Perth - Aquarium of WA: SHARK ATTACK

Alrighty mates,
This weekend I actually had three consecutive days off and tried to find a bunch of sympathic people to do a trip into the Stirling Ranges for some hikes. As I couldn't find anyone suitable I looked into going to the Goldfields. By train to Kalgoorlie to visit the SuperPit but tours wouldn't take place this weekend. So I stayed in Perth and on Friday morning I got on two trains and a bus and after one hour arrived in Hillarys Boat Harbour to the AQWA: the Aquarium of Western Australia!

I arrived at shortly past 10am when they just opened to make the most of the quite expensive entry. Right at the beginning little children screamed: "LOOK! There is NEMO!"
And they were right.

They do this on purpose, right? You get a map of the aquarium ( I mean, this is supposed to be the largest aquarium in BIG BIG Australia) and it looked massive. What I didn't know (because there is nothing about this on the internet) was that there are talks and hands-on-experiences happening at different times in the different zones. I didn't know where to go first to not miss out on them! So I followed the suggested route and went into the Great Southern Coast.

You see, as the name suggests this aquarium is only about the marine life that you can find along the coast of Western Australia. So you can discover more than 12,000 km of coastline in on day in one place! Sounds fantastic? Let's get started! Hello diver and... SHARK!!!

These are seadragons! Not just any seadragons but Leafy Seadragons, because, well, that's obvious, isn't it?

NO! I didn't know that!

There was of course much more on display but I am not going to spoil it all for you. Next down the stairs is the Shipwreck Coast. Well, that's obvious as well, right? Riffs and corals and unexpected currents left unlucky ships wreck against the coastline. Funny enough, one part of the Great Ocean Road is also named like this.

 This is the most advertised part of the whole aquarium: the underwater tunnel!

HUGE stingrays floating through the water and above you, so you can see their mouth and everything.

The middle part was lit and the outer parts dark. There were lots and LOTS of photo opportunities.

And of course SHARKS!!! I think about six different sized sharks which looked really mean with their teeth on constant display and their evil eyes.

I took a video. I hope this is going to be displayed correctly. Enjoy. You're welcome!

I took my time in the tunnel and read more of the signs before I went up the stairs and through to the Perth Coast.

There you will be greeted by different sort of jellyfishes. Like these Moon Jellyfish.

Or these yellow Dotted Jellyfish. They look actually very fascinating but they creep the heck out of me. You know, because they are so DEADLY VENOMOUS.

This is a Lionfish. I thought they look fairly cool until I found out later that they are seriously DEADLY VENOMOUS as well. AHHHH!

After a few more tanks of hundreds and hundreds of fish in great coral displays I moved on to the Far North Coast zone.

Seahorses! I love seahorses! Somewhere I have seen a massive aquarium full with all sorts of seahorses. I think it was in Singapore. They are so elegant.

I was not really prepared for this. But as we are in Australia we should all know by now that this is the most DEADLIEST continent on this planet. EVER.

Here is the proof: a whole wall about how DANGEROUS jellyfish are. And it is actually quite strange that they developed this strong venom in them as they only feed on really small other fishes and not on, let's say, SHARKS or anything like that.

I didn't wanted to have nightmares about me getting killed while swimming in the ocean (I will NEVER swim in the ocean again!), so I quickly moved outside to the Touch Pool. And there were more SHARKS! In the TOUCH Pool?

I managed to find a spot with less sharks and more seastars and seaigels. I was a bit excited and admittedly scared of touching them but after a while you totally get used to them. Kind of.

Luckily a staff member held a talk about how to best touch the sharks, at their head! REALLY? I actually stroked one really quickly but didn't take a picture as I feared to drop the camera. Then I walked downstairs to the Coral Coast.

Heaps and HEAPS of fish and lots and LOTS of corals. There were very comfortable chairs right in front of the viewing windows and I swear, I could have watched this forever. I took about a billion pictures.

Then I walked outside and over the boardwalk to the Stingray Bay. This time I took a little video as well. Enjoy. You're welcome!

And at 11:30am I was at the end of the aquarium. SERIOULSY? That's it already? I swear I took my time, read a lot of the information and everything but there was nothing more. So I took another round and took more pictures and had a even closer read on the provided information.

These are Pineapplefishes.

In the underwater tunnel I saw two divers. WATCH YOUR BACK, MAN!!!

They had a bucket full with dead fish with them and tried to feed the sharks. Exactly! They TRIED to feed them but they were not interested. Puh!

There is also an endangered Loggerhead Turtle in this aquarium. Markus and I saw wild Loggerhead Turtles on the East Coast back in December when we watched them lay their eggs on the beach.

After half an hour in the tunnel I walked back to take some more pictures. Of Saltwater Crocodiles for example. Not really the biggest I have seen in Australia, huh?

At about 12pm I left the aquarium and walked along the Sorrento Quay to the restaurant called Australia's Finest Burgers.  Bring it on!

But first my beer, please! You were just waiting for my next beer picture, right folks? :-)

I went for the third most expensive burger on the menu. WHY? Because I had a 50 % off voucher! HA! This is an Aussie Burger with beetroot, beef pattie, pineapple, egg, cheese and everything. MASSIVE burger for little Steffi! Although I had an Aussie Burger before this time I actually ate the pineapple as well. My opinion: not again. Beetroot is really good on a burger but not pineapple.

At 1:15pm I was back at the aquarium and went into my favorite part again: the underwater tunnel.

Don't they just look EVIL???

There were some other divers in the aquarium cleaning it and I took another video. Enjoy. You're welcome!

And here some more little nice colorful fish before I finally left at 2:30pm and headed back to the house in Manning where I arrived at 4pm.

Well, I liked the AQWA very much and I will recommend it but I think it is rather small for the what you pay. Of course keeping an aquarium with all the SHARKS running is costly but I have seen much better aquariums, for example in Singapore or Canada. So you can consider myself spoiled to have expected more but hey! I learned a lot of things today (e.g. to not step on stingrays, who knew?).
Await my next stop on Sunday: New Norcia, the only monastic town in Australia! (That doesn't sound as much fun as it did in my head...)
Yours aquarium-visiting Stefanie