Rottnest island as it’s commonly known was originally named Wadjemup by the traditional owners of the land. It translates to ‘the land across the sea where the spirits are’. Today it’s one of the top day trips to do from Perth and just an hour ferry ride from Fremantle so we whizzed downhill on our bikes through the darkness to catch the first ferry of the day. There’s a road leading around the entire island which is used by a designated tourist bus and a few of the staff have work cars but other than that the island is considered car free and everyone zips around on bikes. The island is pretty famous for its resident Quokka’s. Around 10,000 of these little marsupials live on the island whereas only a handful of them survive in the wild of Australia. They basically look like a miniature kangaroo but with tiny legs and chubby little faces.

There was a big sculptured sign near the port with an explanation about the brutal history of the island when it was used as a prison for up to 4000 aboriginal men and boys between 1838-1931. It was really sad to read about what they went through on the island, especially as artefacts have been found dating between 10,000-49,000 years ago, indicating occupation of the land by the Whadjuk people and then the colonisers treated them like this. The island actually used to be connected to the mainland before the last ice age 6500 years ago and it was used for cultural purposes however there’s no evidence that the aboriginals returned to the island once the sea levels rose, up until the forced imprisonment under colonisation. Almost 400 of the prisoners died on the island and were buried in unmarked graves yet the history of the island was hidden for a long time. In 1917 the island was named a reserve and the former prison buildings were converted into holiday accommodation which just blows my mind because it remained open for business up until 2018. The sign said that we could show our respect by rubbing our hands in our armpits to gather the scent, grabbing some sand and throwing it into the sea to let the spirits know that we have arrived and we respect them and their land.

It took us approximately one minute to see our first quokka but a few tourists were already taking photos of it so we continued cycling and then they were all over the place. We sat down in the dry mud beside them and watched as they scurried around and used their tiny hands to pick up leaves to nibble on. From certain angles, I think it’s mainly if you manage to capture them looking up you can see their little mouth which is permanently shaped in a cute as pie smile. They’re so photogenic and chilled out that ‘quokka selfies’ have become an online trend as you can literally sit next to one and take a selfie. With that said they are still wild animals and need to be respected so absolutely no touching them, feeding them (or pretending to) or harassing them in general.

We set off on our bikes to start exploring the beaches but just as we did we happened to bump into a lady I’d chatted to on Instagram. She worked and lived on the island and kindly offered us a free bus pass if we wanted to use it for the day. We were torn because my butt was already agony on the bike seat so it seemed like quite an appealing idea to do a hop-hop hop-off bus trip. We had about 35km to cycle around the island and back home from the port so I was concerned I’d be in too much pain. We decided to lock our bikes up and go with the bus option as they run every 20 minutes so it seemed like a very efficient service. My goodness did we regret it…it was the slowest bus journey of our lives. I don’t know if it was so people could absorb all the sights along the way but I could of walked quicker with two broken legs. In a moment of panic we ran up to the driver and asked to get off, making an excuse that I’d left something in the village. Instead of opening the doors he said he’d radio in to see if anyone was driving the other way while I kept saying “it’s fine, we can walk”. Then he said “what is it you’ve left back there?” Noooo. I wasn’t prepared to delve into my white lie. I panicked and just said more confidently that “it’s fine, we’re happy to walk back” and that’s exactly what we did, the 1km walk of shame to our bikes. I was so glad we decided to skip the bus, it’s a great option for many people as cycling around the island is pretty exhausting but it wasn’t for us and although they run every 20 minutes I think the wait time at each stop would annoy us.

With the wind in our hair we cycled down to the first beaches. The views were so pretty with an aqua shoreline that faded into a deep blue. We could see the coral reef below the shallow water and a volunteer approached us to explain that this is the most southerly reef in Australia. Apparently 130 types of tropical fish live in these waters which are warmed by the Leeuwin current whereas it diverts around Perth so not only is it colder water but they only have 11 tropical fish species.

We were exploring the southern shoreline first so we stopped at Little Salmon Bay, a lovely beach which many people rave about but we later found much nicer spots. The bus stops directly by the sand and it’s only a very small beach so it can become overly popular. There were only half a dozen people or so when we were there but interestingly Salmon Bay around the corner had just one other person on it and the sea looked so much clearer and calmer. I think most people head to the little beach and leave this one, sometimes just viewing it from the road above. We had a little swim at each beach which was lovely and then it was time to continue cycling. It was hard to know how much time to spend at each sight because we had to make sure we didn’t miss the last ferry of the day.

There weren’t many other wow beaches along the southern shoreline so we cycled all the way to the western tip. The area was now pretty busy with people turning up on buses and bikes but still nothing crazy. A short walk led us to a viewpoint across the sea where a bunch of New Zealand fur seals could be seen basking on the rocks.

Now it was time to begin our journey along the northern coast. We looked back at one at the beaches we were cycling past and noticed it had a lovely sort of mini sandbank leading to some rocks and separating the two beaches. It looked so nice that we locked our bikes up and headed down. We couldn’t believe how beautiful and untouched it felt with pristine white sand and calm turquoise waters. It was so appealing that I decided to go for another dip.

We stopped at a few more beaches on our way back to ‘the settlement’ as the tiny village is known, passing salt lakes along the way. The settlement was heaving with people now and there were quokkas absolutely everywhere. We decided to treat ourselves to coffee and cake in a cafe where signs warned people to keep the quokkas out yet they seemed to ignore the signs and sat below tables waiting for crumbs. Along with the grazing quokkas were a few ‘pink and grey galahs’ which are my favourite cockatoos as I just adore their colour combination.

We wanted to go to the museum but it was closing at 3pm so we’d only have 15 minutes which wasn’t enough time. It seemed like such a bad system closing up so early, it’s the sort of thing people would have time to do at the end of the day after cycling around and waiting for their time ferry to depart. Overall though we had a really lovely day exploring the island and getting to meet the local quokkas.