Rottnest Island

13 Oct 2014

Rottnest Island

This past weekend a large group of exchange students from Trinity went to Rottnest Island, an island approximately 20km off the coast of Perth. Since I had to be back Saturday morning for Relay for Life, Lindsey, Mandy, and Hana were nice enough to come with me early Friday morning so I would be able to spend an entire day on the island. In order to reach the island one has to take either a ferry or airplane. We took the ferry route, but with the early time all of us slept through the entire ride.

Rottnest Island is unique in the fact that no public cars are allowed on the island. The only vehicles we saw were government vehicles and tour company buses. Therefore, in order to get around we all had to rent bikes for the weekend. I had paid for my bike rental when purchasing my ferry ticket. When getting off the ferry and grabbing our bikes, they never recorded our names or if we had paid. I found that to be the strangest thing. The ferry company must assume people are quite honest or if they lose a bike there is nowhere for the bike to go but on the island. Either way, I was surprised by this lack of security.

The bike ride around the island took us all day, as we continually would stop at the beaches and scenery along the ride. The distance around the island was 22 kilometers. When we first began we thought no map would be needed. We soon realized how wrong we were when ending up on sand walking paths near the coast, not conducive to biking in anyway. Our little detour led us to some beautiful rocks we climbed to get an even better view. While climbing I had my first encounter with dangerous Australian wildlife – a large black snake. I decided not to identify him; I can only imagine how poisonous he was.

Further on we stopped for a snorkel break. The water at Rottnest was crystal clear, similar to what I would see in the Caribbean at home. I walked right into the water and was floating amongst beds of sea grass and large rock formations. With the current research I am doing, I could name the species of sea grass making me feel confident in my research. As I continued to drift along I saw huge fish hiding under the rocks as well as others hiding amongst the sand. The snorkeling did not compare to what I had seen up north but was still beautiful. The water was absolutely freezing so we did not last long in the water before relaxing on the beach.

Stopping at another beach along our bike ride, we came across a quokka. Quokkas are marsupials, a little bigger than squirrels. Native to only the western island of Australia, they are quite unique. Even though quokkas are wild animals, they have become very humanized and came right up to us, begging for food. We bit pieces of our apples to pass to them as well as stroking their backs. It seems weird that a wild animal would not run away when people touch them. When posing to take a picture at the beach, we encountered some more wildlife. We came across a rather large lizard/snake creature. Even though they seemed friendly, we steered clear of them.

After completing our bike ride around the entire island, we met up with the other large group of exchange students at the two houses we were renting for the weekend. Needing food to barbecue for dinner, we headed to the general store on the island. Of course the prices in this store were outrageous as the owners had a complete monopoly over the island. Our evening was spent cooking and hanging out on the beach.

I left Rottnest early the following morning to ensure I was back in time to participate in Relay for Life at UWA. I was the only exchange student on the Trinity team, giving me an opportunity to get to know more people at Trinity I had not previously known. I would have thought by now in the semester I would know most people, but with 400 people living here meeting everyone is difficult. The relay was similar to ones held at NC State, just a little bit smaller in size. I think I walked a total of 6 hours in the entire 24 hours. I headed back to Trinity for a little nap between some early morning shifts, since I didn’t have a sleeping bag and everyone who’s sleeping bag I typically borrow was using it for the evening. Who knew one would need a sleeping bag so much when on exchange. A tip for anyone going abroad – bring a sleeping bag.