Spring Break, Couple Extra Days

Uni Games officially ended on Friday night so most of the team left on Saturday.  The rest of us hung around Perth and watched the footy Grand Final replay (the week before the two teams tied at the end of regulation, so rather than go into overtime, the rules said they had to replay the game the next week).  After that—Collingwood demolished St. Kilda by the way—I read in a park and then ate fish and chips with a couple teammates.  We stayed the night in a hostel and then everyone left on Sunday morning.  Except me.

 To get the cheapest airfare I booked my flight home on Monday night at about 11 PM so I had some time to kill.  Luckily, a couple fellow Exchange students from Ormond who played on the baseball team at Uni Games had the same idea.  So on Saturday I met up with them—Tripp from Wisconsin and Augusto from Mexico—and we rode the train down to Cottesloe Beach and then rode the train further down to Fremantle.

Fremantle is the shipping port of Perth.  It’s right on the Pacific Ocean while Perth is about 10 miles up the Swan River.  All the tankers arrive at Fremantle, and all the business goes on in Perth.  You’d think they’d do it all in one city and save some trouble, but I guess that’s the way things happen sometimes.

This place was bustling. With people in their late 20s/early 30s.

Fremantle is a small city with lots of quaint brick buildings.  It’s looks kind of like a college town, like Cambridge or Princeton.  We went for the Little Creatures Brewery (/Bar/Restaurant).  Even for a Sunday night at about 6 PM this place was packed.  We enjoyed a pint of the Pale Ale—best I’ve had in Australia—but the price tag was so high ($9) it stayed at one pint.  Me and Tripp's island adventure after the jump...

Rottnest. Almost seven miles long.

Augusto left on Sunday night so it was just me and Tripp left.  We had seen pretty much all there was to see in Perth twice, so we decided to venture to Rottnest Island, a small island (a tenth the area of Nantucket) about 12 miles off the coast.  The round trip tickets were expensive at $80 each, but we didn’t really have anything else to do so we boarded the ferry at 9 AM and set off for the island.

This bike was a P.O.S.

When we got there we immediately went to the Subway and bought a sandwich and three cookies each, and then rented bikes for the day to take us around the island.  A bunch of other tourists were on the ferry with us, but the island didn’t feel crowded at all.  We managed to ride all the way around the island and stopped at beaches that were deserted except for us.  At one of them we found a ledge about 8 feet above the water to jump off.  The landing area didn’t leave much room for error, though, so only did that once.

The Ledge.

Here Quokka, Quokka, Quokka

Rottnest Island is also famous for a marsupial called the Quokka.  It’s one of the only islands where this mammal still lives.  It used to exist on the mainland, but foxes and feral cats killed them all.  Tripp and I spotted a couple along the road and they are apparently unafraid of humans.  He managed to pet one.

We made it all the way around the island with about 15 minutes to spare, so we bought more cookies at Subway.  It was a day well spent.  And with that I have now finished writing about my second Spring Break of the year.

The deserted beach where we ate our Subway subs. Paradise.