Australia 2025

Day Nine - Rottnest Island

I am completely surrounded by Yorkshire people! Everywhere we go, Brian or Jon seem to attract or drop in with people from the county. Today we have encountered a good dozen.

Anyway, the early start meant we had to be at pier 4, Barrack Street Jetty by 8 a.m. to catch the catamaran to this sort of pleasure island the Western Australians use as a bit of a holiday place.

The trip over took one and a half hours down the Swan River and the tour guide, Malcolm, gave us a running commentary of sights along the way through to Fremantle Harbour and across the Indian Ocean including not a little bit of sarcasm about the cricket. According to Malcolm, there are swimming events for the bit between Freo and the Island and if you do it, you can claim a special registration plate for your vehicle. Worth knowing that if you fancy living in this part of the world. A note from 2026 is that HMS Anson, a nuclear sub from the UK was prevented from docking at HMAS Stirling, the base at Freo because of this event.

Having disembarked, we picked up our tour bicycles and immediately set off for the cafe. Brian revoked the bike and decided to take the tour bus around the island. I suppose being 72 you would. The cafe was full of the local marsupials called Quokkas which were small rabbits with Kangaroo type legs and were mostly sleepy or trying to eat fallen chips. You aren't supposed to feed these creatures who were quite persistent if slothful. Bit why would you anyway as they looked most flea-bitten. Equally annoying were the black crows some of which had variegated feather patterns to make them harder to see at night. These made the most dreadful din whilst you were trying to absorb the scene.

We set off on our bikes. Now the thing about cycling is that Yorkshire Jon is rather good at it and does a lot of miles in one go - like 60+. I do 10 at the most these days and that's to Wolverhampton and back which is not far at all and mostly on the canal.

We aimed to get to the western most part of the island - oddly entitled "West End". Rottnest has great roads mainly of cycles and the tour buses so you can swan about in comparative safety. We were also intending to look in on the lighthouse, which we did as it has a cafe and we met up with Brian there who seemed to have followed us around as if he was a member of the Japanese Secret Service (story for the pub that one - ask Greenpeace Gav).

We had wisely taken some sandwiches with us and of course plenty of fluids and we stopped off at one of the many beautiful views overlooking the white sand beach and the aqua and opal Indian Ocean. Probably one the best places I've ever eaten lunch ( a sausage roll) and that includes next to Tower Bridge in London.

Having reached the West End and another cafe, we returned to eat an ice cream and have a paddle in the sea. Not wishing to invite sunburn, I eschewed a full swim. The ice cream had of course melted so I had no choice but to wash my hands in the ocean. I can't say I took much notice of the sunbathing beauties there either.

We returned to the starting cafe having cycled around 20 miles and again took on the mighty Quokka and then boarded the catamaran back to Elizabeth Quay having managed a short nap on the way.

Having washed up, we met Brian for his last night before he decamps to Sydney so a last drink for him in the Belgian bar and it was farewell. I'd miss Brian. It's a different dynamic when there are three in a party but at least the Leeds-shirt attraction was lessened.