A slightly delayed account of what was arguably the best day's outing in the recent past! (I know I keep saying that, but this has just been such an awesome, awesome time at Perth :D.) Right so this is Saturday, and with my brand new IXUS in tow, we went for a day's trip to Rottnest Island. 
It's a fairly large island, about 11 kms long and 4.5 kms across at the widest. What was forecast to be a boiling hot day turned to be somewhat milder, thanks to the brilliant sea breeze! As soon as we got to the island, we hired a couple of bikes and set off! The sky was clear, and the views were stunning! And I took this chance to try and get some stitched up panoramas! They're not perfect, but still pretty awesome :D.
Somewhat at the centre of the island, at it's highest point, stands the Wadjemup Lighthouse. This, as far as I know, is one of the very few lighthouses that are open to the public, while in actual operation! We had to book a tour with a guide of course. (They were hardly going to allow us to run amok with the massive reflector floating around on the bed of Mercury and what not :P.) The ride to the lighthouse took quite a while! But once we got used to them, the axle braking bikes were pretty cool! Okay, so these do not have lever operated rear brakes, instead, you pedal backwards to apply brakes on the rear wheel! Caused a few scares, given my habit of freewheeling backwards while going downhill, but I managed to get over it :D.
The top of the lighthouse was a really long way up (38m doesn't sound like too much, but it is, believe me), and while the views all around were really something, I could just not help wondering what it would feel like in case some unfortunate soul decided to take a plunge. Without base-jumping equipment that is.
While cycling around the island we also came up on a rather interesting life form on the island, the Quokka. It looks rather like a tiny, fat kangaroo :D. I was quite surprised to realise that unlike most wild animals, these were not afraid of people at all! In fact, rather than shy away from us, a few of them came right up and peered curiously as we clicked furiously away.
From the lighthouse we'd spied these awesome looking beaches, so afterwards we went biking around, looking for them. Pictures of perfection, sparkling blue and pure white dazzling in the sun. One of the things that rather surprised me though was the way a lot of the trees looked. Wind-slapped is probably the best description I can come up with :D.
Once back at the settlement around the jetty, and with some time left, we went looking for the other lighthouse on the island, the Bathurst Lighthouse! This one wasn't as tall, or grand, neither was it open to the public, but this was the third one we'd been to in the day (the first one being the South Mole at Fremantle), and my lighthouse crazy flatmate was absolutely in heaven :D.
Eventually we made our way back and settled for some very late lunch. Here we were once again entertained by some intrepid 'wild'life! The white bird had been eyeing my bag (or my sandwich) for some time, when this peacock came by to give us a closer look :D. Having had some not-so-nice experiences with peacocks as a kid, I was a bit apprehensive, but we survived :D.
It's a fairly large island, about 11 kms long and 4.5 kms across at the widest. What was forecast to be a boiling hot day turned to be somewhat milder, thanks to the brilliant sea breeze! As soon as we got to the island, we hired a couple of bikes and set off! The sky was clear, and the views were stunning! And I took this chance to try and get some stitched up panoramas! They're not perfect, but still pretty awesome :D.
Somewhat at the centre of the island, at it's highest point, stands the Wadjemup Lighthouse. This, as far as I know, is one of the very few lighthouses that are open to the public, while in actual operation! We had to book a tour with a guide of course. (They were hardly going to allow us to run amok with the massive reflector floating around on the bed of Mercury and what not :P.) The ride to the lighthouse took quite a while! But once we got used to them, the axle braking bikes were pretty cool! Okay, so these do not have lever operated rear brakes, instead, you pedal backwards to apply brakes on the rear wheel! Caused a few scares, given my habit of freewheeling backwards while going downhill, but I managed to get over it :D.
The top of the lighthouse was a really long way up (38m doesn't sound like too much, but it is, believe me), and while the views all around were really something, I could just not help wondering what it would feel like in case some unfortunate soul decided to take a plunge. Without base-jumping equipment that is.
While cycling around the island we also came up on a rather interesting life form on the island, the Quokka. It looks rather like a tiny, fat kangaroo :D. I was quite surprised to realise that unlike most wild animals, these were not afraid of people at all! In fact, rather than shy away from us, a few of them came right up and peered curiously as we clicked furiously away.
From the lighthouse we'd spied these awesome looking beaches, so afterwards we went biking around, looking for them. Pictures of perfection, sparkling blue and pure white dazzling in the sun. One of the things that rather surprised me though was the way a lot of the trees looked. Wind-slapped is probably the best description I can come up with :D.
Once back at the settlement around the jetty, and with some time left, we went looking for the other lighthouse on the island, the Bathurst Lighthouse! This one wasn't as tall, or grand, neither was it open to the public, but this was the third one we'd been to in the day (the first one being the South Mole at Fremantle), and my lighthouse crazy flatmate was absolutely in heaven :D.
Eventually we made our way back and settled for some very late lunch. Here we were once again entertained by some intrepid 'wild'life! The white bird had been eyeing my bag (or my sandwich) for some time, when this peacock came by to give us a closer look :D. Having had some not-so-nice experiences with peacocks as a kid, I was a bit apprehensive, but we survived :D.At the end of the day we were pretty tired, but it was a nice kind of tired. Nodding off on the ferry on the way back, woken up by the splashing of the waves hitting the window, the sky still bright blue. And tomorrow I'm off, home for almost three weeks!!!
Feeling: almost perfectly happy :)
Listening to: Moby - Sunday (the day before my birthday)
More Rottnest pics here.
photo of the tree is pretty cool.. Tree looks very strange...
ReplyDeleteyou have NO idea!!! and funny thing is not all the trees look like that!! it's genuinely bizarre!!
ReplyDeleteWhen I looked at the Pic, first thing that struck me was the story of Mormans, Joshua tree and the Promised land of Utah... :) .. wierd..
ReplyDeleteLoved all your pics.. very nice.