(14 Mar 2011, Rottnest Island) Just off Perth, the capital of Western Australia, is Rottnest Island where we went late in our visit to the city. We took our bikes and swim equipment on the ferry from Fremantle for the day. Did a bit of each, had a terrible lunch but enough of that.
They have these creatures called "quokka" which are only found on the island -- they're protected. The original Dutch explorers who were marooned on the island thought they were large rats, hence the name Rottnest. We call them "rotters". They're rather curious and will come right up to you as you can tell from the photo. They're about the size of an Ontario ground hog but have a rat like tail, large rear legs for hopping about. Reminds us of the "Welcome to Canada" beaver on youtube. We imagine this guy saying "G'day mate, welcome to Rottnest".
There's another strange story about Rottnest. It's about 20km from the mainland and every year they have a swim where thousands of people (2300 in the swim when we were there) swim all the way out to the island. It's quite the deal with the fastest times in the order of 5 hours. There's choppy waters, stingers, sun and Rottnest ferry boats to contend with. It's an iron-man/woman kind of thing.
No comments:
Post a Comment