Rottnest sizzles in the sun

25th February 2011

Today we visited Rottnest Island. It is described as “Perth’s Island Playground” and if you’ve been following our blog that might leave you wondering why we’d go there. One word: quokka.

In fact the island doesn’t really match the image. There’s only one settlement with a couple of small hotels and a few cafes, and the whole of the rest of the 11 kilometer long island is pretty much arid scrub, shallow salt ponds and small woodlands. Several of the nicest sparkling blue bays are full of moored motor yachts. Better yet, all the visitors seem inclined to stick to the settlements or stay on their boats. When we jumped on rented bikes to explore we saw hardly anyone.

On second thought, that was probably because the temperature was pushing 40 degrees and there’s almost no shade at all away from the settlement. Even the very modest hills were challenging in that breath-sucking heat. We persevered long enough to earn a few quokkas before retreating for iced coffees and lunch. In the afternoon we cycled out again to the nearest snorkelling point on the island, but the water was murky and it was a sandy seaweed bed with just a few fish.

Yep, quokka are definitely the reason to visit Rottnest Island. Quokka quokka quokka.

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This entry was posted on Saturday, February 26th, 2011 at 11:48 pm and is filed under Australia. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.