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Published: June 15th 2015
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Rottnest Island
The main beach near the Settlement on the island Well Rottnest Island today. It was a very cold start to the day and somewhat stupidly we continued to refuse to wear something other than shorts during the day. Its that need to hang onto our continous summer... But today we did pay a price for that. We ended up pretty cold to the bones. No fun...
We boarded the Rottnest Express in Fremantle. They are pretty nice boats and once we boarded we were able to get out of the wind and started to thaw out a little. As soon as the snack bar opened we grabbed a coffee to warm up. Nice. It was a lovely trip over, its a very beautiful harbour, with huge cargo ships waiting to come in.
But once on the island the chilly wind was up again. We collected our bikes ( you hire them from the boat as there are no cars on the island) and headed straight for a warm cafe to get settled and a bit more comfortable.
Rottnest has quite a decent little shopping area (called 'the Settlement') Grocery stores, clothes, bakeries, pubs and such. The bakery warmed us up nicely and we carbed up to warm
Rottnest Island
Beautiful sand dunes! the inner core. No quokkas yet, but a beautiful lyre bird was wandering around looking for bakery scraps. Its a no no to feed the animals but as we saw later in the day that doesn't stop people!
We set out on our journey round the island. The Island bikes are pretty awesome. They dont have a normal bike chain, its made out of rubber, almost like a reverse caterpillar tractor tyres. And once you get a bit of speed up they seemed to continue on quite a lot with out peddalling. Something to do with the hubs.
Just the same it was tough going at times! But beautiful scenery, so well worth it. And best of all, we warmed up pretty quickly. Had to take the jumper off eventually!
There were many beautiful bays we stopped at as we went round. The beaches are stunning. There's heaps of shipwrecks around and we saw one of them pretty close to the shore. Its called 'Uribes' and it went down in 1942. You can see why people would love scuba diving and snorkelling. Apart from the reef, going near these wrecks would be amazing!
There were large
Rottnest Island
The dunes were under repair so we couldn't ride down on a sled :( groups of people riding round and we came across some japanese people feeding a couple of quokkas with bread. Not on, but at least it gave us a chance to see these little guys. One quokka jumped up on the knee of one bloke! They are very cute and don't appear to be scared of people at all. apparently they were thought to be very large rats by a Dutch sailor hence the name 'Rotte nest' which means rats nest.
I would have loved to have snorkelled here, but it was just too chilly. I plan to come back one day, maybe in the summer, and snorkel. It will be fascinating.
At one stage we were stopped at a beach and I heard a scream. A young Asian girl had come flying down a hill and came a cropper off the bike. I called to Rob so he could use his first aid skills and he hurried up to help out. Her friends were all panicking and scrabbling around. She had quite a lot of skin off, but Rob did a lot of basic tests and declared her okay but very sore and shaken up. He was very
Rottnest Island
The nose of the ship wreck, very close to the shore calming for them though, so it was good to help.
At some stage we managed to get to the top of what felt like a massive hill. We made it to the lighthouse! Phew... After some photos we headed off on the road that took us back to the Settlement. We passed pink salt lakes, a very old cemetery, more beaches and a fair bit of bird life.
Back at the settlement we caught up with a 'history of Rottnest' tour. It was good and the guide very knowledgeable. This place has been used for many different things including, the military, for internment of aboriginals, of germans in world war 1, and a reformatory for naughty boys. Rob loved this of course, but I struggled because I cooled right down again. But another coffee helped out. Also heaps of quokkas had turned up around the place, they must come in towards the end of day to find the scraps left by the visitors. Very cute little guys!
Soon enough we were back on the boat and heading back to Freo. A good day!
Back at the Bago we were picked up by the son in law
Rottnest Island
Taking a break from our bike ride Colin and headed out to find somehwere to get a meal. We eventually found an Indian restaurant that also did steaks, pizza's and pasta! I asked if my meal was going to be chilli hot. She said 'how hot do you want?. I went for a 7. Phew!! It was that and a bit more! Certainly warmed up my inner core!
So thats our day at Rotto as its colloqially known. A lovely place and I'd love to come back. But next time we'd go when it's a lot warmer and stay over in one of the many refurbed cottages. Then I would snorkel to my hearts content!
Heading south tomorrow and giving up on the shorts I think, It's just too hard, traccy dacks will be out and on!
Stay warm people!
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