If you’re heading to Western Australia the beautiful Rottnest Island has to be part of trip. This is my ultimate guide of everything you should do in just one day!

If you’re heading to Perth, or even Western Australia, then Rottnest Island has to be at the top of your list. This island is just so beautiful, there’s so much to do and the biggest reason of all… the quokkas’! Nicknamed the friendliest, happiest animals on the planet, around 10,000 of these lil’ cuties inhabit only this one island in the whole world and are waiting around to say hi!

If you’re thinking of heading to the island, (which you absolutely should) the only way to visit is by ferry, boat or air. There are multiple options for day trips, overnight stays or longer excursions. For ease of keeping within backpackers budget, we opted for just a day trip, so an early ferry over in the morning and an afternoon one back.

Heading to the docks early in the morning, we wanted to get on a ferry as soon as possible as the trip over to the island takes around 2 and a bit hours. We used Sealink Ferries, but there’s also Rottnest Express and Rottnest Fast Ferries. Our return ferry ticket cost $90/£45 at the time (Feb 2019), which sounds expensive but as I said it takes a while to get there, and of course, it’s absolutely worth it. Arriving on the island at 10.15 am, we were so excited about where to go and what to do. So to avoid being overwhelmed we headed to the retail area on the island to plan our day a little more and make the most of it. Sitting on the benches outside of the bakery and we bought a couple of hot drinks and a doughnut to enjoy whilst we had a quick planning session. The shops range from the bakery, a gift shop, gelato shop and restaurants. This is also where we first noticed the quokka gates – small plastic barrier gates at the shop doors to stop the quokkas from entering the bakery! 

Once we had planned our day, we set out to see the island. It’s not a huge island, but in the heat and with the hilly landscape, walking is not the best choice. The alternatives are a lovely air conditioned bus or by bike – our preferred mode of transport! It might not sound like your cup of tea, but it was so much fun and actually a pretty cool (literally, the breeze from cycling was so welcome!) and novel way to see the island. It also is the best way to get around, as you can go as far as you want and stop whenever you want. This gives you the time to see the best spots on the island and is the best way to meet some quokkas!

We headed to get our bikes at Peddle and Flipper, the rental shop. Our bike hires for the day cost $38 each which included a helmet and a basket. We did not want to be cycling around with a shoulder bag all day, so the basket was really handy. Once we’d made sure we had photographic evidence of us on the bikes to show our families, we started on a route around the island. There’s so much to see, and it all depends on how long you’ve got, so I suggest making the time to do as much as you can.

At some point around the island we hit a shaded spot on a hill, where there were lots of people and bingo…quokka babies everywhere! I can’t even explain how amazing it was meeting these cuties, so I’m not going to. Just be prepared for all the love and cuddles you’re going to get, they really are SO friendly. 

Hans Hint: The quokkas might be really thirsty and want to drink the water from your bottle, like they did with us. There was debate that it’s not healthy for them to give them your water, however this was advised by random tourists and when island staff drove past we weren’t told otherwise. It might be worth speaking to one of the Rottnest guides on the island though as we don’t want any harm to come to these cuties! 

Prepare yourself for the cuteness!

After spending a long time with the quokkas, we eventually pulled ourselves away and carried on round the island. On the way back to the shopping area, we found the huge salt flats which are definitely worth a look at. We headed back to cool off and grab an ice cream from the gelato shop, which was absolutely delicious, and then had a quick wander around the shops – of course I bought a few souvenirs.

We had some time left before our ferry departure and the bike return, so we retraced our steps around the island, in the same direction we had begun this morning to find a detour to the beach. We found the such a perfect quiet spot, with the clearest sea water I’ve ever seen! If we’d been more prepared for the beach, it would have been perfect for a dip, so I would recommend wearing a swimwear and carrying a towel for your day trip.

The beach explore finished up the rest of our day trip as it was now time to return our bikes and think about heading down to the docks to return to Perth on the ferry. The last ferry was around 4pm, which is quite early but with the length of the journey back we didn’t dock back into Perth until gone six!

Accommodation wise, if you did want to spend more than a day on the island, there’s a fair few options although they can be pretty pricey. They range from a hostel to premium accommodation, which looks like a small apartment with a kitchen and sleeps up to 4. All the accommodation can be found here on the Rottnest Island tourism website and I would recommend booking with them, just to be safe.

Also if you do stay for longer, there is SO much more to do than we realised. We went purely for the quokkas and everything else was a bonus but if you’re staying for a while then there are options of surfing, snorkelling at the many shipwrecks, beaches, boat hire, kayaking, a cinema, shopping, a spa and even the option of a skydive!

If you’ve been to Rottnest Island, I’d love to hear what you got up to and what you thought of the adorable Quokkas!

lots of love,

Han x