Perth August & December 2018 - Day 10

Perth: Rottnest Island

Introduction

All the tour guides rave about Rottnest Island - the "must see" location when in Perth. The island is part wildlife sanctuary and part holiday destination. It has some great beaches, sand and surf. There are walking and biking trails all over the island. Biking is the most popular activity, judging by the large racks of bikes on the back of all the ferries that run to the island. There is also a small railway that today operates railcars to take tourists to the highest point on the island - Oliver Hill - at a stunning 46m ASL. The railway was built to service the WW2 gun enplacement dug into the hill.

We boarded the ferry at Perth and headed down=river for a stop at Freemantle. Then it headed across the 18km of Indian Ocean to reach Rottnest Island. Many people had booked bicycles as part of their ferry trip so these were offloaded and off they went. We walked through the collection of shops and cafes, stopping for a coffee amidst the squawking and aggressive crows and the passive smiling quokkas. The small furry quokkas are a big attraction with the tourists, many trying to take a selfie picture of themselves next to a smiling animal. The quokkas do not seem to mind, they tolerate some of this then just hop away. From coffee we took the railcar on the scenic journey to Oliver Hill and then a tour of the gun enplacement. This well-preserved relic of WW2 was built to defend Freemantle and Perth from a seaborne attack. The 18 inch naval gun is now one of the few that remain, all the others around the Australian coast were salvaged for scrap metal soon after the war ended. The one on Rottnest proved difficult to install in the first place, dissuading any ideas for its removal.

Departing Perth and heading towards the mouth of the Swan