like to soften that blow by enticing you to visit instead. To my relatives and friends, we all know those Canadian prairie winters are the WORST (remember -40 windchills, scraping ice and snow off your car, and dressing up like a bank robber just to avoid frostbite?). You should spend yours with us!

Or consider visiting during your summer holidays if you have your eyes on the outback as Australian seasons are the opposite of the northern hemisphere's. Australian summer is not an ideal season to spend long periods of time outdoors in the outback.

Good point, Tiger. We'll be happy to lend you a tent, cook you camp food, and take you to see adorable creatures and amazing places.

Since we love animals and nature, our selections are skewed in that direction.

But still incredibly awesome!!

We hope you enjoy our recommendations and find them useful! We've split the list into southern and northern halves of the state to make it easier to plan your adventure. Let's start with the South!

12. Pemberton Karri Forests

I had to fight Goanna to get this one on the list.

Because it involved climbing 'stairs' that were just metal rods hammered into the side of a tree!

It's the world's largest fire lookout tree at 61 metres, called the Gloucester Tree. It offers incredible views of the Karri forest should you make it up the 153 pegs to the final viewing platform.

That any person who walks up to it can climb. Without a safety line. The first check-point was as far as I, or anyone with even a partial self-preservation instinct, was going.

Which was still quite impressive!

Not as impressive as you bounding your way to the top. Are Tiger-monkeys real? Because that would explain a few things.

No, although tigers can climb trees, even if they don't do it often. The Pemberton Forest is a stunning and refreshing find after the outback heat. You can tackle shorter sections of the intense 1000-kilometre Bibbulman Track, which ambitious souls hike from Perth to Albany. In the Pemberton Forest, birds are plentiful such as honeyeaters, wrens, and fantails. Other mammals include the quenda (like a bandicoot), the mardo (like shrews), and small populations of the quokka, which is a fairly rare macropod (even rarer to see on the mainland). More on them later. The South West Boojarah people are the traditional custodians of Gloucester National Park.

11. Cape Le Grand

If you've dreamed of kangaroos lounging on white-sand beaches, Lucky Bay in Cape Le Grand National Park is your ideal destination. The 'roos are ultra adorable, hopping between bunches of seagrass and then lazing around like they haven't just made our holiday. Tiger took enough incredible shots to fill an entire guidebook.

This park is in the southeastern corner of the state, near Esperance. The Njunga Noongar people are the traditional custodians of Cape Le Grand National Park. Once you've visited with the kangaroos, you can surf, snorkel, or hike Frenchman's peak. There are plenty of wildflowers and shorebirds to enjoy in the region too.

10. Margaret River Area - Wadandi Boodja

While Margaret River is WA's well-known wine region, it also has breathtaking limestone caves (filled with neat stalactites, flowstone, columns, and drapery—thanks, Tiger), whale watching, stingrays, and has been the traditional land of the Wadandi (Saltwater) Noongar people for over 50,000 years which is an impressive and important legacy.

The caves are approximately a million years old. You can visit several in the area, such as Mammoth Cave with its 50,000-year-old zygomaturus' jawbone and many other megafauna fossils or Lake Cave with its rare suspended table. We'd recommend exploring them before the wine tours since those samplings can be a bit heavy-handed, not that Goanna complained :P

Neither did you, Tiger. I think we both appreciate good value.

If you're around the Margaret River area between June and December, you're in for a show of the great whale migration from Antarctica to Australia. Immense Southern Right, Humpback, Minkes and Blue Whales all make the journey and if you're lucky, you'll see the Southern Right and Humpback Whales interact.

Some call it luck, and others call it compulsively visiting Augusta until it happens :P

And I am ever grateful you joined me on those missions :).  Whale watching tours or the multi-day Cape to Cape trail are a great way to catch these amazing creatures. In the summer, stingrays visit nearby Hamelin Bay. You can carefully observe them from the shallow area of the beach. 

9. Rottnest Island - Wadjemup (Perth)

Quokkas! Quokkas! Quokkas!

While Goanna grins like I've surprised her with chocolate and selects our photos, let me share more about them. Quokkas are marsupials, and they carry their young in a front pouch for about six months. If tragedy befalls the joey before that time, the mother can give birth to another that lives in her wound in a suspended state of development. Despite the interesting survival technique and their ability to live for up to a month without water, quokka numbers are limited to about 10,000 on the island and a small pocket on the mainland. Their habitat has been reduced to a limited section of Pemberton Forest and this small island, named Rottnest Island after a European explorer's observation that these creatures resembled giant rats.

The Whadjuk people of the Noongar nation call the island Wadjemup, which means 'place across the water where the spirits are'. It was an important place to meet and conduct ceremonies and was also connected to the mainland roughly 6,500 years ago during the last ice age. Today, it holds a more painful significance.

For almost 100 years, colonizers used the island as a prison and forced labour site for Aboriginal people. Their crimes were often insignificant, like killing sheep on their Country or fleeing from places of forced labour. People also believe colonizers deliberately and strategically removed and imprisoned Aboriginal leaders, lore men, warriors, elders, and boys from various communities across Western Australia in an act of cultural genocide. Imprisoned Aboriginal people were forced to build many of the structures on the island, including the prison. Conditions in the prison were poor. Cells were tiny and many endured overcrowding, disease, forced labour in dangerous conditions and more. This mistreatment and neglect caused the deaths of at least 373 people who are buried on the island in unmarked graves.

Once the prison was closed, it was converted into a tourist resort by 1911 and, as of 2016, still serves as one. The prison burial site was even operated as a campground despite the discovery of the unmarked graves in the early 1970s. After protests and calls by Aboriginal activists to acknowledge this history and memorialize the Burial Ground, parts of it were closed beginning in the 1980s, however, until 2007, sections of these grounds remained open.

As cute and interesting as the wildlife is, it's important to acknowledge and reflect on the tragic loss of life and culture and forced labour that created this space. Throughout our trip, I've noticed several disturbing similarities in European Australian treatment of Aboriginal people and the genocide my colonial government and people inflicted and continue to inflict on First Nations custodians of the land we now call Canada and how we've also failed to recognize it.

Thanks, Sadie. That's a very important point. Too often we fail to consider the history of the places we visit and the suffering that was erased by those who caused it. As visitors, we need to do our best to learn about and acknowledge it both where we travel and come from.

And to continue to act in ways that show support, respect, and reconciliation with these communities.

Photo credit: Bottom left quokka photo by Thomas Rutter downloaded from https://flic.kr/p/8Y9sY

Information sourced from: https://www.alwayswadjemup.com/rottnest/stories

https://ria.wa.gov.au/policy-and-reports/sustainability/Social-sustainability/Wadjemup-Aboriginal-Burial-Ground-Project#:~:text=State%20records%20indicate%20that%20at,the%20north%20of%20the%20Quod.

(Author's note: As of 2018, after the story is set, the Quod/former prison was released from its lease and no longer serves as tourist accommodation. The government issued a release about The Wadjemup Project which proposes "commemorating Aboriginal ancestors buried on the island and developing the Quod". 

When Sadie mentions Canada, she is referring to over 160 years of residential 'schools' used to remove Indigenous children from their families and destroy their culture, the sixties scoop, missing and murdered Indigenous women, girls, and two-spirit people, unequal access to clean drinking water on reserves, and continued racism across various sectors such as healthcare, child welfare, and the judicial system.)

8. Kalbarri National Park

If you love trekking through gorgeous country alongside the ocean, whale watching, and a quirky campground (with tanks and military memorabilia from an Indian prince from Hyderabad who owned the Murchison House Station from '72 to '96), Kalbarri is your perfect destination. You'll marvel at the spectacular reds and oranges of the outback in the deep-cut valleys and gorges you can enjoy by hiking down to river level or staying up top to hike with a bird's-eye view. Then you can retire to a cozy riverside campsite.

Kalbarri is also an excellent place to view humpback whales on their annual migration as there are several coastal trails along the cliff tops as well as boat tours.

You can also drive to many of the stops. Only attempt the long walks if you want to be swarmed by flies! They're relentless. 

Aw, Goanna, the critters didn't hurt us. All you need is some netting, long trousers, and full-length sleeves. You may encounter kangaroos, a recently reintroduced black-flanked rock-wallaby population, echidnas, and a variety of reptiles such as snakes, lizards, and geckos. Dolphins also often swim close to the whales. The Nanda people are the traditional custodians of Kalbarri.

7. Rockingham & Yanchep (Perth greater area)

Just south of Perth in Rockingham lives a colony of little penguins on the aptly named Penguin Island, accessible by ferry. It holds Western Australia's largest colony of little penguins who've earned their name because they are the world's smallest penguins, measuring an average size of 33 cm and weighing about a kilogram. They also have distinct blue and white feathers. If you're visiting from June to September as we did, the centre is, unfortunately (for humans), closed to protect the penguins during the breeding season. The Binjareb and Whadjuk Noongar people are the traditional custodians of this land.

Another stop only 30 minutes away in nearby Byford is a privately run koala park where you can hold and snuggle the creatures and see kangaroos.

Or you could keep driving just North of Perth to observe them in Yanchep National Park alongside kangaroos and caves in a more natural environment.

The Yanchep koalas were imported to WA in the 1930s and live in a human-managed habitat as well. Some of us are tactile and want a koala snuggle, Tiger.

Didn't take long to figure that out, Goanna :) (also some of us creatures aren't)

And I love you for it all the same <3

The feeling is mutual <3

Our differences aside, Tiger's right that Yanchep is worth a visit, especially if you're using Perth as a jump-off point. There are plenty of trails and caves to explore, and an Aboriginal tour to learn more about how the plants and animals of the region are significant to the Noongar people. The didgeridoo playing was cool to hear too. The Whadjuk and Yued Noongar people are the traditional custodians of Yanchep National Park. I will admit, even if you can't hold them, the koalas there are pretty darned cute.

Just like you :) 

Photo credit: two penguins by M Khun downloaded from https://flic.kr/p/7Ktvq

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We'll be back with round two with the gems of Northern WA soon! Which one of these beauts would be at the top of your list?

Comments:

Hailey: You two are too adorable! I wish I could say see you soon, but it looks like I'll have to buy a plane ticket for that. I'm down for wine, caves, beaches, and meeting the man/Tiger who has stolen you away from us! He's on the list, right? :P

Sadie: Haha, he's on my personal best parts of WA list. Also, yay!! You'll love it all, and I'll take you to the koalas and kangaroos as well :D

Neil: Perhaps the little penguins of Rockingham, too.

Hailey: Yes to all of that! I'm booking time off asap and we're doing this! <3 Keep taking good care of my girl!

Neil: I always try to.

Sadie: And you always succeed <3 <3

Hailey: PS, you two might need to tone down the PDA when I'm there unless Neil's got a super charming single cousin or friend who wants to travel with us.

Sadie: XD I'll see what I can do.