Rottnest Island February 20

Friday, February 20

We began early this morning with a ferry to Rottnest Island, off the coast of Fremantle.  We boarded the ferry in Perth and cruised down the river to the mouth of the Swan River where we stopped for more passengers at Fremantle and then crossed to the island.  Here’s a photo of Perth from the ferry:

The island got its name from a Dutch explorer who came ashore, saw a large number of a local marsupial, the quokka, which looked to him like large rats, and declared the island uninhabitable because of them.  Rottnest means “rat’s nest” in Dutch.  The island is wild and lovely with a dramatic coastline:

Many people come to Rottnest for the day to bike and hike and enjoy its beauty.  It now is a resort island, but it has an interesting military past.  We spent considerable time learning about the WW II submarine base which was at Fremantle and the amazing 9.2 inch long guns which were mounted on Rottnest Island to protect the harbor.  We visited the Oliver Hill Battery and saw one of the guns which actually had been built in 1901 in England, but were installed here to protect the coast during WW II.:

We toured the underground control systems which were quite extensive, and learned about how the ammunition was made and stored as well as how the gun was loaded and fired.  Here’s the loading platform with the breech opened:

We drove around the whole island, stopping for walks at overlooks and at the beautiful lighthouse.  Here’s a spot where there was an imperious pelican:

And here’s the lighthouse:

At the end of the day we took the ferry back to Fremantle and went to a local hotel restaurant for a wonderful buffet dinner, after which we came back to Perth and to our hotel.