Fremantle and Rottnest Island

We left Esperance and the South Coast to start making our way back to Perth where we were booked to stay for Christmas. We had intended to go through Kalgoorlie but as it was Sunday and most things were going to be closed we decided not to. Instead we backtacked through Ravensthorpe and stopped in at their lolly store and then made a stop at Hyden to see Wave Rock, something we had missed seeing 9 years ago when we drove across the Nullabor with just Elly. We got our bikes out to ride around to see Wave Rock, the Hippo's Yawn and the salt lakes, but in hindsight should have just stuck to the rocks. We then made our way to our next random selection of campsite for the night in a town called Kulin. The free overnight stop was great, a nice new playground to play on, bathroom facilities and all for free. What we really enjoyed was the drive in and out of Kulin as all along the road were sculptures of horses made out of all kinds of junk. It was actually called the Tin Horse road and we loved looking out for all the clever statues.

We then finally found ourselves back at Fremantle, a stop we were looking forward to as we had enjoyed our visit here so much last time. Dave was especially looking forward to visiting Little Creatures Brewery again (ok, we both were and I'm not much of a beer drinker but their beer is great). We had 3 full days in Fremantle but 1 was to be taken up with a day trip to Rottnest Island. So after some shopping in the morning we took the bikes out and rode up to the brewery for a drink or 2. The girls were more than happy to go with us as they got to have huge raspberry spiders to drink.

The next day was Rottnest day. We got up super early as we had purposefully booked ourselves on the first ferry over and the last ferry back to ensure we got the most out of our day. Even Rainbow and Olaf wanted to come, packing themselves in ziploc bags so they could be carried around without losing their magic. With our bikes loaded on the ferry we headed off across to the island. Upon our arrival we decided to hit the bike trail first as this was going to be the biggest thing we did and it was best to be fresh. We weren't really sure how the girls would go but they were absolutely amazing. It wasn't the easiest ride, there were lots of hills but they managed to ride around the entire 22km bike path. We had a stop at the furthest end where we refuelled (nothing worse than a hangry Charli) and got to see some seals hanging around in the water below. When we got back to the township the girls were really proud of themselves for making it the whole way.

We decided to get an early lunch, the girls really wanted Subway, and rested our legs while watching the cheeky Quokkas running around trying to scam food. We followed up lunch with some yummy treats from the bakery and the girls took a wander through some of the shops picking themselves out some cute quokka earrings to buy with their birthday money. At 1pm we met a guide who took us for a walk and taught us more about Quokkas. During this talk she mentioned that quokkas have areas in their tummies, which made us all laugh as Charli has been saying for years that she has areas too so we decided that Charli's spirit animal must be a quokka.

We still had a few hours before our ferry home so we decided to hire a couple of window boards so the girls could paddle around and look for creatures in the water below. Needless to say that by the end of all this we were exhausted and, after an apple pie flavoured ice-cream, happy to be sitting on the ferry to return to Fremantle. Unfortunately we decided to sit outside on the deck and the swell was somewhat rougher on our return journey so by the time we pulled in Dave and I were soaked! We had an awesome day and were very grateful to Dave's family who had paid for our ferry tickets as our Christmas present.

Our final day in Fremantle we rode back into town an visited the Maritime Museum. Dave and I had been there before but the girls were interested to see the wreck of the Batavia so we happily spent some time wandering the exhibits. Our ride took us back past Little Creatures so of course we had to stop back in for another beer or 2 especially as the beer we had enjoyed so much was only available for a limited time on tap. We were a bit sad that our time in Fremantle was up, we could have happily stayed longer although it probably would have cost us a fortune in beer. But it was time to move back to our caravan park in Midland and start preparing for Christmas.