Rotto and the cutest 'rats' in the world

From Fremantle, we took an 18 km journey the next day with the deep-sea ferry to the small island of Rottnest, also known as 'Rotto'. The island was named by the Dutch explorer Captain Willem de Vlamingh. In 17th century Dutch language, the name meant: 'rat's nest'. The captain explored the island for a few days and mistook the numerous Quokkas, which are only found on this island, for large rats. In reality, they are small marsupials. He described the island as a 'paradise on earth'.

Even today, Rotto is a beautiful little paradise island, free of cars, with great beaches that can be explored by bike or the hop-on hop-off bus.

Unfortunately, the history of Wadjemup, as the island is known to the Aboriginals, is not as glorious, as in the 19th century the British used the island as a prison for Aboriginals. Most of them died here under miserable conditions.

We of course came to the island to visit its main inhabitants:
The Quokkas and of course take one of the coveted selfies. Just like around 200 other tourists who visited the island at the same time as us for about 5 hours.

And so, the search for and the hunt for the cute little rabbit-sized marsupials began. Everywhere you could see people of every nationality and age approaching the little Quokkas with sweet words, small nibbles, and forbidden cuddles or throwing themselves in the dust just to take the coveted great selfie.

Only Moritz didn't seem to mind the hustle and bustle. He bought himself a delicious sandwich and made himself comfortable on a little wall. Just as he was about to bring it to his mouth to take a hearty bite, one of the cheeky little creatures (Quokkas) just hopped onto his lap and tried to grab a bite of his sandwich.

That was simply the greatest photo opportunity one could wish for, and Günter promptly took the popular selfie with a surprised Quokka and a stunned Moritz 😉