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.

Live from under the water surface

The highlight of today is the visit to the underwater observatory. It is always amazing to see how marine life/nature can create a whole new ecosystem on the artificially added jetty piles. One has to keep in mind though that it takes between 5-10 years before the piles start to look as beautifully as the ones on the pics below. Once the fauna is there, the fishes come too. I saw some fishes I have never seen before.

Tonight we drove back to Perth, for tomorrow the plan is to visit the Rottnest Island (30 min by ferry from the city). Last night while walking in Busselton, some funny animals crossed our road. They were so kind to pose for a picture (while having as snack the flowers of the neigbour). Later we were told that we have spotted the famous possum, nocturnal mammal protected in this part of the country. So much about wildlife all around:-)

The Great Southern...or south of Perth:)

It kind of cooled down a bit-temperatures are between 15 and 20 degrees, but sun is almost always there, even if we got some rain the last 2 days. First part of the trip south was drive via Rockingam (where the pic of the cool busstop comes from) and Bunberry to Busselton. In this relaxed sea-town the most famous thing is the Busselton Jetty and its underwater observatory (http://www.busseltonjetty.com.au/-you can have a look too via the online web-cam) here visitors go 8 m underwater and watch the sea inhabitans without getting wet (this visit is on the schedule for tomorrow:-)

One realises the size of the continent (which is actually bigger than Europe) by starting to drive around. Yesterdays drive was around 250 km south from Perth, todays around 550 km down to the Great Southern visiting the Giant Tree Walk. The Walpole National Parc has an impressive forest with huge tingle trees (eucalyptus trees) that can get up to 35-70 m high. There is a 60 m high bridge at the top of trees. It is a bit shaky walk up there but the view was excellent.

Namburg National Parc, in the Pinnacle desert...

Today the weather was a bit cloudy, so we headed to the Namburg National Parc, around 260 km north of Perth. It was a drive of a bit more than 3 hours, but was really worth it. Before arriving at the parc, we made a stop in the tiny fisherman village Cervantes, where we did not see don quijote but had some fresh crayfish and I found a cute old car:-)

The Parc is famous for its Pinnacle Desert (funny limestone formations in a sand ground, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Pinnacles_Desert). One can walk through and the view is amazing, we even met several cockatoos (a colourful cousin of the parrot). On the road back to Perth some wild kangaroos were jumping around us next to road, and we really felt close to the wildlife of Western Australia.

Meeting the locals...

Western Asutralia (with Perth as capital) is so big, that inside one can easily fit Germany, Switzerland, Austria and New Zealand. This part of the Australia has more wild flowers than the rest of the world too!

The Whiteman Parc is an enormous protected area (north from Perth) including a wildlife farm, where we went to stroke, tickle and see some of the most common locals: the kangaroos, the koalas (spending 20 hours a day sleeping), the kookaburra (is the bird kingfisher) and plenty of others known and unknown creatures.

Arriving and discovering Perth

We made it down under-after 18 hours on 2 planes and a bit of a complicated landing in Perth.
The first sight of Australia was red, white and deep blue (the northeast top of the continent):

Getting down to Perth, the landscape started to get greener. The city, hmmm, it feels like being in a quiet and cozy English town, actually a million-city looking like a village with 2 skyscrapers in the middle:) The people are really friendly and the B&B where we are staying is lovely. Jet-lag is there though too. Around 4 a.m. Australian time we were awake starving (good news: there were plenty of things in the kitchen:) This morning Santa Claus was already having a Sunday-drive in town in a golden car and ringing the bell: