Kalbarri, Western Australia - part 2 (the islands)
About 60km off the coast of Kalbarri are the Houtman-Abrolhos islands - about 122 little islands in a couple of big clusters. They're most famous because the Dutch ship Batavia ran aground here in the 1600s, and there was subsequently a mutiny, over a hundred murders and executions. Those whacky Dutch. I flew over to East Wallabi island for the second time while up there - they're all pretty low and windswept and not particularly big, but the snorkeling is very good because there's a lot of coral here and there. East Wallabi has a couple of sea eagles living on it, a pair of ospreys, a loan python, some small lizards and a bunch of tamar wallbies (where it gets its name from). The vegetation seems to be a reduced version of what's along the coast, and not particularly exciting...
During crayfishing season, people live out on these islands:
Diplolaenas seem happy out here:
Westringia dampieri (hardly exciting, but it hedges/topiarizes very well, actually):
I think this might be the red form of Eremophila glabra:
One of the wallabies. They survive out here because they can drink seawater!