Perth - Day 5

We are going out to sea today! We are going to Rottnest Island. Maxime was our guide for the tour for the whole day.

The ferry ride to Rottnest is really really rough! The waves are really choppy today and it took us an hour to get there while normally it takes 40-45 mins. I was feeling really awful after that boat ride. A lot of people threw up on the ferry. It was horrible. 😭

Nevertheless the view at Rottnest Island made up for it. There are beautiful waves and trees which looked like it was to be uprooted (it's the tree's way of surviving). Rottnest Island has around 200 residents and in order to live here, your job needs to be required before and after the ferry leaves. E.g. police, nurse, rangers. The children of these residents are able to attend school in Rottnest (10 children) and there are 2 teachers. There is a waiting list for teachers to be transferred over but the two teachers are not willing to give it up anytime soon (according to Mia our guide).

The island is really beautiful and there is so much stories about the island. Because of the rough winds, the island experiences quite a lot of erotion at the West side and they are doing quite a lot of work to help to prolong it.

The island has many quokkas which we saw along the way. They are not that afraid of humans and are just nonchalant towards us. I even managed a selfie with one! However, quokkas are not able deal well with human food as it makes their beautiful fur shed into tiny botak patches.

We had a lovely buffet lunch and explored the island with our guide Maxime. The neighbourhood is quite serene with many holiday houses to be rented out. Our boat fare goes to Rottnest Island itself for it's preservation works and upkeep.

The ride back to Perth mainland was better than the morning ride and we headed back to the hotel. We had an appointment with 表婶's boss who played host for dinner. We toured his house which is located out of the city (30mins) and met with his wife and daughter-in-law (Nana) and has Chinese dinner (our first full fledged dinner in Perth). I had a nice conversation with Nana and Sean while the adults were chatting.

Then they took us to the casino where we took photos after photos and to Elizabeth Quay. The view was pretty and we were the only ones there walking. It was nearly 12am by the time we got back to the hotel and we were so pooped.

It was a long day!