Yes, well, what a difference a day makes, after a very scarry night where the caravans were buffeted broadside, our run through Perth into Fremantle was quite a bright sunny day! Who would have thought?
After settling ourselves into the lovely caravan park and finding it was on the main bus line to Fremantle Station and therefore a direct trainline into Perth, we were greeted with a visit of some people who became lovely friends from our travels two years ago who live at Mandurah and had come up to spend a few days with us in Fremantle, and with that in mind, it was a case of out for dinner at a fish restaurant.
Unfortunately the photo of the group of us did not turn out - ah well, will catch up with a photo another time.
It was while here that we discussed about our visit to Rottnest Island the following day. It was to be the day after but with another bad weather system due to come in, we were able to bring our booking forward a day - thankfully.
It was a 30 minute ferry ride and to be honest it was rather choppy and it was preferable to stay seated. However once we arrived on the island we wandered around for a while prior to hopping on a bus for a tour of the island.
What a beautiful place to visit. It is approx 18 kms off the coast from Fremantle, is 11kms long and 4.5 kms wide. It is also home to the happiest creatures on earth, so the saying goes.
These little guys are so cute and of course I just had to add one to my collection in the caravan didn't I?
The bus tour was very interesting with lots of information. From what was shown, it is very popular with surfboard riders to as there is a reef surrounding the island.
Time for lunch which was had at the original hotel on the island.
You can see here Peter & Des on the left and June & Tony on the right. Yes, the friends we met travelling is another June, and would you believe we hit it off really well. Hence why they joined us for our day to Rottnest Island.
Whilst we were having lunch, we had several visits from the lovely little quokkas
They look like rats when you first see them and apparently the island was originally called Ratsnest Island, but quite a while ago it was changed to Rottnest - sounds much better, and these characters are so sweet. The are absolutely everywhere.
We then spent an hour or so wandering around the shopping precinct before heading back down to the jetty to get the ferry back to the mainland.
You can see from the above photo just how choppy the water is and the one below is looking back at the island as we boarded the ferry to head back to Fremantle.
As predicted the next rain band came in that night and we were thankful that we had changed the date of our trip to the island.
The following day - the day we were supposed to go there was not a nice day at all, however we did manage to catch up with June & Tony for lunch before farewelling them as they were returning home to Mandurah the next morning.
What a lovely way to celebrate my birthday, a whole weekend thoroughly enjoying the company of these lovely people.
The rest of our time in Fremantle sadly was not so nice, the weather really turned nasty, and although we had a day into Perth where we visited the Perth Mint, we didn't enjoy our visit to Perth/Fremantle. Guess we will just have to plan another trip to the west sometime in the future.
Yes, it was very miserable, so for now it is time to leave Perth & Fremantle and continue on our journey.
'Til next time
June
I enjoyed tagging along to Rottnest Island with you. We visited over 20 years ago and don’t remember seeing quite so many Quokkas. They are cute. How disappointing that you struck bad weather while in Perth. It sounds just like our visit to Adelaide 30 years ago. We still haven’t had a chance to get back for a decent visit. I look forward to the next leg if your trip.
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