Rottnest Island

Wow. What a day, what a day. It’s places like Rottnest Island that really confirm my decision to come to Australia. This place was gorgeous. Water as blue (if not bluer) than the Bahamas, cycling you would find in Martha’s Vineyard, little Australian creatures called Quokkas running around, reefs right off the beach… list goes on and on. Hard to know where to begin, but I’ll just start describing the day. 

But first, a few teaser photos of the things I mentioned! (Oh also if you click on the panorama photos - or any for that matter - it opens them up bigger in another window)

The day officially began at 8:00 A.M when we all met up for breakfast before catching a bus to Freo (Fremantle) where the ferry would be leaving. Unfortunately, my day began much earlier as I continuously woke up and thought I slept through my alarm clock. (Guess I was excited!) Got to Freo and ended up walking like 3 miles to the wrong ferry station. Luckily the one we went to had a ferry leaving in 15 minutes. What a disappointing ending that would have been (not to mention a very short blog post!) Boarded the ferry, which reminded me of the New Bedford Fast Ferry, and we were off! 

Think the ride itself was about 25 or 30 minutes and before we knew it we were pulling in to Rottnest. The island used to be a prison and got its name from the Dutch explorer Willem de Vlamingh who thought that the Quokkas were rats - hence "Rott" (or rat) "Nest" Island. (He was wrong though, as they are actually a type of marsupial.) But enough history, on to the fun stuff! Oh one more thing, on Rottnest, people aren’t allowed to use cars. The two ways of getting around are bicycling and taking a bus. We all agreed cycling was the way to go and the 12 of us rented bikes. Although it was a bit cumbersome with my snorkel gear, wetsuit, and camera, I had a really fun time biking around. It was really nice not having to worry about cars whizzing by. For most of it, I would have the ocean on my left and beautiful grassy fields and interesting looking trees on my right. Matt, Colin, Seb and I decided to go ahead as the girls got their lunch (figured they would take a while.)

 We found a nice secluded spot called Little Salmon Bay and put our stuff down. Walking down to the beach I couldn’t stop smiling. It was everything I had hoped for. (I know these colors seem too good to be true, but they were honestly like this) 

Threw on the wetsuit and hopped right in. Didn’t see any puffers (still on the lookout for Desmond’s friends) but I did see lots of cool fish. By the time we finished eating our packed lunches the girls and Craig showed up and we swam again and hung out on the beach. It was funny throwing around the Aussie Rules Football as everyone threw it a different way depending on where they were from. 

After a little bit, we decided to continue exploring the island and got back on our bikes. 

We finally ended up at another spot called Parakeet Bay where there was more of a beach and a big sand dune on the right.

 After some more swims we trekked up the dune and proceeded to take some action shots of us jumping. Here is the best one - Craig was the bravest of us all. Second shot is right as he hit the sand and rolled down a bit.

After jumping around for a while, I climbed up the rocks and sat at the top - watching the water and my friends down below.

With our ferry leaving at 4:30 and the bikes due back at 4:00 it was time to go back. 

After dropping off the bikes, we got coffees and chai, played with the bold (and hungry) Quokkas, and returned to Trinity.

Not a bad way to spend a Sunday in the winter.