Rottnest Island

On Friday, we went to the island of the Quokkas in the early morning: Rottnest Island! Learn: the explorer originally thought these animals were rats and named the island accordingly as Rattennest (rat nest), but in reality these Quokkas are small, cute and friendly animals that we would describe as a mix between kangaroo, koala, and hamster. Kangaroos are a thing of the past, Quokkas are today! (-: It can't get much better! We have come to love these animals so much, Nadia really wanted to take one home, but there was no more space in the backpack, unfortunately. Taking selfies with these lively, always friendly grinning colleagues was a huge fun all day long! 🤗

In addition, we went snorkeling, which did not bring the greatest variety of species and colors, but while drying on the beach, a few meters away, a few dolphins swam by quite comfortably.. amazing! Continuing with the bike (we explored the whole island with a sinfully expensive rented bike), we went to the next beach, where we immediately saw our first wild snake: a 1.5 - 2m long, quite thin dark snake slithering across the white beach to shady spots between rocks. The beach was so beautiful that we decided to still go on it and actually saw a second snake of the same species. We always kept a moderate safe distance of initially about 83m, but when numerous tourists took photos up close, we also dared to get a little closer for a short while. The Australians kept calling it a brown snake, which makes sense, because the snake was brown. Afterwards, we googled and found out that this Brown Snake happens to be the second most venomous land snake in the world. 😳 It is considered extremely dangerous because it is apparently very nervous and aggressive during encounters and then likes to bite directly four to five times.. as I said, the venom is not to be taken lightly. Yes, Moin!! If we had known that beforehand, we probably would have fled the island in a hurry.. at least Flo. 😄

All in all, we had another great day, which was once again very warm, especially with physical activity in the form of bike riding. We felt like we climbed 742 meters in elevation and rode a total distance of 85km on this small island.. well, more or less! It could have been 95km as well. 😉

After cycling for these 105km, we returned to Perth completely exhausted, packed our backpacks, and flew to Cairns on Saturday night, where we have now arrived safely and start our next travel section on the east coast.

Conclusion about Western Australia: covered 7,000 km with Rainer, experienced and saw a lot, gained great impressions, had a lot of fun, enjoyed our time, etc.! Answer to the question about highlights: almost everything, especially Esperance, Karijini National Park, Coral Bay (snorkeling) and so on.. Answer to the question about lowlights: Penguin Island, the occasional strong wind, and the many flies.