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Published: June 26th 2006
Me on the beach at the Basin
The Basin was the first cove we came to on the bike ride from settlement to the villa. I was very impressed, but I had no idea what was coming. PS, welcome to Australian winterThis weekend we went on a field trip. The best field trip EVER.
We caught the city train at 8 Friday morning to connect with a ferry in Fremantle. It was a fairly cold, misty and turbulent 30 minute ride to Rottnest Island, 12km off the shore of Freo. When we landed we were given crappy, old, 3 speed bikes and these horrible black foam helmets that you get a $100 fine for not wearing.
From the pier we biked up the beach a way to a limestone wall with heavy wooden doors and wide steel hinges that were marked by the old colonial stamp. They were cell doors once a long time ago. The whole island used to be a convicts' prison for aboriginal men during the colonization period. Hundreds of men were sent there for very trival crimes, some for stealing a handful of dough or sheep's wool. We cycled up for a lunch of steak and potato pies before heading to see the crumbly walls and roads built by the prisoners. Quokkas and peacocks begged for food and seagulls and wardongs circled the trees. We circled back to the site of the main prison, which is
Rocks and water
Little Armstrong Bay now a hotel for the unsuspecting. People pay very large amounts of money to sleep in places that are haunted by the lives and deaths of so many men whose crime was their blackness. We made one more stop to the aboriginal burial grounds. Just 15 years ago there were houses, roads, and campsites going over it, but when they were excavating for a sewer line they turned up some bones and the site has been surveyed and marked off and is now very much respeced all around the Western Australian community. Then we were free for the weekend, and here ends all things even remotely negative.
We went straight to our fantastic beach front villas and unloaded then put on our suits and headed down the the beach. The first one we found was called little parakeet bay and it was beautiful. You could see the reef under the waves and when they rolled back out to sea you could see the top of the coral come out of the water. We found this huge thing of seaweed and took mermaid photos with it. Good times. We headed back a little while later to lay on our private
Hidden view at Armstrong
Around that last corner I walked out on to this amazing view. The sun had only been up awhile and it was at a beautiful angle. I got the rays to do this by shooting the photo through my sunglasses beach while the sun was setting and then our teachers fired up the barbie and we had a traditional Australian party. Our program director, Glen, randomly showed up in his black Aussie hat with red cockatoo feathers and a kangaroo skin cloak a few hours later. Surprise. We danced around the motown music all night before finally crashing. Glen illegally camped in the bush.
In the morning we watched the sunrise then headed the few kms to settlement to hire snorkle gear. We had a delicious breakfast. I ate this thing called a pirate. It was a thick circle of light pizza dough like bread with thick well cooked bacon, a fried egg, and chees on top. It was amazing, I had another for breakfast this morning as well. When we got to the dive shop they wanted $16.50 for a mask, snorkle, and fins and $20 for a wetsuit for the day plus another $20 for deposit and $10 for a ticket for the bus. The wetsuit was pretty essential since the water was about 70. I said no thank you ma'am and for $34 bought myself my own wetsuit and a lycra shirt for caving. I have
Quokka!
These guys are like giant kangaroo rats. Theyre so sweet. This one was after my steak and potato pie. Most of them were really tame and they'd just hang out right next to you a wetsuit! So it's secondhand and has a small hole in the side, I can fix it, it's my wetsuit. She threw in an Oceanic bag for free.
So my roommates hoped the bus I believe and went for a snorkle while I had an entire day free and all to myself, and good thing, too much time with the same people does not make for a happy Shelle. I don't like being on anyone's time but my own. I hoped on my bike and went for the longest ride of my life. I cycled to a beautiful loop that overlooked some of the most beautiful beaches I've ever seen. The water was crystal clear with red, yellow, and orange reef beneath. I met several Aussies on holiday and took tons of photos. I don't know what life was like without digital photography. I cycled up the the Wadjemup lighthouse and had a look around. That is the worst hill on the island, it was horrible. When I was done on that coast I cut through the center of the island back to settlement and had some much needed water before heading back to the villa. There I dropped
Me and my bike
I love my bike. Even if it was really crappy and wouldn't let me peddle unless I was going really slowly off my wetsuit and headed back out around the island from the other way. That's when I found the most beautiful cove I've ever seen or even heard of. It's called Little Armstrong Bay. I have so many photos, but they just don't do it justice. To get to it you have to walk through the bush a little way down a decent sand hill but then it opens up into utopia. The beach had seems that were covered in shells, so much so you could just put your hand down and come up with a fist full of them and no sand to fill in the gaps. I'll bring home a few. I stayed there for a few hours, watching the waves crash onto rocks and fill little breakdown caves below me. There were cracks in the rocks beneath my feet and if you looked into them you could see tiny tide pools with red and white crabs hiding in the dark. Waves came in and washed sheets over the the pools of sand beneath where I was standing and the sounds of tiny waterfalls mixed with the surf and songs of parrots in the most unreal way.
Peacock!
The peacocks just hang out around the island. They're in the trees and the bakery especially. One distracted us with his feathers while he poked his head up over the table and stole someone's croissant. Pretty smart peacock really On the way up the hill I freaked myself out thinking about snakes. I was sure I was going to get bitten by the world's most dangerous snake in one of the world's most isolated places and no one would find me for days. Right about then I felt something on my ankle and jumped 4 feet in the air to turn around to a vicious quokka. By vicious I mean extremely cute and cuddly. So I said "quokka quokka quokka" and poked it in the nose. And then a giant snake came up and ate it!
Just kidding.
But I really did say "quokka quokka quokka" and poked it on the nose.
I was wearing those black flowy gaucho pants I love so much and they were blowing in the sea breeze a bit. That caught the quokka's attention so he grabbed hold of them and started to nibble a bit. I laughed and laughed until the little guy had them pulled halfway down my backside and then we had to have a tug a war. I won.
I took my time coming back to civilization, but when I came up to the top of
Colonial Prison Doors
The hinges on these centuries old door were stamped with the colonial seal for steel products in Australia. Steel was very much sought after so the stamp let the government and police that it was theirs. The stamp is supposed to be an emu foot print but it just looks like an arrow that hill again I saw a family locking up their bikes. When I got closer I could see one of the women with them was wearing an old green t-shirt that definitely said Tulane University on it. Her daughter had gone to Tulane. They're all originally from Perth but lived in Houston Texas for five years while she was at school. Small world. But the best part of it is this... I hated Tulane more than I hated Humpty Dumpty Day Care as a 3 year old. Why you ask? Because of the extremely rude and uncaring people. The next thing this lady did was ask where I was from, make fun of the American accent, Bill Clinton, and Arkansas, and make an off color comment about how many Jewish people go to Tulane, or as she said Jew-lane, now. What a jerk. They were still being jerks when I rode away. Small world indeed when even the foreigners who go to Tulane suck.
But, this did not put me in a bad mood. In fact, it made me laugh and smile all the way back to the villa. When I got there I rode up just as the
Ugly bird
This is the ugly bird from the ferry dock. It hated me. I snuck up on it. It freaked out girls in the other villa were walking to the basin, another beautiful (not as beautiful as Armstrong) though much more well known and thus crowded, so I jumped off and walked the few kms with them. Along the way the only guy with us walked up in only a wetsuit and it was a very awful sight that I hope I'll never see again. We laid on the beach and watched the sunset with Australian melon-pineapple-coconut soda stuff and I dug a whole I could stand in up to my hips. It was soft, fine sand all the way down. We filled it in and walked back to the villa where I made pasta and we played cards until we were too exhausted to keep our eyes open.
Woke up early the next morning and I took two other girls with me back to Armstrong, but the tide was in and it looked totally different. I'm glad I saw it both ways. Turned in our bikes, took the ferry back, and now I'm relaxing at the apartment before class and language test tomorrow. No worries, easy easy easy.
Best field trip ever? Yeah...
That's class in Australia
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Mom
non-member comment
What a wonderful adventure!
Shelle, I so enjoyed reading your journal entry and seeing the beautiful photographs but as your "Mom"...please be more careful...at least have another girl to go with you on your adventures...or least say you did...until you are safely back home...then tell me the real truth. I love you, Sweetie!