Last day of our holiday. Met up with Tom, an old school friend, who took us on a tour of Kings Park and the Botanic Gardens. A very pleasant space, nice and cool under the trees and with great views down over the Swan River and city of Perth. In the afternoon we did a self-guided walking tour of ‘Art City’ Perth.

We did not have any internet on Rottnest Island, hence no posts for a few days.

I won’t post any photos of the wedding as Simon and Dez can decide which ones they want to go out into the public domain when they get their “official” photos from the wedding photographer.

We arrived on the island on Thursday morning and it was sunny and very hot. In the evening the weather deteriorated and overnight it rained. Wedding Day Friday started out cloudy and windy and it deteriorated during the morning until it was gale winds and heavy showers of rain. So much for a beach wedding at Fay’s Bay. The wedding planner was earning her fee as plans were revised from an exposed beach to a sheltered beach, then a sheltered verandah and finally inside in an historic cottage. Dez and Simon were fantastic, they were the most cool, calm and collected, just going with the flow while everyone else was losing their minds. The late ferries back to Freemantle were cancelled due to the weather and so some had to leave a little earlier than they wanted to. It was a lovely wedding, we all enjoyed ourselves and Dez and Simon were very happy.

Wouldn’t you know it the next day was warm and sunny although still a bit windy. All our immediate family were on Rottnest, Barbara and I, Clare and Dave and baby Andrew, Susan and Mike, in a 3 bedroom chalet at Geordies Bay and Dez and Simon in a “honeymoon” chalet about a hundred metres away in Longreach Bay.

Rottnest Island (also known as Wadjemup, and Rotto by locals) is 18 km off the coast of Freemantle WA – a 30 minute ride on the ferry. It is a sandy, low lying, limestone island, a nature reserve, and is 11km long, 4.5km at its widest and the highest point is 50 metres above sea level. There is no private ownership or leasing of land. It is administered by the Rottnest Island Authority under its own act of parliament. It has a permanent population of about 300 but 500,000 visitors a year and up to 20,000 on a busy day in summer. There are no private vehicles just a few service and emergency vehicles used by the Authority, but the roads are excellent. There is a good bus service, a one carriage train, a small landing strip and almost everyone brings their own, or hires a bicycle. It is wonderful cycling, dozens of beautiful bays and beaches, inland salt lakes, no hills of any significance, no vehicle traffic and many, many kilometres of smooth sealed roads. There are hundreds of chalets for accommodating 5,500 visitors, quite a large settlement at Thomson Bay (where the ferry jetty is) with stores, cafes, restaurants, etc. There is a good grocery store and excellent café where we stayed in Geordie Bay.

There were no inhabitants when Europeans arrived but Rottnest had been inhabited by aborigines from 6,500 to about 50,000 years ago. The island has an interesting history of salt harvesting from the salt lakes, an aboriginal prison, a reformatory for boys, an internment camp in WWI and WWII, a military installation of 9 inch and 6.2 inch guns in WWII and Battery Observation Post (BOP) and Signals Building to co-ordinate the aiming and firing of the guns. Today the island is largely devoted to recreational use with swimming, fishing, snorkelling, surfing, kayaking, sky diving, use a Skegway, tours of historic and military buildings, weddings etc.

Rottnest is known for its population of Quokkas, a small native marsupial found in few other locations. The island’s name comes from the Dutch for “Rats’ Nest Island” after the quokkas. On the way over from Freemantle to the island our ferry stopped so we could observe some humpback whales and dolphins. The whales migrate up and down the West Australia coast.

We loved our time on the island. Just enough things of interest to see and explore and it is very, very relaxed. A large part of the laid back feeling comes from there being no vehicular traffic. Everyone walks, cycles or takes the bus.

Freemantle

A relaxing day in sunny, warm – almost too warm – Freemantle , or Freo as some call it.

With Clare, Dave and Andrew we visited Freemantle Prison, Western Australia’s only World Heritage listed building. In 1850, the first of almost 10,000 male convicts arrived as a labour force to help build the Swan River Colony. Their first project was to build their own home – the Convict Establishment – later renamed Freemantle Prison. The convict era ended in 1886 and the prison became Western Australia’s maximum security gaol for men, women and children until it was decommissioned in 1991. We took a guided tour: “Convict Prison” which took an hour and a quarter and was about the time from the 1850s until 1886.

From the Prison we went to Little Creatures Brewery where we met up with Simon and Dez, Susan and Mike and Dez’s family Ruth and Craig and their seven children for a very nice lunch. Later in the day Dave and I went for a walk around Freemantle looking at the lovely old buildings and checked out the Roundhouse Precinct on the shore near Bathers Beach where a canon is fired at 1300hrs every day.

Tomorrow we all head down to the Rottnest Express Ferry to go over to Rottnest Island for the next three days.

London Heathrow to Perth

This was a big transition day, northern hemisphere to southern and half way round the world, 9009 miles, 16hrs 15mins non-stop. A cruisy start to the day, awake at usual time, casual breakfast, 5 min walk to Paddington Station, 30 min on the TFL train to Heathrow Terminal for a departure 10 minutes after noon. Qantas absolutely on time as usual. At Heathrow it takes twenty minutes of taxiing before you get to actually take off.

We had booked this flight in trepidation as it is advertised as 16 hrs 45 mins long and would be the longest flight we had ever done. However it turned out to be pretty comfortable. This was preferable to say two flights of seven or eight hours with a two or three hour stopover between. We didn’t sleep, just watched heaps of very good movies: premieres, classics, award winners, European, Australian, Hitchcock, Marvel, Harry Potter etc. Michael Cain, James Stewart, Paul Newman, and wasn’t Grace Kelly absolutely beautiful and talented.

We had pre-booked a shuttle from Perth Airport to Freemantle, about a 45 minute drive. The company, Perth City Shuttles subcontracted the service to an Uber driver so we had a very comfortable and chatty ride in a Kia Suv for just the two of us. Dave had booked our accommodation and was to be sent a code 12 hours before arrival as the apartment is often unattended. They were an hour behind us arriving in Perth and had booked their own transport. On our arrival the apartment was ready and there was a concierge who accepted our creds and gave us swipe card and key so we could check in.

Now in Freemantle in a very spacious and modern serviced apartment sharing with Clare, Dave and grandson Andrew. It has three double bedrooms, two huge ensuites, another wc, full laundry, masses of storage, large kitchen/dining/ living area, a pool, gym, spa and parking. Our ensuite alone is bigger than our room and bathroom at the Shakespeare Hotel in London. And it is amazingly cheap for the five of us. We are here two nights before getting the ferry over to Rottnest Island.