A quick little snippet of our time on the island of pedal power, Rottnest.  Lots of snorkel footage in this one because it was pretty much what we spent all of our 3 day trip doing!!

Click the link below to enjoy.

Xo

Another short clip I have put together.  This time of our travels along the southern coastline of WA, from Cape Le Grand National Park near Esperance right through to Margaret River.

Click the link below & enjoy the most delicious coloured waters you’ve ever seen! 🙂

Rottnest Island (aka Rotto).  Is an island made of limestone, roughly 10 kilometers in length located about half an hours boat ride off the coast of Fremantle.  This beauty offers a vast number of gorgeous beaches, coral reefs, waves, cycling routes, boats, food & tourists.  Emphasis on the tourists!!

 

Home to the quirky quokka, Rottnest is also a car-free island.  Don’t know what a quokka is?  Neither did I.  It’s basically a small Australian marsupial that looks like a cross between a wallaby & a mouse, (see picture below!).  They are very cute & located everywhere on the island, most prominently under the table at your feet at dinnertime waiting for a crumb!!  With the no car policy on Rotto & also a no dog policy, we left Perry the Patrol, The Clam & Barney boy behind, boarded the Rottnest Express with just our bikes & dive gear & had 3 amazing days on the island.

 

Dog Owners: Anyone needing to put their fur baby into a kennel while they’re in or around Perth – Auspet Boarding Kennels located at Southern River, half an hour out of Freo, is absolutely fantastic!!  The best we have come across during our travels around the country so far.  The owner is lovely.  She really will love & look after your dog.  The kennels themselves are large, & during the day the dogs are put out into a large fenced yard with a few other dogs to play.  Barney had a blast.  We hate leaving him, but it’s just a reality of travelling this country with a dog if you don’t wanna miss out.  Auspets definitely takes the cake!!

 

There are a few main roads on Rotto, but basically there is just one that circumnavigates the whole island with a few smaller trails leading off the main drag to all the different little nooks.  Like I said there are no cars on the island, everyone rides pushys.  It’s roughly 22k’s to cut a lap of the island, but that’s without adding in all the extra little detours.  Basically it wouldn’t take you that long to ride a lap, what adds on time are all the stops & activities you can do along the way.

It had been a while since we rode our bikes.  They were brand new this year when we left for our ‘Big Trip’.  Nowadays they aren’t looking so flash hot… But what’s a bit of rust & squealing brakes if not character!?  It was such a pleasant change playing the tourist game on bicycles, slowing down the pace.  There is a continuous number of gradual rolling hills on the island.  Sore bums & tired legs were compulsory.  We really earned our dinners, which was lucky because we were eating out & not holding back!!

 

Snorkeling at Little Salmon Bay was definitely the highlight for both of us.  With a hefty amount of colourful reef, fish, crayfish, beautiful kelp & so many small caves to dive through & explore we were truly surprised.   We spent hours out there on the first day.  And after riding around the whole island on our second day visiting & diving other locations, we went back there to snorkel the area a second time. Whenever Fred & I are snorkeling there is a 99% chance you’ll find Fred waist deep, upside down jamming himself into a tiny crevasse or cave on the hunt for crayfish (see below).  Me on the other hand you’ll find gawking at all the pretty coral, chasing the vibrant fishies, swimming through tunnels & searching for turtles!!  It is my favourite activity to do together.  We both get so excited when we find a cool cave or critter to look at.  Under the sea in another world.

 

There were more waves than we could keep count of on the island, we were pretty bummed we didn’t bring our surfboards – though it would most likely have proved a bit impractical with the waves being so far from the Hotel & our only means of transport being bikes.  We noted that the majority of surfers seemed to have come over to Rotto in their boats from Fremantle.  The island does have a bus service – I think you pay $20 & you can jump on / jump off wherever you like, but we just stuck to the bikes.

 

At Strickland Bay we saw a pod of dolphins feeding about 100m offshore.  Jumping out of the water doing little flips here & there.  As I have mentioned before, swimming with dolphins & whales is what my dreams are made of (in the wild of course!!).  And so off with the clothes & on with the dive kit it was.  In anticipation for them to swim in a bit closer to shore, we were standing knee deep in the sea at the ready.  Unfortunately they didn’t come in any closer, & the bay was looking a little dreary on the overcast morning.  Not wanting to be Bruce’s lunch we didn’t swim out to meet them.  Instead we just got wet bums & chafe.  Next time Flipper, next time!!

Simmo’s ice cream (main shop is in Dunsborough but they have a shop on Rotto too) has taken the number one ranking of best ice cream in Australia (so far) – according to the extremely experienced & accurate ‘Fred & Bear tasting scale’.  A record previously held by Dooley’s Icecream at Apollo Bay, we are extremely eager to see if any future contenders can match the beyond delicious creamy flavours of Simmo’s.

We filled in our late afternoons by watching the sunset on the north west of the island, only a short ride from the hotel.  See below!

 

Altogether it is not a cheap trip coming to Rottnest. The ferry ride, hotel stay & food were all a bit pricy $$. But it was definitely money well spent.  Apparently there are 63 beaches on the island, meaning despite the tourists there is always a peaceful spot you can find to chill out & enjoy as we did.  Nothing short of beautiful, we would reccommend not missing Rottnest.  This is what we live for right, exploring new places & having a good time!!

Now it’s time for us to start heading north – toward warmer waters, long left hand point breaks, coral reefs & better fishing!! Yew.

 

 

What a month it has been, traveling the great south west of this country in Western Australia!  From breathtaking Esperance & it’s surrounding National Parks, through Bremer Bay, Albany, Denmark, right along to Margaret River – has been one nice & ridiculously turquoise ride.

Every new place seems to blow us further away than the last.  As of yet I haven’t managed to put any fun new language in the brain bank, I’ve been too busy relaxing!  So in aid of keeping all these blog entries from sounding the same; in between my usual banter I’m gonna give it a crack!  Here’s me hoping you don’t get bored & truly do believe me when I tell you that this beach or that place really did feel like the most ridiculously beautiful place I had ever been in that moment.

This coast, the southern coast of WA has kept on giving.  The water colour & clarity in this region is beyond me.  It’s post card material.  Like the kind that makes you want to dive right in, soak it all up & never leave because you have found paradise.  The water temp around this time of year has been pleasant enough, warmer than SA for sure but still a bit nippy at times.  (A bit nippy, though we still manage to swim everyday in just togz & surf in spring suits!).  Autumn also seems to be good for wind, as there hasn’t been too much of it around, meaning lots of still sunny days.

For the doggie owners: WA has loads of National Parks with the dangerous bonus of 1080 poison.  Goes without saying, they are a no go zone for your pooch.  Unlike our remote & isolated travels through SA (where we may or may not have taken Barney into all or none of the National Parks), WA parks have been a different story.  With a constant stream of other tourists along the way, as well as the parks rangers & “Camp Site Hosts”, it’s best to pop your furry friend into a kennel while exploring these striking National Parks.  IN SAYING THAT – The National Parks seem to pop up everywhere along this coast, one minute you’re inside a National Park & the next you are not.  So there have been times when we have gone into a park for a few hours to explore, & left the pup set up inside his section of the canopy on the back of Perry the Patrol, no worries!

Cape Arid National Park, a couple hours east of Esperance, has left vivid highlights in both Fred’s & my memory.  It is a National Park devoted to untouched pristine beaches & snow-white sand.  A 4×4 is a must have for this place, as majority of roads & beach access is via off road tracks.  This was prefect as it thinned out the crowd.  Well, there was no crowd.  We enjoyed some surfing, fishing & hiking in the area.  As well as marveled in having some of the best photographic scenery we have ever experienced.  Some serious wall art gained from our photos taken here!!

We got into a bit of a cheeky breakfast habit this month.  Fred has utterly nailed the egg, bacon, hashie, cheese & sauce sanga.  And what better place to enjoy such a brekky than parked up in the corner of one of Australia’s most infamous & stunning beaches Lucky Bay, inside of Cape Le Grand National Park!!  This park is VERY touristy, but also extremely stunning.  We explored the majority of it & included a hike up Frenchman’s Peak all in a day.  Missed out on seeing the famous kangaroos lazing on the beach though, they must have been busy!!

Bremer Bay & its surrounds was another highpoint for us.  It’s beaches some of the most unsurpassed along this stretch of coast, with a number of places to surf & fish.  I have to tell you about Short Beach – it was magnificent.  If you’re ever in this area go there!!  I wasn’t panning on going swimming as it was a chili day, but the water was just that insane we couldn’t not dive in.  By insane I mean turquoise & clear.

At Albany the whale museum ‘Whale World’ was pretty cool.  It’s about the history of whaling in the town.  We enjoyed it; especially seeing the gigantic old skeletons of a Blue Whale, Humpback Whale & others hung up in one of their display sheds.  Obviously we are stoked that whaling isn’t allowed anymore, but it’s a good place to get a different sort of appreciation of that whole whaling era & what was involved.

We snagged a humble little surf on the mini mals at Ocean Beach in Denmark, again in magnificently clear waters.  We were so wrapped up in catching party waves & being stupid we didn’t even notice the huge pod of dolphins dancing around the other surfers only 50-100m away.  It wasn’t until we came in that a local guy said to me “Well you don’t get that everyday!!” “What, you don’t get what every day?!”  And he pointed back out to the surf at all the dolphins jumping alongside surfers sharing their waves.  I paddled my little heart as fast as I could straight back out there to say hello.  Seeing dolphins so close up, & any marine life like that (whales, turtles, rays) reverts you back to the excitement you used to feel as a child.  There truly aren’t many other things in this world that can instantly make me as happy as seeing ocean creatures up close.

A local hot spot around Denmark is the blissful swimming & snorkeling location Greens Pool.  It’s completely protected from the outer surf & wind chop by large granite rocks.  The rocks providing an idyllic location to sun bake & drink beer after a dip!

I met a guy when I was walking back to the car after a surf session in Esperance.  He stopped me dead in my tracks to ask if I was from Tasmania (he had noted the plates on Perry).  I watched the biggest smile light his face as I nodded yes.  This guy, a fellow Tasmanian I was to discover, has been travelling intermittently between Australia & The United States with his entire family (4 adult children & his mrs), in a decked out bus for 8 YEARS!!!  8 years of continuous nomad life on the road.  I mean, wow!!!  And by crikey did he have some hot tips & stories.  He was a frother, an extremely laid back & happy frother.  It was one of those totally unexpected conversations you have with a complete stranger that leaves you walking away with a huge smile & a feeling of deep satisfaction.  I love these moments!

One of the places this Tassie nomad legend said we couldn’t miss was ‘Gloucester Tree’ at Pemberton.  He wasn’t wrong.  This tree is 53 meters high with 1ft long steel pegs sticking out of it the whole way up – a winding ladder around the entire trunk of the tree.  There is a wire (like the really thin & flimsy kind you see most farm fences or chicken coops made out of) that circles the outside of the pegs.  In truth this wire does sweet f*%# all.  So you climb up this big beauty of a tree, & it’s epic!!! And you don’t fumble or fall, because if you do you would die.  It both shocked & surprised us that such an unsafe adrenaline kick can still be allowed (in a good way that is).  IT IS SO RAD!!!! If you are ever in the area, go climb the tree!!!!!

And finally there’s Margaret River.  Every beer, wine, food & surf lovers dream location (as long as you packed your jumper, she gets a little chilly around here!).   With countless amounts of wineries & breweries scattered along the coast from Augusta to Yallingup & beyond, there was definitely no shortage in treating the taste buds.  The scenery of luscious greenery matched with a roaring Indian Ocean is also very easy on the eyes.  The area does have a lot of tourists / people around though.  We managed a couple of surfs in at Gracetown, sharing the waves with quite a few others, though this I didn’t mind at all – with the salmon running at this time of year it usually means there are more apex predators out there too (sharks).  So having company when you’re bobbing around out there like bait is always comforting, lowers your chance I guess!!!  When the surf is big (I’m talking 10ft plus), Surfers Point is an epic place to perch yourself & watch the local chargers paddle out & tackle the monstrous waves.  They are barking mad!!  But it’s such a good show, & gives you a true appreciation of the balls of big wave surfers.

All in all we have had another kowabunga trip. Looking forward to start heading north, into the warmer climates & escaping winter.

Chasing that endless summer!!!

Enjoy the photos & see the ridiculous beaches for yourself below!

Xo