Rottnest Island

Finally just finished my second final, so I have time for a post! This happened a few weeks ago- I went to Rottnest Island, about half an hour off the coast of Freo by ferry, with a bunch of my friends. No cars are allowed on the island and its very small, so we all rented bikes and decided to explore. Rottnest means “rats nest” in Dutch, for these cute little guys, the quokkas.

So cute!

He really wanted that coffee! Went after my water bottle and tried to

stick his head in my backpack for food too.

They’re a marsupial found in only a few places in the world, and they’re habituated to humans and really friendly! They’re like a mixture between a rat and a kangaroo- they actually have a pouch for their young too. We didn’t see any with babies but I saw a picture on a postcard once, and its really strange to see the tiny head poking out! There are only a few shops on the island and a few camp areas to stay. All of the shops had small quokka blocking doors. It looks like it would be so peaceful to live there, but pretty much the only people who do are a few who work in the shops or at the campgrounds. There’s not much else besides that and tons of small beaches.

Here is the first beach we went to, my favourite one. It was so beautiful.

View from above.

A massive osprey nest.

Wind sculpture at the third snorkeling beach.

A shipwreck we spotted at the very beginning of the day.

We stopped at a lighthouse and talked to this older volunteer, who was actually excited to talk to us because he’s going on a five-week trip throughout the US. He was so nice.

We saw some pink lakes along the bike ride too, and stopped at a few more beaches.

We found a lot of cuttle bone washed up on the beach…one even had “help” ingrained in it. So we made our own.

After we returned our bikes around 3:30, we went back and had some ice cream while waiting for the ferry. They had some red bull ice cream we could try…it tasted exactly like it.

Overall it was an amazing day, so beautiful. And I love those quokkas! I’m really going to miss Freo.

Aussie slang- (running low)

Fruity Lexia- box/bag of wine. also known as goon.

Daggies- granny panties (only found this out through a commercial that plays all the time)

17 More Days.

I can’t even believe it. Only 17 more days to go until I begin my trip back home, which includes a 4-day stop in Sydney. After that is going to be an incredibly long trip- the flight to Sydney is 4 hours, the flight to LAX is 13.5, then I have about a 7 hour layover in LAX, then a 4 hour flight to Chicago, an hour layover there, then a 2 hour flight to Boston. So total that is about…32 hours of travel time? Awesome…

Anyways, here are a few things I’ll miss about Western Australia (besides the awesome friends I made here of course!)

-The Fremantle Market

-Always being able to predict that it will be sunny out with 98% certainty- 100% this summer, where it didn’t rain the first 3 months I was here.

-Buskers and street performers in Fremantle

-The Kulbardi Aboriginal Centre- I took a class here called “Indigenous Sustainability,” and as part of the class we were often invited to small events like a smoking ceremony (a eucalypt fire at the ceremony and you walk though the smoke), a cultural ceremony where we got to sit in a tepee and listen to a didgeridoo player, and a bunch of lunches and barbecues. It was really nice to be able to do that kind of stuff in a small community in the backyard of the building.

-The coffee culture- There are heaps of really cool coffee shops around, all different kinds. Also, having lattes as the regular coffee makes them so much better- the baristas make it like art. A guy at my work can write people’s names and draw pictures in them and they are always so good.

-The paychecks- only getting 5 hours a week of work during school isn’t so bad when the minimum wage is $20/hr.

-The amazing wildlife, especially the birds!

-The pristine beaches, always with a big grassy park behind it.

-King’s Park

There is a lot more but those are the major ones. I’ve been speed limited on my internet (one thing that I definitely will NOT miss) so I won’t be able to do a picture post until tomorrow.

WACA Warriors + Freo

On Wednesday a few of us went to the WACA stadium to see our first cricket game. Of course, the day turned out to be about 37°C…or a bit over 100° F. Luckily the buses and the train to get there were all air-conditioned! When we finally got to the stadium it was pretty empty so we could sit anywhere. The game was too confusing and to really hold our attention- the Retravision Warriors wore the yellow uniforms, but the crowd seemed to cheer for both teams- that’s how confusing the rules were!

Warriors up at bat.

The scoreboard looked pretty cool but we had no idea how to interpret it. Despite all the confusion it was fun just hanging out, meeting new people and chatting during the game. Later that night we decided to check out the Newport club in Freo for a bit for student night- we didn’t stay for too long but it was really fun and crowded.

The confusing scoreboard- each player appears to have a score and their names

would occasionally light up.

WACA Stadium

Thursday was my second class: Country, Nature, and Identity: Indigenous Sustainability. It was really interesting and the professor was awesome! Looking forward to the semester. It was a small class so there’ll be a lot of discussion and it was nice to be mixed with Aussies. A bunch of my friends from the U.S. are in it with me, so that’ll be fun. There’s such a large international population here that I don’t think you could find a class without a few people studying abroad or from a different country. I decided to switch into the Nature-Based Tourism class on Monday, freeing up my Fridays. There are two field trips during the semester to Penguin Island and Yanchep National Park- very excited for that.

Probably my favorite part of being here so far is going into Fremantle- it’s just a bus ride away and there are tons of fun things to do. There are a lot of different restaurants and bars, shops, a park, a beach, and an amazing marketplace. On weekend nights it’s crowded with people and there are live bands playing in some restaurants, and the overall vibe of area is just amazing. The marketplace is open every Friday to Sunday with a ton of vendors inside this huge building. They have everything imaginable, like clothes, jewelry, didgeridoos and paintings. There’s a section for produce and food, which was fresh and cheap on Sunday so I’ll definitely be back there a lot! Over the weekend there are also a lot of street performers and musicians livening up Freo. They shorten every word in Australia- for example, Fremantle is Freo, Rottnest Island is Rotto, the Salvation Army is Salvo’s (even on the sign), etc. One act we saw last week was the “badpiper”- a guy in a leather-studded kilt playing Queen’s “We will rock you.” There was also a sword-swallowing pirate, and there are always a few didgeridoo players around.

Some stalls in Fremantle Market

Fremantle Harbor

G’Day from Oz

So far Perth has been great! It is EXTREMELY hot here, and always sunny. I haven’t seen a cloud since I’ve been here. The sun is super strong-everyone got a really bad burn on the first day. I even got burned wearing SPF50. I’m in a flat with 4 other people- so far I’ve met 3 of them. One girl is from Malawi, one from Malaysia, and I’m not sure about the other two. Its nice having a single in a suite!

Friday, the day after I arrived, was a basic orientation day. At night a big group of the early arrivers went to the Mexican Kitchen in Fremantle for dinner- really good! Especially suddenly being able to order drinks at dinner :) The next day we had a “discover your campus race” which was cool to see the campus but very long and hot. Then the shopping trip to Kardy’s shopping center- things are so much more expensive here. For example, a box of Froot Loops was about 8 or 9 dollars…2 boxes of Coke were about $30. Apparently the state of WA is doing really well right now, and minimum wage here is wayyy higher- I think its $20/hr if you’re 20. I’ll definitely be looking around for a job soon!

We went out to Outback Jack’s that night with the study abroad group. I just got a veggie burger but you could get things like kangaroo meatballs, crocodile, and camel burgers! After that we were able to go to Little Creatures, a really popular brewery in Fremantle. I didn’t get any pictures but it was a really cool place, with glass side walls to see the huge vats where the beer’s made.

Sunday was our trip to Cottesloe beach, a bus and train ride away along Fremantle. It was gorgeous there- the water was so clear, it was really hot, and there was some great gelato across the street.


Monday we had another day of orientation stuff, then went to King’s Park in the afternoon in Perth. You just take a bus, then a train to get there from Fremantle. The whole TransPerth system is kind of like the Charlie card system in Boston. We only got to see a small part of King’s Park but it was beautiful. It’s bigger than Central Park so I definitely want to go and spend a whole day there! The birds you see here are so different from back at home- its weird not knowng the names of any of the wildlife or plants or anything. The crows are massive and all of the birds make bizarre calls- I even saw a green parrot-like bird flying overhead. There are a lot of quendas on campus, which are like larger, cuter rats. I’ve seen a few scurrying along towards bushes.

We also had a day trip of surfing and sandboarding at Lancelin beach. We left at 6:45 am on Wednesday, and split into two groups once we got there. We went surfing first- the beach was huge, the water was really clear, and the waves were just pretty normal sized in the morning. It was awesome- so much fun. I stood up a couple of times (only to come crashing down) and I definitely want to do it again!

Post-Surfing.

After that we went and ate lunch, then my group went sandboarding. We took a short bus trip away from the beach to these massive dunes- climbing to the top of one took a while and it looked like a dessert. I wish I could have brought my camera but we were warned not to because of the sand. There were these small snowboard like things that you sit on and slide down really fast- it was so cool and I was expecting much smaller beach dunes- it actually was a lot like the video in the last post but with whiter sand.

The dunes were much bigger than the ones behind us in these pictures.

In the water at Lancelin after sandboarding.

I’ll try to keep up more with these posts so I don’t have to put up such long entries next time. :)

Slang:

Rashies- the swim shirts (we're wearing over the wetsuits)

Sandgropers- Western Australians

Goon- boxed wine, the only thing we can afford over here ;)

Trolley- shopping cart