Rottnest Island is 19 km away from the mainland and is probably the most popular vacation destination for the people around Perth. But many Tourists visit the island daily as well. The ride with the Rottnest Express Ferry takes about half an hour.

Once you are there, you can explore the island by bike or by foot, because there are no cars allowed. We don’t chose physical strain and go from one boat to the next. A 1,5 hour tour around the island awaits us.

During the trip around the 11 km long and 4,5 km wide island we stop several times for sightseeing. These are for example beautiful bays, an osprey nest or a seal colony. At one of the stops we spot some dolphins next to two stand up paddleboarders.

Between every stop the speedboat shows its power and we race, almost fly over the waves with about 70 km/h. First I was a bit scared that Simon gets seasick again – remember the shark dive – but today he really likes it. The only annoying thing is, that the hair from the girl who is sitting in front of Simon, is waving in his face.

After that tour we do a lunch break and share the porch of a Café with a georgeous peacock.

To be honest, the main reason for me visiting this island is the unique Quokkas. At 2 pm we join a guided „Quokka Walk“ to finally see the little fellas.
Up front a little history lesson. As the first settlers saw the Quokkas, they thought they are rats, so they named the island Rats Nest. The name Rats Nest became Rottnest later on.
You can find these little furr balls almost just on Rottnest Island, or Rotto, how the locals call it. There are few other small Quokka colonies on the mainland, but Rotto is their main habitat. This is what makes the island so unique.

Quokkas don’t like sunlight and because of that they mostly hide in the shade. To see them you have to go down on our knees and spy under the bushes. If you do so, you have a good chance to spot them, because there is a Quokka nearly under every bush. As we spotted the first ones it was time for us to split off the group. After few minutes they continued their walk, but we decided to stay a little longer with the cuties.

Here are they now, blinking at us tiredly. Everytime you get closer with your head or the camera, they are very curious and crane their necks. They are so interested in the camera that they try to eat it and they come so close, that most of the photos should be blurred. But I’m sure there are really good ones, too.

We put a great effort in getting one of the famous Quokka-Selfies. For that you almost have to lie down on the ground and scrumble under the bush. And I do this, for sure, what a question.

It’s up to you to decide if we could get a nice selfie. Furthermore I’m really interested, if you knew Quokkas before, or not. I totally fell/fall for them. But can you blame me for that…..be honest…?

As you can imagine, this was one of the days I really appreciate. Nice weather, adventurous boat tour and WILDLIFE to touch, of course.
The high point would be a snorkel tour, which we could have booked. But we thought that one day is a bit to short to do everything. So we decided to spend as much time as we can with the Quokkas. We can go snorkeling further north, aswell. The water there will be warmer, but there won’t be Quokkas. I think we made the right choice!

Yours, Carina

Map