Rottnest Island - beautiful scenery & Quokkas
Today we got up just after 6am, had breakfast and waited out the front of the caravan park for the bus that was to pick us up and take us to the ferry terminal in the city where we would catch the ferry to Rottnest Island. We decided to just book a tour with a company rather than try to go ourselves and maybe miss something. There are a couple of companies that we were given pamphlets for so we just picked one and booked through our caravan park. We chose one that offered pick up at our accommodation, morning tea on the ferry, a buffet lunch on the island, a guided bus tour of the island i
n the afternoon, and afternoon tea on the ferry then return trip back which cost $139 each. The trip from Perth terminal takes about 90 minutes, stopping along the way at Fremantle to pick up more passengers. It was very interesting to cruise down the river and see the city, Kings Park, and all the building, houses and Fremantle along the river. It certainly is a big river and there were so many boats moored in the various harbours or moorings along the
way. The houses overlooking the river in some parts are just amazing – huge, and expensive by the looks of them.
Rottnest Island is a class A Nature Reserve and has been one since 1913 which is surprising but the government of the time realized the Quokka (small marsupial endemic to Rottnest) population was decreasing since the native Teatree had been cleared for farming originally and fires had gone through on a few occasions which the Teatree couldn’t recover from so they took the action of making it a nature reserve. The island is 11 km long and 4.5 km at its widest point and is surrounded by a b
ody of warm water known as the Leeuwin Current. Only bikes and authorised vehicles such as the tour buses are allowed on the island so you have 3 choices about how you get around: walk, ride a bike or take a bus. When we got to Rottnest we had about an hour and a half to fill in by ourselves then had lunch at 12pm at a restaurant called Rottnest Lodge. We went for a walk around, looking in the little museum first which was staffed by a volunteer keen to give us as much information as he could. He explained how Rottnest was used as a prison for aborigines for a while with some of the buildings being built by the prisoners then it was used as a reform home for wayward boys ages anywhere from 8 to 17 who had committed such heinous crimes as steeling cakes or assault on another boy (at age 11, I suspect it was simply a boys fight!), an internment camp for Germans and Italians as well as having a base there with soldiers and four big guns placed around t
he island during WWII. The guide on our bus tour showed us the base where 2,500 soldiers lived and trained and the shack further along where 11 women acted as radio operators or signal people. Interesting ratio of men to women!
After we looked at the museum we wandered along and found ourselves at a little beach that is known as The Basin. It actually has a kind of basin or pool cut out of the rocks near the shore making a deeper pool which would be ideal for swimming. It is quite a pretty, sheltered spot. Next we wandered along and found Pinky Beach where surprisingly, since it was coolish, a couple of kids were swimming and you could see the lighthouse on Cape Vlamingh which we got to see later in our bus tour of the island. By this time we had to walk back to have our lunch which was as it described a buffet of hot and cold dishes and fruit, desserts, tea and coffee. It was quite good food and there was plenty of it so we had a good lunch with ample time to enjoy it before we had to be at the bus stop at 1.30pm. Our bus driver or coach captain as they prefer to be called was the typical character that seem to drive buses, making jokes of everything and picking on Collingwood supporters until he realized that there weren’t’ any on board so chose the next best thing and found som
e Geelong supporters to tease along the way. We first went to the airstrip where nearby, under some Teatrees were some Quokkas sleeping. They are meant to be nocturnal but we had already seen a few earlier wide away and eating. By the way, there are now about 10,000 on Rottnest so numbers have improved since the island has been cared for. Ross, the driver, pulled down some tea tree and called his friendly little Quokka called Dile (Quokka-Dile!) and he came and fed from his hand. A few others came up also and they were all female with babies in their pouches. (Check ‘em out in the photo – the babies should be out by now!) They are lovely little animals, very cute, and it was great to see them up close like that.
Next we went all around the island to various places, some I already me
ntioned, and looked at the picturesque scenery of the coastline. We saw the mutton bird burrows at Fish Hook Bay and whales in the distance out from Cape Vlamingh. It was all wonderful and probably enough for us I think; we could never have covered that distance on our own in one day and would not have heard all the interesting facts that Ross gave us so it was a good way to see Rottnest. We got back on the ferry by 3.45pm to be back at Perth by about 5 then we had to drop off people at various hotels etc and ended up back at ‘our place’ by just after 6pm feeling tired but content.
n the afternoon, and afternoon tea on the ferry then return trip back which cost $139 each. The trip from Perth terminal takes about 90 minutes, stopping along the way at Fremantle to pick up more passengers. It was very interesting to cruise down the river and see the city, Kings Park, and all the building, houses and Fremantle along the river. It certainly is a big river and there were so many boats moored in the various harbours or moorings along the
way. The houses overlooking the river in some parts are just amazing – huge, and expensive by the looks of them.Rottnest Island is a class A Nature Reserve and has been one since 1913 which is surprising but the government of the time realized the Quokka (small marsupial endemic to Rottnest) population was decreasing since the native Teatree had been cleared for farming originally and fires had gone through on a few occasions which the Teatree couldn’t recover from so they took the action of making it a nature reserve. The island is 11 km long and 4.5 km at its widest point and is surrounded by a b
ody of warm water known as the Leeuwin Current. Only bikes and authorised vehicles such as the tour buses are allowed on the island so you have 3 choices about how you get around: walk, ride a bike or take a bus. When we got to Rottnest we had about an hour and a half to fill in by ourselves then had lunch at 12pm at a restaurant called Rottnest Lodge. We went for a walk around, looking in the little museum first which was staffed by a volunteer keen to give us as much information as he could. He explained how Rottnest was used as a prison for aborigines for a while with some of the buildings being built by the prisoners then it was used as a reform home for wayward boys ages anywhere from 8 to 17 who had committed such heinous crimes as steeling cakes or assault on another boy (at age 11, I suspect it was simply a boys fight!), an internment camp for Germans and Italians as well as having a base there with soldiers and four big guns placed around t
he island during WWII. The guide on our bus tour showed us the base where 2,500 soldiers lived and trained and the shack further along where 11 women acted as radio operators or signal people. Interesting ratio of men to women!After we looked at the museum we wandered along and found ourselves at a little beach that is known as The Basin. It actually has a kind of basin or pool cut out of the rocks near the shore making a deeper pool which would be ideal for swimming. It is quite a pretty, sheltered spot. Next we wandered along and found Pinky Beach where surprisingly, since it was coolish, a couple of kids were swimming and you could see the lighthouse on Cape Vlamingh which we got to see later in our bus tour of the island. By this time we had to walk back to have our lunch which was as it described a buffet of hot and cold dishes and fruit, desserts, tea and coffee. It was quite good food and there was plenty of it so we had a good lunch with ample time to enjoy it before we had to be at the bus stop at 1.30pm. Our bus driver or coach captain as they prefer to be called was the typical character that seem to drive buses, making jokes of everything and picking on Collingwood supporters until he realized that there weren’t’ any on board so chose the next best thing and found som
e Geelong supporters to tease along the way. We first went to the airstrip where nearby, under some Teatrees were some Quokkas sleeping. They are meant to be nocturnal but we had already seen a few earlier wide away and eating. By the way, there are now about 10,000 on Rottnest so numbers have improved since the island has been cared for. Ross, the driver, pulled down some tea tree and called his friendly little Quokka called Dile (Quokka-Dile!) and he came and fed from his hand. A few others came up also and they were all female with babies in their pouches. (Check ‘em out in the photo – the babies should be out by now!) They are lovely little animals, very cute, and it was great to see them up close like that.Next we went all around the island to various places, some I already me
ntioned, and looked at the picturesque scenery of the coastline. We saw the mutton bird burrows at Fish Hook Bay and whales in the distance out from Cape Vlamingh. It was all wonderful and probably enough for us I think; we could never have covered that distance on our own in one day and would not have heard all the interesting facts that Ross gave us so it was a good way to see Rottnest. We got back on the ferry by 3.45pm to be back at Perth by about 5 then we had to drop off people at various hotels etc and ended up back at ‘our place’ by just after 6pm feeling tired but content.We go on the train tonight for two nights so there will be no post now until we are in Adelaide but at least our times will be closer to homes then. Till then...
No comments:
Post a Comment