Today is our departure day (Friday), but we don’t leave until 3.30 p.m. hence counting this as a day on the island. We were all up early, Eversley is working as a guide today (she has been volunteering here for a few years now) and we wanted to get our main bags packed for 8.00 a.m. pickup. All was managed and it made it easy to be ready to leave our cottage by 9.00ish.
We’ve hired a locker for our valuables, which we didn’t want to put into the main baggage, which means we can enjoy getting around without carrying too much on our backs. Stephen has headed off to Parker Point by bus with his binoculars to do a walk and observe ospreys. I had a short walk along the quokka trail by the lake.
Our location has been ideal for catching buses and enjoyable walks and being close to shops, pubs and cafes. Along with ideal weather this has been quite a wonderful stay. Eversley chose the cottage. It has a good view of the bay from the front windows and, being an older building, has high ceilings and a large living room.
Stephen and I agree that we have fallen in love with Rottnest from this visit. We are staying where there are trees and greenery. My memories of the island are that is was windy and scrubby, and as we travelled on the circut bus yesterday we saw that aspect of the island as well (without a strong wind and in cool weather still pleasant), but our main environment is in and around the settlement.
Yesterday we took the circut bus out to West Point. It is a hop off hop on type of service, running every 45 minutes. I wanted to see the seals. Our best view was using Stephen’s binoculars. I have a long lens, but not actually long enough as they were on a rocky outcrop offshore. With the binoculars we could see them swimming around in the waves as well.
Yesterday evening we walked to the lighthouse, about 1km away, so that we could be on the side of the island where we could see the sunset. We didn’t get a full afterglow, but it was still lovely and we had a bench to sit on overlooking the beach. We see the sunrise each morning from our house and a couple of morning I’ve walked out in my PJs to take photos.
We’ve been incredibly fortunate with the weather. Eversley booked for May as the weather is usually good, but the storms over the weekend and cancellation of early ferrys on Tuesday did not really hint at how nice it would be for the four days of our visit. We had rain on the first night, but just a little cloud, a breeze, and lots of sunshine since.
I almost forgot that we had lunch at the Rottnest pub yesterday, much nicer food than out at Geordie Bay and probably around the same price as we didn’t choose the more expensive food.
Great for the memories