Rottnest Island, last day out West and looking ahead…
Since I had another full day in Perth (essentially 2 more since my flight doesn’t go until after midnight tonight) I took a ferry over to Rottnest Island. You can just about see the lighthouse on the island from the mainland, the ferry takes about 45 minutes from Perth. I had a discount from an ad so I got bike and snorkel gear rental on the island for free, not bad.
As soon as I got off the ferry I jumped on my bike and rode away from the mass of families near the quay (it’s still school holidays here this week) as fast as possible, stopped at the first beach I saw that looked amazing, and nearly empty. It was still morning, around 10:30 and there were clouds still hanging around with a bit of a breeze so it wasn’t that warm yet, but it looked too nice not to get in (I’m not bothered about water temperatures anymore, I just get in) and try snorkeling here. I didn’t have that high of expectations for what I was going to see here, given the fact that I’d just come from snorkeling on the Ningaloo reef, but I was pleasantly surprised. Quite a few kinds of tropical fish and a decent amount of coral was in this bay, nothing like the quantity on the reef but still worth a good snorkel around.
After that I spent the day biking for a while, finding a good beach, checking out the water, chilling on the beach and then repeating the whole process. I got to 4 great beaches, though none of the snorkeling was much good after the first one. The weather warmed up significantly in the afternoon so I spent more time on the beaches later on. Nice little island…
After the ferry and ensuing bus shuttle back (during the latter, through Perth’s outer suburbia, I had to keep reminding myself that I wasn’t in America) I headed off into the city for a couple pints of my favourite beer on tap, so rare to find it and so worth it when I do… Now I’m waiting until it’s time to go to the airport for my redeye flight to Adelaide tonight, I’ve got a few nights there before it’s on to the East coast and the last leg of my Australian travels, I’m into my last month here now. I’m looking forward to Adelaide, most of the backpacking crowd here don’t really like it and claim it’s boring (maybe that means they don’t sell goon there? ah wouldn’t that be nice…) so I’m thinking I will like it at least somewhat since I interpret ‘boring’ as, not many nightclubs. I should be couchsurfing and meeting up with a previous travel mate from Tassie there, looking forward to that too, the area surrounding Adelaide is the flagship wine region for Australia too, should be a fun few days before I hit the East coast.
I kind of have a plan for the East coast now (finally), I’m starting in Byron bay and going all the way up through Queensland to Cape Tribulation before my flight out of Cairns. I’ll, hopefully, be hitting the great barrier reef in a couple spots, touring fraser island, chilling on the sunshine coast and finally exploring the rainforest around Cape Tribulation before I fly on to South Africa and beyond. I’ve got a night out in Sydney between flights before I leave Oz, nice way to go out…
Still got 3 continents and (at least) 10 countries (South Africa, England, Holland, Belgium, France, Argentina, Chile, Uruguay, Peru, Columbia) to go through before I arrive back in the US and about 5 months to do it in. I’m looking forward the most to, an African safari, the 4 day inca trail to Machu Picchu which I now have booked, Patagonia in Argentina (hopefully) and being back in the UK and Europe for a few weeks in June (I even have a couple weeks off from travel visiting friends and family in there!), and those are just the things on the top of my anticipation list, there’s not really any part of the remain trip that I’m wishing I hadn’t scheduled (which was a fear of mine before), nothing worse than getting halfway round the world to find that due to the travel so far I was no longer interested in a planned destination, thankfully that hasn’t happened to me.
That’s enough for this entry and my battery is almost dead, so I’m signing off from Western Australia, the next time I post on here I’ll be in a (silly) 1/2 hour timezone in Adelaide (just like Newfoundland). One note about my time here in WA, the remoteness out here, driving long distances and lots of time with nothing to go do have called on my song writing, I’ve written quite a few songs out here adding to the ever growing list of songs coming out of this trip, they keep getting easier to write too… I can’t wait to start putting music to them and recording when the trip is finished, I have heard my guitars calling to me from halfway around the world over the last few weeks…
Tags: Australia, In-RTW, Travel
Adam
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