8 November 2016 – 194 867
Rottnest Island
This morning we got up early and tackled the traffic through
the centre of Perth to Fremantle. For
the first time on this trip, we paid for parking. We caught the 8:15am Rottnest Express to
Thomson Bay, Rottnest Island. We had a
very smooth trip across.
When we got
there, we bought our Island Explorer Tickets and then headed to Kingstown
Barracks (from the lead up to and time of WW2) on foot. We saw our first quokka and were amazed at
how inquisitive these little creatures are.
They clearly know they have nothing to fear from humans. They approach and sniff at both people and
bags – clearly they have discovered both are sources of food. Hayden sat down on the road and it came up
and climbed across his legs.
From here, we hiked across to the Oliver Hill Guns and had a picnic lunch before taking a tour of the guns and the underground tunnels. Oliver Hill had two large naval style guns mounted on it that could cover a 28km radius of water, including all the approaches to Fremantle. We were shown through the crew room, gun emplacement, magazine, cordite room, pump room, clearance station, engine room and the tunnels connecting them.
Once again we hiked across a section of the island to Salmon Bay. We then reboarded the Island Explorer and took a circuit of the island back to Thomson Bay. We had about twenty minutes to spare before our ferry back to the mainland so we took a wander around the Settlement Area. We saw many, many quokkas, including several with babies beside them and intermittently nursing.
No comments:
Post a Comment