Wadjemup - Rottnest Island, Western Australia

I met Jay on the first day I arrived to Australia for the second time. She was in the same room with me in Kangaroo Inn, a hostel in central Perth. I was lucky, as me and Jay decided to keep in contact even though after the first few nights I had to move to another hostel.

We met a couple times for dinner or roaming around Perth and then decided to go to Wadjemup - Rottnest Island together. It is a small island located about 18 km from Fremantle by a ferry.

About Rottnest Island

The English name of the island derives from 'Rat's nest island', as the island has a huge quokka population. However, Rottnest Island was first known, and is still known, by the name Wadjemup, which is the name the aboriginal people gave to the island long before it got its English name, and it means 'the island where the spirits are'.

The island actually used to be part of the mainland before the sea rose over 7500 years ago. The Whadjuk Nyoongar people used to walk to the island, and there has been evidence about people living on the island a long time ago. During my search about the island I found this web page that was put together by Vanessa Smart and Samara King as part of the Emerging Curator program. They go deeper into the history of the island, which is not a happy one.

After colonisation of Australia, for almost 100 years Wadjemup was a prison for the aboriginal people who were dragged away from their homes. If you want to learn more about the history and real owners of Wadjemup, check out the Always Wadjemup website above.

Our trip

Our day trip to Wadjemup wasn't much planned. We didn't have much time on the island, as the ferry arrived to the island around 10AM and left the island 5:30PM. Me and Jay had rent bicycles and snorkels ahead of time and were prepared to get to know the island by biking around.

It took a bit of time for the both of us to get used to the bicycle again after many years of not using it. The weather was warm but cloudy, as it wasn't quite summer yet, so it wasn't too hot to go around. We knew that we didn't have time to see the whole island, and might need to come back one day for another trip, but we chose the 10 km route to see half of the island.

Mid way we stopped to snorkel at Little Salmon Bay. I have snorkelled before, but for Jay it was the first time. I wished later that we would've done the trip a little bit later, when the sun would've warmed up the waters a bit more. Now it was so cold, that we could stay in the water only for ten minutes. Maybe, if we had a full wet suit to keep us warm, it would've been a bit more enjoyable. We did see some fish and a huge lobster, and the beaches were amazing.

At the end of our trip, we saw the cute animal Wadjemup is filled with. There were many of them lounging around the cafeterias hoping that visitors would drop something for them to snack on. This one we saw in the shade under a tree, already snacking on something that looked like a fruit.

I still want to visit the island again and see more of its nature and also get to know its historic sites.