A rotten nest

There are many day trips from Perth, and we had time for just one. How do you choose?

One island, called Rottnest (or Wadjemup), sounded like a winner. Named after a rodent that can be found in abundance around the island, who wouldn’t choose this as their vacation destination?

We were concerned that we wouldn’t get to meet one of these rodents and prepared ourselves for possible disappointment. The island is a beautiful place and if we didn’t see one, we would enjoy the sunny day with our friends, the beach, the hills and the history.

There was no reason to stress. After disembarking the ferry, we found a lonely quokka within minutes.We saw, we took photos and we were sorted. Pressure off, we decided to grab some coffees and low and behold, the quokkas really were friendly, they said hello to us inside.

The local store was rather familiar with these little creatures, having had to devise clever entrances to deter these things. Now, if you aren’t familiar with the quokka, you might be thinking, those look like ugly rats and what’s the fun? Just bear with me.

The island wasn’t that big, and there were lots of people biking around the island. We decided to take the bus. There were white sand beaches, light houses, seals and birds awaiting our arrival.

When we first disembarked the bus though, we were confronted by more of these little rodents. This time, the quokkas wanted a little play. Curious little creatures, we got down on their level and had some fun. Based on our smiles, I think it’s safe to say we all enjoyed ourselves!

The quokkas accompanied us up a hill to one of the Rottnest Island light houses.

We continued on to try and find some snakes or seals, but had little wildlife luck beyond the friendly quokkas. Sometimes you can see humpback whales, osprey or shearwaters, but mostly we just enjoyed the island itself and the cool rock formations that can be found in the many bays.

An amazing day trip! But we had to get back to Perth so we said goodbye to the quokkas and caught the ferry home.