Friday and Saturday we went to Rottnest Island (above), an island with about 30 miles of coastline and a 30 minute ferry ride from Fremantle. It is a very popular vacation destination, and rightfully so. It was amazing.
Rottnest was given its name by Dutch explorers that discovered the island. They named it Rottnest because they saw that it was populated with a lot of “rats,” which are actually marsupials called quokkas. Quokkas only exist on Rottnest Island. They looked like rat/kangaroos to me, and were actually pretty cute. Since they are used to people being there all the time, they are quite friendly. So friendly, in fact, that one artfully climbed on to Kaitlyn’s lap in an attempt to swipe her breakfast yesterday morning. But I’m getting ahead of myself.
We began our adventure bright and early Friday and took a ferry to the island (above). Now my only experience with ferries was the Cape May-Lewis Ferry, which is a huge boat that many cars can drive onto. This ferry, however, was quite small. Factor in the huge waves that resulted from a cyclone (hurricane) being off the coast, and you have a nausea-inducing vessel. I am not one to have motion sickness, but I was preparing myself in case I got sick. It was pretty rough, but we survived with only one casualty (Kelly threw up).
First, we walked around one part of the island and saw some gorgeous views. We visited the Bathurst lighthouse (above), and saw this awesome 90 degree palm tree (above). Then, we checked into our hostel (above). Apparently Rottnest was used as the first line of defense for Perth during WWII, and our hostel used to be military barracks. It was kind of creepy, not gonna lie.
We walked around the northeast part of the island, and saw Fay’s Bay (above) and the Basin (above). Basically the whole coastline of the island creates these bays, which make for awesome secluded beaches. You can have these pristine beaches practically to yourself, save 5 or ten other people. From Fay’s Bay, you could see the Perth skyline (in between the channel markers), but it seemed like it was a million miles away.
In the late afternoon, we met up with other IC kids and relaxed on the beach behind our hostel. We collected shells (above), acted silly (above), and tested our muscles on this hanging rock thing (demonstrated above by Mary). Then, after a nice dinner, we walked back to that beach to look at the stars. It was amazing. I think that this was the first time I could actually see the Milky Way. And, I was able to see the Southern Cross, the constellation that is on the Australian flag.
We woke up yesterday morning to find out that the snorkel cruise we had signed up for was canceled as a result of the waves being too wavy. That was disappointing. So, we decided to mooch off of the guys’ snorkel equipment instead. We hopped a bus that travels around the coastline of the whole island and saw some more gorgeous coastline, including a shipwreck just off the coast. We ended up in Little Armstrong Bay, on the northwest of the island.
After a short climb down a hillside (above), we were rewarded with one of those awesome, secluded beaches (above). It had really cool sand, filled with bits of coral and colorful shells (above). Like all of the other beaches, it had crystal clear water (above), which was pretty good for snorkeling. I was able to see some cool fish (thanks to Matt who let me borrow his equipment). We all reveled in being beach bums in such an incredible setting.
We agreed that all of our semesters should be like this.
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