26 August 2022 Friday – Rottnest Island to Perth

A more leisurely start this morning with breakfast at Lontara, again in the sunshine at the front of the restaurant. Another couple wanted to sit in front of us at the low tables in the full sun, however, the waiter advised against this as the quokkas jump up onto the low tables & help themselves to your breakfast. Afterwards we head back to our room & pack our bags then checkout, leaving our bags in the reception area, very handy as our ferry departs at 3.30pm.

Again we use the wonderful facility of the hop-on hop-off bus & travel to the track leading up to the Oliver Hill gun emplacements, another relic of World War II. The track leads off through the sand dunes inland & takes about 20 minutes to reach the first of the gun emplacements. The guns were left in-situ after the war as it was too expensive to remove them. They have been restored & made safe & the guns & ammunition storage bunkers & tunnels are now a tourist attraction. During weekends & school holiday periods a small train carries tourists along the supply railway tracks to Oliver Hill from the Settlement. Unfortunately, walking is our only option. The view from the gun emplacements are great & we spend a bit of time exploring them before taking the long walk back through the dunes to the road so we can catch the bus. As we get near the road we see the bus stop & pick up the small group walking in front of us. We are too far away & resign ourselves to waiting the 45 minutes till the next bus. We are only waiting around 10 minutes before another bus comes along, it is a supplementary bus as there is such a large demand for the bus service, we are in luck, the bus is nearly empty.

We ride the bus around the rest of the island & only stop at West End to drop off & pick up a few more tourists before getting back to the Settlement. It is well past lunch time & we decide to try the Bakery today, so select some pies for lunch & sit outside to enjoy them. As we are eating we notice that the seagulls & crows that are hanging around looking to steal food have disappeared. We soon see a woman walking around with a tethered Peregrine Falcon on her arm, with people stopping her to talk as she walked around. After a while she changed birds to a Barn Owl, the owl kept the seagulls away but we noticed the crows started to make their way back. She then went & got out a Wedge Tail Eagle & this bird moved the crows off again. We had finished lunch & went & chatted with her. The Rottnest Island Authority had hired her & the birds of prey as a 3 day trial on Friday, Saturday & Sunday to see if this was an effective way of reducing the nuisance of the seagulls & crows from stealing food from people as they were eating. We think it was a great success.

Next we went to the Pilot Boat House on the beachfront of Thomson Bay, the boat house has a whaling boat on display plus a montage of stories around the walls of some of the history of the crews and the work they performed in guiding ships into Fremantle in all types of weather. Very interesting and informative.

All too soon it was time to collect our luggage from the Samphire Resort & walk onto the wharf to wait for the Rottnest Express to take us back to Perth. The first half of the journey back was a bit rocky as the wind direction was pushing the waves side-on to the ferry. After we pass the line of anchored cargo ships waiting to berth the wave action decreased & the ride was a lot smoother. We admire some of the big houses on the waterfront & are amazed at seeing so very many beautiful big sailing boats, motor boats & yachts.  We stopped at the Gage Roads Wharf in Fremantle to disembark around half the passengers before journeying slowly up the Swan River for another hour to Barrack Square Jetty. The views were great as we motored slowly up the river, in places the water was very shallow & the tide was rushing out. A few sailing boats from some of the different sailing clubs were out racing or training, a great sight.

Our bags were waiting at the gangplank as we disembarked, then we walked across the adjacent wharves to the nearby train station for the trip to Warnbro. The concession tickets were $2.20 each & the train carriage was nearly empty for the hour train trip. My cousin Craig & his wife Denise were waiting at the Warnbro station to drive us home, we are spending the next few days catching up with them.  Their home is a lovely big house & our room is very beautiful. Denise gives us a delicious pumpkin pie for dinner (we might just move in permanently) & we sit chatting for hours before bedtime. Another great day.