Quokka land

Here is another map of the island.

I recently took a mid-week trip to Rottnest Island, located directly west of Perth, about a 30 min ferry ride. I went with my friend Miela who is from New Mexico. We left Perth in the morning and took the train to Fremantle to catch the ferry. We arrived on the island around ten and went to the visitors centre to check in. We rented bikes for the two days we were there and had a ride around the island. Our first stop was Little Armstrong Bay on the north side of the island. The water was really clear but I didn't go swimming because it was cold. I also checked out the limestone.

Biking!

From there, we spent the rest of the afternoon biking to the far end of Rotto and back (about 20 km in total). It was warm, but breezy. The view was beautiful at the most westerly part of the island- endless ocean in three directions! There were way more hills than I expected and by the end we were a bit tired.Shells and an urchin from Mabel Cove

Miela and I at the west end of the island

We made it back to the campsite finally and ready to cook dinner. We ate lentils and baked beans from cans heated on outdoor burners. We also made toast and ate an avocado. While we were eating quokkas started surrounding us. Quokkas are about the size of a small cat and are marsupials that live on Rottnest. They are very used to people and one even touched my leg! They come out at night and congregate around the lit areas. It was really creepy. After dinner we played a few card games and went to sleep. I awoke in the night and saw a quokka shadow scurry by outside the tent and also heard a few of them hissing at each other. Creepy.

Tent

Quokka helping me cook lentils.

After a cold night of hardly sleeping we woke up at seven. I got some chai tea at the Rottnest Bakery which improved my morning immensely. Biking was kind of painful from the day before (uncomfortable seats) and it was super windy, so we decided to do inside/walking activities. We ducked into the "salt store" which was an old building that was previously used when salt was harvested from the saline inland lakes and transported to the mainland. Rottnest has an interesting history- it used to be connected to the mainland when the sea levels were lower, there used to be an Aboriginal prison, it was used in both world wars, and now it is a nature reserve.

We went on a tram ride to the middle of the island to see Oliver Hill, a lookout and location of two 9.2 inch guns. We took a tour of one of the giant guns and inside a few tunnels under the sand dunes. Apparently the gun was used in WW2 to shoot enemy ships across the horizon to protect the western coast of Australia and the Port of Fremantle, an important place for submarines. The gun was unable to shoot upwards, so it was vulnerable to attacks from airplanes. It was the job of Australian women working for the military to watch the skies and shoot with machine guns if necessary.

Range of the guns on the island, from Fremantle, and Garden Island during WW2

Tunnel inside the sand dune down to the ammunition room

Inside the tunnel, there was a whole exhibit on the women in service. There were funny quotes about quokkas that were mistaken for intruders.

After the tour we took the tram, operated by a man name Bob, back to the Settlement. We stopped by the Rottnest museum, chapel, and then made our way back to the ferry dock.