Fremantle, WA: A Day on Wadjemup

New-to-us Port #5 … with an overnight.

Fremantle is the port for Perth, the capital of Western Australia. Since we will be in Perth for a few days before our Indian Pacific rail journey, we won’t be going there during this overnight visit.

Leaving exploring Fremantle to tomorrow, today we focused our attention on Rottnest Island … known as Wadjemup by the traditional custodians of the land. It is a 30-minute ferry ride on the Rottnest Express, which leaves from B Shed … a 20-minute walk from where Regatta docked at the Victoria Quay Passenger Terminal. I had booked us on the 9:30a ferry … which we had plenty of time to catch.

Private vehicles are not allowed on Rottnest. The popular way to explore is by bicycle. But I can’t keep my balance on a two-wheel bike. So, I looked at alternatives and settled on the Rottnest Explorer, a shuttle service that takes visitors around the island … operating as a HoHo.

Once we disembarked the ferry and got our bearings, we hopped on the bus and stayed on for the entire loop — about an hour’s drive — checking out where we might want to get off and walk later … and where Mui might want to swim.

Once we began the loop over again, we hopped off at Parker Point to check out the views. As luck would have it, we got to see our first quokka there. What is a quokka? It is a small macropod … about the size of a domestic cat. This mainly nocturnal animal is only found on Rottnest, so we were lucky in our sighting of one in the wild … though we did later see others wandering around the Settlement where they go in search of crumbs dropped by visitors.

Our beach break for Mui was at Salmon Bay, the longest stretch of sugar-white sand on the island. But that’s not why Mui picked it. No, he opted for Salmon Bay because it was mostly deserted.

I’m going to let the images do the talking as words won’t do justice to the beautiful scenery our eyes beheld around every corner. The bonus of this great day was that we had a fairly strong breeze to keep the temperature — a high of 85F — quite comfy … even in the sun.

We had a fantastic time on Rottnest. We returned to Fremantle on the 4:30p ferry. Gage Roads, a brewery/pub, was conveniently nearby once we got off the boat. It served as the perfect spot to grab a bite for dinner before returning to Regatta to rest up for tomorrow.Read more