Travel Tips

Western Australia’s Rottnest Island Travel Guide

Rottnest Island - Western AustraliaDon’t be fooled by the name. After exploring the sunny days and waterways of Perth, intrepid traveler Jamie Stringfellow made her way to the coast and onto Western Australia’s Rottnest Island.  

From quirky quokkas to leaping whales, there’s nothing rotten about this tantalizing island getaway.

“You’re going to love it!” the woman next to us at the restaurant said when we told her we were headed the next day to Rottnest, an island about 12 miles offshore from the port city of Fremantle.

Indeed, when I’d asked Aussies I knew for tips on what to see in Western Australia, every single one of them said “Don’t miss ‘Rotto’.”

It sounded tantalizing: an island where cars were forbidden (there are a few free buses), small enough to get around on bike (in the middle of the road), with 63 white-sand beaches, a couple dozen bays, 360 species of fish, and best of all: it was overrun by quokkas, tiny unique-to-Rottnest, cuter-than-koala critters roaming the island.

Fish Hook Bay - Rottnest Island, Western AustraliaI figured the name Rottnest came from some dusty corner of Australia’s penal colony past; maybe the island was the “rottenest” of the bunch. Though Rottnest does, in fact, have a rather grim penal history—there was an Aboriginal prison there until 1903 and a detainment camp during both World Wars—the island’s name has nothing to do with that.

When Dutch explorer Willem de Vlamingh stopped at the island in 1696, he was greeted by swarms of what he thought were giant rats, so he named the place Rottnest (“a nest of rats”). Quokkas are in fact not rats at all, but miniature wallaby-like creature; they were named “Quokkas” by the early Noongar Aboriginal people who inhabited Wadjemup (“place across the water”) for thousands of years before the Dutch arrived. More cat- than rat-sized, and rodent-like only in their tails, there are 12,000 of the mild marsupials on the island.

Your base for a Rottnest Island trip is likely Western Australia’s biggest city: Perth. Find out more in the Off the Brochure Travel Guide: Perth, Australia.

Bathurst Lighthouse - Rottnest IslandBy 1950, Rottnest emerged from its cloudy past and become an official nature preserve and soon, a favorite holiday spot of Western Australians.

Our island escape began in Perth, where we boarded the Rottnest Express for the trip out the Swan River, picking up more island-bound passengers in Fremantle.

Soon, we’d left the skyline of Perth behind and were crossing a stretch of Indian Ocean under clear skies; the air was fresh and the water was a deep, inky blue. The boat’s captain pointed out dolphins and distant breaching whales.

The Rottnest Express, by the way, is one-stop shopping. Through its site, you can book the boat trip, bike rentals, ecological, historical or indigenous tours (though we didn’t take this one, the Wadjemup Indigenous tour to the lighthouse, the island’s highest point, is said to be excellent). The site has links the island’s restaurants, hotels, vacation rentals, and hostel. Another helpful planning resource is www.rottnestisland.com.

Our rental bikes were waiting on the pier at Thomson Bay, and after wending our way through the historical little town center, we were off.

More great ideas await in our Eco-Travel section.

Parker Point on Rottnest Island - Western AustraliaWhat freedom! We caromed along car-free roads that dipped around grassy hills, along cliffs and white sand beaches, looking around every bend for a band of quokkas, with no luck.

We rode out to Geordie Bay, past inland salt lakes and on out to the far side of the island, where we waded into the Indian Ocean. A hundred yards out, I could still see, through the clear cerulean sea, my toes wiggling in the sand, and I found myself wishing I had a snorkel and mask.

We walked our bikes through the town square; a peacock strutted around like, well, a peacock, shuddering in annoyance when approached by a mere seagull. But still … no quokkas. We wondered where and how we’d find them, and were starting to lose hope: They’re nocturnal critters, and we’d be back on the boat to Perth by dark.

Get more offbeat ideas in our Beach Vacations section.

Quokka from Rottnest IslandWe were just sitting down to platters of smoked salmon and local prawns, with glasses of Madfish Margaret River Sauvignon Blanc at Aristos, on the waterfront in Thomson Bay, when something, some shadowy thing, snuck under the table. I peeked.

And there, she was, at bright midday, in all her marsupial benevolence, our first Quokka. Possibly hoping someone would drop a prawn.

Silently, she tiptoed across the floor, so light on her feet we couldn’t hear a thing. The restaurant quieted as everyone followed her moves. The staff, of course, knew better, and within a few minutes, we could see this was no rare treat: a veritable parade of quokkas courteously worked the room.

Headed Down Under? Don’t miss our Australia & New Zealand Travel section.

After lunch, we boarded the Eco-Express to go whale watching. During a wild and happy ride we saw lazy seals sunning and flirting on rocks off shore, tiny fish with improbably dangerous-looking shark fins, giant nests that had been homes for fish hawks for 80 years, and 40-foot whales jumping clear of the water, which made everyone on the boat shriek with delight.

Longreach Bay - Rottnest Island - Western Australia“Watch the angle of their tails,” the guide said. “Straight up, and he’s going for a deep dive.” The whales were returning from the north: courtly males had accompanied the pregnant females north of Broome, the “whale kindergarten” of Western Australia, where they would give birth.

The guide added that females jump to “scrape off barnacles” because a baby born to a mother with barnacles was “just like being born next to a cheese grater.”

As we got comfortable with that thought, he told us how happy divers are with Rottnest as it’s ringed with the wrecks of ships. And Strickland Bay, aka Strico’s, is considered one of the top 50 surf breaks in the world.

We disembarked and regained our sea legs sitting under trees with beers at the Hotel Rottnest, regretting we had only an hour before our ferry back to Perth. As if to say goodbye, a quokka trundled up in the sand and looked up at us with brown eyes, wanting … our beer? What a perfect mascot for a holiday island, we agreed: friendly, fun, both abundant and rare, and blissfully unaware of the usual boundaries. We promised Ms. Quokka we’d be back.

By Jamie Stringfellow for PeterGreenberg.com. Photos by Tourism Western Australia. Jamie Stringfellow writes from Hermosa Beach, California, and Martha’s Vineyard, Massachusetts. She is the co-founder and editor of WeekendWalk.com.

Related links on PeterGreenberg.com: