Friday 12 December 2008

Rottnest island adventure...

A bit exhausted after a great mountain-biking tour for around 6 hours on the Rottnest island today. The ferry took us there for exactly 30 minutes and even if the temperature was 22 degrees it was nice sunny and warm while biking uphill (now i understand why I love biking in Holland:)

The cutest inhabitants on the island are the quokkas. In 1696, while exploring the island, the Dutch William de Vlamingh (indeed the Dutch were everywhere!) took mistakenly the animals Quokkas (a mix between a small kangaroo and a squirrel) for a giant rats. This gave the name of the island: Rottnest meaning the rats nest...

We spotted next to several friendly and cute quokkas, plenty of skinks (typical lizard for this area) and some sea lions (during their afternoon siesta swim).

Tomorrow 2 flights (Perth-Brisbane and Brisbane-Gladstone) plus a helicopter-flight (all together 7 hours) will take us to the other side of Australia, the south of the Great Barrier Reef. Might be offline for 7-8 days as I am not sure if there will be Internet on the island.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

D'après les vues du blog, il n'y a que vous deux et de drôles de bêbêtes en Australie!!!
Continuez à faire de belles photos et surtout faites vous plaisir
bisous
maman denise