Rottnest Island

We have just spent the weekend in paradise!

After work on Friday night, I packed a bag with the essentials (suncream, bikini, snorkel), then Jess and Candice picked me up and took me to Jess' in Peppermint Grove. With nothing planned until the ferry on Saturday morning, we decided to head into the city with some friends for a few drinks. The only footwear I have with me in Australia is flip flops and trainers, so I was very grateful to be lent some gorgeous wedges to hit the bars on! All dressed up, we caught the train over to Swanbourne for predrinks at Darcy's, an old friend of the girls from Dunsborough. There was a nice little group of us and we ate guacamole and drank champagne... a lot of champagne. When the bubbles ran out, we nipped over to the liquor store for more supplies. They stocked St Austell Brewery Proper Job, which I hate but it was funny seeing Cornish beer there! After the last train into the city went straight through the platform without stopping, we resorted to booking taxis and proceeded to wait outside the house swigging from a gin bottle like yobs. This was glorious in its scabbiness and produced some interesting behaviour, including a delightful jig fondly adopted as the "gin dance"!

La-la-la-la gin dance...

The taxis arrived and we cruised into the central business district to surprise Mia, who works in a bar called The Apple Daily. It's on one level of The Print Hall, a huge, fancy building right in the middle of all the skyscrapers. It was jam-packed with smashed corporate jerks in suits showing everyone how rich they were, but Mia was so excited to be visited at work that she saved us a big table and set about making us loads of delicious cocktails to taste, including some extra strong ones she invented herself. This girl we were with, Jackie, had a bit too much to drink and was vomming in the toilets, which definitely was not OK in such a fancy bar, so a few of the girls escorted her home, leaving us to stay for one more beer before paying the ridiculously discounted bill (thanks Mia!) and heading home to bed like good girls, despite the temptation of a big house party nearby.

As the alarm went off at 6:45am, boy am I glad we didn't go to that house party. We crawled to the kitchen table for mugs of tea, which just about gave us the energy to shower and throw the luggage in the car before driving down to Freo. The car was so full that none of the back seats would flip up, so I enjoyed a delightful ride in amongst the bags and bikes. The little cafe at the ferry port provided pastries and coffee, which we wolfed down before hopping on the Rottnest Express for the 9:30am crossing. The seas matched how we felt: Rough. As the waves smashed against the boat and little kids screamed as we lurched about, the three of us exchanged some queasy glances! I feel very thankful that we were only at sea for twenty five minutes, put it that way...

My seat is in there somewhere...

Struggling on all levels! 

Rottnest is 18km off the mainland and its circumference is only 25km; perfect for hungover cycling!

Our moods and the feeling in our stomachs instantly improved when we stepped off the boat and the clouds began to clear. It's such a beautiful little place! With a couple of hours to kill until we could get into our accommodation, we grabbed our backpacks and bikes and headed north form the port for a little explore. We worked our way around several little bays, stopping off at a few along the way; with it being the end of the holidays, nowhere was too busy and we had one of the beaches completely to ourselves! We unpacked at our hut, grabbed some supplies at the General Store and hit the restaurant for an amazing, hangover-busting Fish and Chips. Yummy! For dessert, we bought an ice cream and walked out to the end of a little jetty, which was really pretty.

Nooooo Candy!

With our bellies full, we spent the afternoon sunning ourselves on Pinkies Beach. I certainly fell asleep for a considerable amount of time at this point due to a lack of sleep the night before. As the sun started to go down at the temperature dropped, we returned to our little hut in the woods for a shower before dinner, revealing a nice bit of sunburn sting in the process. The name Rottnest stems from "rat's nest" due to its abundance of Quokkas, a small marsupial which is not found in the wild anywhere else on the planet. I discovered these creatures on Twitter before I flew out from England and was very excited to meet them (they're known as the happiest animals on the planet - how could I not be?!), and they are pretty cute, but the reality is they're really tame and confident with humans and actually quite a nuisance, especially when they're trying to get into your house to steal food! The girls said one got into their hut when they brought friends over last year and it pooed everywhere when they tried to usher it out; eww! I do like how all the stores have little swinging doors with "no quokkas" on them to keep them out though.

I had a lush greek salad at the Rotto Hotel and, as we settled down with some after-dinner drinks, a hilarious stag party turned up and started dancing around like lunatics to the band that was performing; as someone pulled up his skirt, we learnt that the groom's drag was complete with G string. Nice. Because Candice won't be able to come up mid-week for my real birthday, the girls presented me with a surprise early birthday card and gorgeous silver bracelet with funky tassels and charms on it and we shared a cookies and ice cream dessert instead of a birthday cake. They're the best! On the cycle home, the combination of having a few pints and the pitch blackness resulted in a few close shaves with the wheels of my bike and some unfortunate quokkas. Sorry little guys! We hit the hay feeling all sunned-out and ready for our second day of island fun.

The next morning, we cooked eggs for breakfast (with quokka encounter included!) and packed up all our stuff before cycling the 10km down to the south side of the island; the route took us up and down loads of steep hills, but having the little red boom box in the basket of Candice's bike blasting out Bastille kept us going all the way to Salmon Bay. I can't even describe how beautiful this beach is; white sand, crystal clear water and a huge reef. We sunbathed for a little while, before donning our snorkels and hopping in the water. Snorkelling is one of my favourite things to do on holiday and both the wildlife and the water were better here than anywhere else I've been. At one point, we heard Jess' scream come out of her snorkel and we all freaked out and swam up onto the coral; she said she'd found herself in the middle of a school of huge fish with big teeth "smiling at her"; creepy! That didn't put us off though and we got a lot of exploring in before we snacked on a lunch of gluten-free cookies.

Hello there!

The wind changed at midday and Salmon Bay got really windy, so we moved back over to Pinkies for some sheltered sunbathing until it was time to pack up, wave goodbye to our little house and head home. By this time, we were hungry enough to need another ice cream and sat by the ferry, watching the world go by and munching away. Due to the glorious weather, the return crossing was much calmer and there were no churning stomachs, thank god. The girls bundled me back into the back of the car and dropped me home; by 6pm I was sitting up to a Sunday roast with my host family and ready for a much-needed sleep having had one of the best weekends ever. Oh, and this was my view as I packed my bag for work. It's a tough life!