Rottnest Island

When I was in Year 3 we were given an assignment on an Australian animal based on a letter of the alphabet. I was given the letter Q and I remember telling my teacher, Miss Harris, that there weren't any animals that started with Q. She told me about Quokkas, so that's what I did my project on. When I was in Yr 6 my family did a 6 week trip to Perth and back and part of that was a trip to Rottnest Island to see the Quokkas. I remember really enjoying the island then and thinking the quokkas were awesome, so I was pretty keen to introduce my kids to them as well.

Rottnest Island was great! The kids fell in love with the quokkas, with Rory wanting to bring one home with him, and the whole island is very beautiful. We caught the bus, rather than taking or hiring bikes, as we would have needed a seat or trailer for Rory and it all seemed rather complicated. While I think it made it easier for us, I do think we missed out on a lot as we couldn't just pop in to the different beaches and lookouts. We were constrained by the bus stops and, while the buses went every 30 minutes, a couple of times of waiting and there goes an hour or more. I feel like we didn't have enough to time truly enjoy and explore the Island and would love to go back again and stay on the Island to truly enjoy all it offers.

We weren't sure what the quokka finding situation would be like, if we would have to go hunting for them or what the go was. There is no concern about not seeing them as there are quite a lot that hang around the small collection of shops that sit together near the wharf. There were quokkas sleeping, hopping about and eating food out of people's hands and off the ground. The grocery shop has plastic barrier doors to stop the quokkas from entering. Tilda and I had a great time imagining all of the things a quokka would get up to, and all of the tasty treats it would try, if it managed to sneak into the shop.

There are lots of beautiful, sheltered beaches and bays and many of them looked like they would be wonderful places to snorkel. Greg had looked at the weather and it was going to be 21 degrees and pretty windy so we hadn't bothered to bring our swimmers or snorkelling gear, but the water looked so beautiful I think I would have been tempted to go in, no matter how cold it was.

There are 2 lighthouses on the Island. We ran out of time to climb the one in the middle and I was disappointed about that. I think it would have been great to be able to climb up and look at the whole Island and its surrounding water. We did check out the one closer to the town, but you can't go in it and poor Rory was so disappointed as we had told him we would go to the other lighthouse.

The Wadjemup Lighthouse (the one you can climb in the middle of the Island)

There is a place where you can see New Zealand Fur Seals. As we were walking to it, I could see some rocks off shore and I wondered how hard it would be to spot them, or if they would even be on the rocks in the middle of the day. Once we got to the look out, there was no wondering any more... there were about 10 -15 just playing about in the shallows right below us, floating on their backs, sleeping and (not seriously) fighting. That was very exciting and not something I had expected to see. I could have stayed and watched them for ages but I didn't want to miss the next bus.

We had 6 hours on the Island and it really wasn't enough. Perhaps on bikes it might have been, but using the Island bus, it just wasn't enough and I am already planning to go back and stay on the Island one day.

Robe, South Australia

Robe is certainly smack bang in the middle of the limestone coast and a very interesting place to visit. It is on the coast, on the southern side of Guichen Bay. It is hard to imagine the landscape without having seen it. It is dramatic and rocky and rugged and definitely worth seeing for how different it is to where we come from.

The area is made up primarily of limestone, which is very prevalent as a building material, and so very different from home. Adjacent to the caravan park was a very short (2 minute) walk to a lake. The photos need to be seen to be believed - the lake isn't surrounded by sand, in fact I don't think there is any sand at the lake at all. Instead it is surrounded by very lumpy, craggy, bumpy rock. I wondered if it was either a sinkhole or a part of an extinct volcano, as the area used to be volcanicly (I think I made that word up) active a long time ago.

The kids had a great time playing with the foam that had been whipped up by the wind. It was really weird as when you rubbed the foam on your hands, it was like rubbing them with liquid soap. I guess it was because of the minerals in the water. I can't imagine what it would be like to swim in there. I don't know if people do, but they do use that lake for water skiing so I guess you could.

The town is quite old and you can see the historic nature of it in many of the houses and buildings.We visited the Old Gaol, which is really just a bunch of limestone rocks outlining the layout of the old gaol.

Rory loved the obelisk on one headland. It really is quite classic in its red and white colours. It is all fenced off and you can't get too close to it any more as the coast is eroding and they expect that it will one day fall into the sea. There is a lighthouse (which Rory really loves) just a bit further around the next little bay. I didn't get a photo of it as it was built in the 1970s and is really a stunning (stunningly bad) example of 1970s architecture. It was a star shaped concrete structure with a base about 3.5m wide and the top was 5m wide. I thought it was hideous but Greg thought I was too harsh saying that.

We also saw two seals feeding in the water off the headland near the obelisk. We have now seen seals in the wild 3 times but this is the first time we've seen them doing something other than sitting on rocks.

The kids loved riding their bikes at the "mex" track and skate park. I thought it was quite clever to locate it right next door to the ambulance station, which we fortunately didn't need. Greg decided to relive his youth and rode Tilda's bike on the big kids BMX track and the skate park. Tilda and Rory discovered that the skate ramps are actually quite slippery and  you can slide on them (head first, on your tummy, if you are Rory).

There was quite a funny conversation in the back of the car one day. It went like this - Tilda "it's a pyramid" Rory "it's a obelisk". I never thought a 2yo would be correcting an 8yo on the term obelisk.

I was just thinking how different this blog would be if we were travelling either without kids, or with older kids. It would probably give you a review of the different places to eat and the interesting shops we explored, rather than the parks, playgrounds and lighthouses we saw.

Robe is a nice town and was a nice stop for a couple of days. Being off season it was very quiet, and the weather was blowing a gale yet again so even the locals stayed hidden I think.

Phillip Island

We spent 4 days at Phillip Island and enjoyed our time there. Our main goals were to see the penguins (which we did) and seals (which we did see, through the zoom lens on our camera, but not very well).

We visited the Forest Caves. You can only visit them at low tide, otherwise the water is too high.. The 300m walk along the beach from the car park to the caves revealed a treasure trove of flotsam and jetsam. The kids thoroughly enjoyed beach combing, even though most of what we found was cuttlefish of all shapes and sizes. We found 2 dead weedy seadragons. I have always wanted to see these in the wild and while I was sad to find these 2 dead ones, it was amazing none the less. We also found a dead peguin :( (and we found a dead seal on another beach on the Island :( )

 A weedy seadragon

The view to the caves

 It was fun to go inside the cave and explore 

We visited The Nobbies, which is the point of Phillip Island where you can see a seal colony on an off shore island. We could spot them through the zoom lens of our camera but they were fairly small and not too clear (we need a camera lens that doesn't have moisture/mould in it). There are also  man made penguin nests all around this headland and penguins do come there to roost at night. Unfortunately, they close off the road to The Nobbies before sunset. It is claimed that this is to help protect the penguins, and I am sure this is true in small part, but the cynical part of me believes that it is to force everyone to pay the pretty exhorbitant fees for the privilege of seeing the penguins. I remember seeing the penguin arrival 20+ years ago and it was an amazing site, but on principle we decided not to pay for the nightly parade. We visited The Nobbies a second time, staying until close to dusk, and were rewarded with the site of early arrivals hiding under the boardwalks.

 I've made the photo above and below large in the hope that people might be able to enlarge the photos to see the seals. In the top photo they are all the "sticky-uppy" bits on the front rock. In the bottom photo they are all over the beach and rocks