June 9, 2025
Another day to explore Perth and surrounds and once again the sun was shining on a magnificent 22 degree day. We decided to head out of the city and hop across to an island instead. Rottnest Island was our destination for the day.
We choofed across the river from South Perth to Perth CBD and hopped on a train to Fremantle. We chose this route on the back of information given by a lady at the Visitor Information Centre yesterday. She informed us we could catch a ferry from Perth, but it left at 8:00 and returned at 6:00 and would need to be pre-booked because it’s always full. “If I was you, I’d catch the ferry from Fremantle,” she suggested, “ ferries run every fifteen minutes to Rottnest, so if you want a bit more flexibility or want to wait and see what the weather’s like, that’s a better option.” So that’s what we did. On arriving in Fremantle, we rocked up to Sealink to get our tickets and were told we could catch an 11:00 ferry over and our only option to return was at 2:30.
“We were told at The Information Centre yesterday, the ferries ran every fifteen minutes,” I enquired, a little confused.
The two women manning the ticket office looked at each other and almost said in unison, “No, that information isn’t correct. The ferries never run every fifteen minutes, not even in summer time.”
“Oh,” I said, “good to know.” So, we’d been sold a bit of dud advice, but the lady was very helpful and suggested, since we were staying in Perth, we could catch a later ferry and go direct back to there, rather than returning to Fremantle. That was a solution and a much better option, so we wouldn’t be rushing our time on the island.
Tickets in hand, we boarded the boat for a 30 minute trip on the water across to Rottnest. When we arrived we made our way straight to the bike hire people, where we chose bikes from either end of the wall of bikes. I headed for XS and Steve strode across to XL and we were all set to pedal off around the island. Anyone who has read any of our previous cycling adventures will be thoroughly unsurprised at what happened next. We took a wrong turn, then another one! (Feel free to roll your eyes here!).
“Well, our navigation has started off pretty standard for us,” I said to Steve as we stopped once again to make a u-turn.
“We’ve only gone a kilometre and we’ve already made five wrong turns,” he replied. Yep, five, count ‘em FIVE wrong turns before we’d even really started. What are we like!
It was a great place to ride. There are no cars on Rottnest Island at all, so the paths and single road were quiet, with the only vehicle being the tourist bus that drove visitors around the island. The sun shone, the legs pedalled happily and while it was “undulating” there weren’t any real lung busting hills to climb. The water was clear, blue, turquoise and shimmering and we happily tootled a loop of about 14km, stopping for photos and snacks and took our own leisurely time.
Back at The Settlement we stopped under a tree for a spot of lunch and were joined by a couple of quokkas that sat at our feet and chewed on a dry leaf here and there. As we rode off, the whole quokka situation began to worry me a bit. They are nocturnal, like the wallabies and pademelons we have back in Tassie, so it’s not normal for them to be hanging around in the day. These ones didn’t look entirely healthy and were obviously conditioned to just hang around people and look for food. They were constantly being bombarded by people taking photos and selfies and the quokkas just sat still, almost in a trance, staring into space, as people put phones right in their face. It just wasn’t right. In our ride around the island we hadn’t seen any, because those ones “in the wild” were no doubt doing what they were supposed to do, which is hunker down and snooze through the day. The ones in the centre of The Settlement though, were sitting on the steps of cafes and not moving, or just sitting and eating dry leaves near picnic tables and I just didn’t think they looked happy. They’d developed a whole different way of life to what they should have been doing. We left them to it and I took my worries with me and we headed back to return our bikes and have a look around The Settlement on foot.
We took ourselves down to the Boat House to have a look at a pilot boat and met a very friendly volunteer who told us about the pilot on Rottnest Island from days gone by. The boat house held a boat that had been used by the pilot to escort ships into Fremantle and I can tell you, those oars took some lifting! Even Steve gave a grunt as he tried to pick one up. When a ship needed help to navigate into Fremantle, the crew would row 8 kilometres offshore to meet it and then the pilot would board and guide the ship safely to Fremantle, with the pilot boat following behind. It would take them twenty hours to pilot a ship to Fremantle and return to Rottnest! The first official pilot was quite notorious apparently and captain Edward Back was actually suspended at least five times in his nine years as pilot. Some of his offences included “sloppy security” when eight prisoners escaped the island in a stolen pilot boat and Back’s relaxed approach to security was blamed. There was also a total ban on alcohol for the pilot boat crew but captain Back was reprimanded for being drunk with several people reporting his “shameful state of intoxication.” He also wrecked two pilot boats during his service, so all in all, was not exactly squeaky clean during his tenure in a roll where you really would want your pilot to be fully in control of all faculties, sober as a judge and keeping the boat you were rowing safe and intact!
Time to catch the ferry and our trip back to Perth took about 90 minutes but it was a lovely cruise up the river with the sun setting and we were deposited back in the middle of Perth, ready to catch our little ferry back across the river to our digs.
It had been great to be back on some bikes again exploring places new. I commented to Steve that it reminded me of our ride around Zuid-Kennemerland National Park in The Netherlands, just tootling about on traffic free roads, with scenery and nature left, right and centre. A leisurely pedal and a scenic cruise up the river gave us a champion day. We’re certainly having a top time exploring this part of W.A. and so far Perth and surrounds is delivering in spades. Happy travellers we be!
Run. Ride. Roam. 
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