Befriending Quokkas on Rottnest Island

One of the ladies we work with, a former travel agent, stops by our desks every day telling us about places in the world she’s been and would like to go with great excitement: “I love Mauritius,” “I can’t wait to go to Brazil.” So when she told us that Rottnest was underwhelming and boring, our expectations weren’t set very high. I reluctantly got up early on the morning we planned to go and we made our way to Fremantle to catch the ferry. I was excited to meet some quokkas (the small marsupials that inhabit Rottnest Island), but wasn’t sure what else the island might have in store. Right when we got to the island, we walked a few minutes to the bike rental shop and picked up our bikes and some ugly helmets (we got there a few minutes too late, so all the slick helmets were gone). Taking a look at the map, we saw that the serious nature was to the south of where we were and the only settlement on the island was to the north. The self-proclaimed marsupial hunter decided it would be best for us to go south, explaining that the quokkas would likely be away from the town. I trusted him and we started off down the hilly roads of Rottnest Island. There’s a main road that runs all around the island along the coast, so we followed that and only encountered other cyclists every 15 minutes or so. Aside from the little town to the northeast, the island’s covered in beautiful greenery, with lots of small salt water lakes in the middle.

A beach on Rottnest

We’d stop every few minutes or so when we came across a bay to get some photos. More importantly though, we’d stop any time Ollie spotted shrubs that he thought might make quokka-friendly homes. Unfortunately, we encountered 3 departed quokkas before seeing any live ones. We only had about 4 hours between our ferry arrival and departure, so the pace required to make it around the island was pretty steady. Luckily, we had perfect weather for it-- sunny, with a nice breeze. Neither one of us having biked in a long time, we were pretty proud every time we overtook other cyclists, even though we didn’t admit to ourselves at the time that everyone else was probably just taking it easy to take in all the sights.

Sheila, definitely the cutest Quokka on show

The relentless quokka-hunt appeared to have failed as we came close to finishing our loop of the island and neared the town. As we were cycling into the town, Ollie calmly said, “there’s a quokka.” Based on the lack of expression in his voice, I thought it was another dead one. But sure enough, there was a little quokka outside a small hotel just hopping around. It was a bit of an anti-climax to be honest. Suddenly, two more quokkas hopped by and didn’t seem to be the least bit timid. Bruce, Sheila, and Shane Quokka appeared to have abandoned country-life, recognizing the possibilities the town held for them, and became young urban quokkas. Quokkas are about the size of rabbits, with pointy faces and short little arms and their hop looks a bit like what you would get if you took a video of a kangaroo and put it in slow-motion. For some unknown reason, when Dutch explorers came upon the island in the 1600s they thought the quokkas were rats and named the island ‘Rats Nest.’ Crazy Dutch. I gave Sheila Quokka a piece of my banana and in her quokka ways, she let me know that I was always welcome on Rottnest.

Perth city centre at night, from the ferry

Before long it was time to catch our ferry back to the mainland. We really enjoyed our day on the island and were lucky to have gone in the Australian winter, because we heard that in the summer months the island is packed with tourists. We even got to sneak a journey on the ferry down the Swan river and returned to Perth with sore leg muscles from our Tour de Rottnest.

Befriending Quokkas on Rottnest Island

Perth, Australia