Travel // Rottnest Island, WA
February 16, 2018
Rottnest Island was a place that I discovered through Instagram {and a very lovely Australian twitter friend from back in the day called Bree} and last January, as we sat at home on a very wet cold weekend I couldn't stop googling photos of it. An island just off the coast of Perth that has over 60 insanely beautiful beaches where there are no cars, just bikes! It's also home to quokkas, small marsupials only found on this island which have become famous for their selfie smiles and as a result driven lots more tourists to the island {although I was just here for the beaches!}, even Roger Federer got in on the action and Qantas have renamed some of their aeroplanes in favour of these much loved little chipmunk like animals. But quokka selfies aside, I'd literally been dreaming of visiting for a whole year and a year later, the day finally arrived. We booked our ferry tickets with the Rottnest Express from Fremantle and went on a Tuesday where tickets & bike hire was half price with their Telethon Tuesday deal - as luck had it we had booked our airbnb from Monday-Wednesday before we found out about the deal. All the photos & some more info/tips for visiting from that dream day are below if you'd like to see..
Our bikes came with our ferry tickets {we'd packed up a beach bag for the day with a picnic} so once we attached the basket to the bike, we were off. We had a map with a rough plan but just followed the main loop {in reverse even though the guide said the wind would be bad going that way but we wanted to beat the crowds!} To be fair though despite the boat being completely full, and a few others coming in, tourism is limited here and the island or any of the beaches never felt busy at all. It is a really large area for everyone to spread out across. If you don't want to cycle there's a bus that drives around the main loop all day so you can hop on and hop off but it was pretty pricey and we loved having the bikes.
Some of our favourite beaches were Little Parakeet Bay, Ricey beach, Salmon and Pinky.
But really the whole island was just incredible with crystal clear water, boats bobbing around in some, jettys, a mini golf course and even an airport for scenic flights over! There was some accommodation on the island, which looked really basic but would be amazing to spend a couple of days just away from everything here.
I couldn't stop taking photos, or telling Ben just how beautiful everything was the whole way round.
It's definitely worth packing a picnic and lots of water {we'd frozen a bottle the night before} as whilst there's the main settlement village with a couple of restaurants, a Subway & general store, there's only one other place for supplies on the island. The drinking water doesn't stretch across much of the island so if you're caught cycling half way round the other side, you'd be stuck!
And it goes without saying, of course, to pack lots of suncream and wear hats. The sun is incredibly strong here. We purposely booked the earliest ferry over to the island to try and cycle as much as we could before the real heat of the day.
There were a few shark updates coming through on my Dorsal app whilst we were there, and we saw the helicopters go across a couple of times. In reality though I don't think they'd ever come close enough to the shore on these quieter bays.
Some of the bays reminded us of the Med, little Greek bays with all the boats.
We'd cycle until we wanted to stop at a beach for an explore, then cycle some more.
Some of the beaches were near deserted.
We stopped for lunch at a bench and after a few minutes, we heard the bushes rustle & out popped four quokkas! I didn't want to try and be that tourist with the selfie {although we saw scores of others trying!} but couldn't resist this picture, he's almost smiling. They were very sweet.
MORE beach spam.
Eventually we'd finished the cycle circuit {we decided against going right to the end of the island though which I think our legs thanked us for!} and stopped off at Simmo's ice cream - the place where we'd visited in Dunsborough. They had Ben's favourite combo of lemon & liquorice, I had strawberry sorbet and bounty. It was SO refreshing on a really hot Perth summer's day.
At the end we found the famous lighthouse, Ben's Mum actually has a picture of this in their house from one of their Australia trips.
And then it was time to catch our return ferry already.
If you're ever visiting Western Australia you must, must look into visiting Rottnest. I really hope that we can return someday.
The Sydney post will be up soon! You can find all of this Australia travelogue series here.
R <3 xx
3 comments
What great photos! I'm getting so excited about our trip here in just two weeks time :-D Please can I ask, what time ferries did you guys get? I'm trying to book it now, but I don't want to not have enough time on the island, but on the other hand it could be a really long day! Any advice would be much appreciated! Many thanks, Kayleigh x
ReplyDeleteHi Kayleigh, oh wow I'm so envious! Have the best time. We got the 8.30am ferry out with the Rottnest Express and then were booked on the one around 4pm back but ended up having too much sun so wanted to come back earlier around 2? I'd recommend booking a long day there then if you want to come back earlier you can get in a stand-by ferry queue and you won't be too peak season so I'm sure they'll let you come back earlier. Enjoy! xx
DeleteOk great, thanks so much for the advice! So good to know there is possibly an option to come back earlier. I was worried we would be bound to travel at the exact time shown on our ticket! We are definitely going to go early too to avoid the rush and hopefully some of the heat! Thanks! x
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