Rockingham

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20/10/08 Monday Day 67
Arrive into Rockingham around 4pm after coming from Fremantle and Rottness Island, without booking a site for a night in one of their parks. We found out that 2 were full and finally we found one that was free but it was a bit out of town. The owner man was a bit weird though. He was like a really gay aussie del boy. Quiet funny! We didn’t have any supplies either so we decided to get a bus into town and eat there instead. The bus stop was right outside the entrance so handy enough you’d say except it went to the bus station which was in the middle of nowhere! We eventually found another bus to take us to the “city” centre, which we actually drove through earlier on finding one of the full caravan parks. We just thought it was a busy part of the city because it was beside the beach. It turns out that this is the city. Our thoughts were confirmed when we asked the waitress in the restaurant where was the nearest bar. She had to turn to the waiter to ask him and he said “A bar in Rockingham?”. Oh dear. She then said unless you have a car then there’s on one around that area and this was supposed to be the city centre. We instead bought some drink at the local bottle bank and asked them for a taxi number. Instead the guy actually rang a taxi for us. He no sooner had hung up when the taxi was outside. Then the driver started going on about how good the next town was for tourists and that there was nothing in this one. Lovely!
21/10/08 Tuesday Day 68
After the shock and awe of last night we headed for Penguin Island which is about the only tourist attraction in Rockingham. This is a cool little place. The island is a full reservation with only very little paths to walk around. There’s hundreds of seagulls around the place too. One of them nearly attacked me. I merely said hello. Next thing it flew up above my head and stayed there roaring at me. Luckily I had a large bottle in my hand ready to swing in case it moved.
We also saw some little penguins getting fed.
After that we went to the shopping centre here for some badly needed supplies. They have a pretty big shopping centre in the city with 2 huge supermarkets and 2 huge department stores. We also had lunch in the van in the car park which I still find strange. It’s like we’re completely homeless!
As the book says there’s really nothing here for tourists. It mainly a residential city where people commute to Perth via train from here. We did go bowling which was great. Tad bit on the expensive side though. I won though which was the main thing! We also went to the cinema to see Body of Lies cause there’s nothing else to do but it turned out to be a great film!

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