Fremantle is a cool little town, way better than expected!

For pictures follow the below link.

http://picasaweb.google.com/tonycesare/FremantleAndRottnestIsland?authkey=Gv1sRgCN_jwaeEuq7z6wE&feat=directlink

We spent the last two nights in Fremantle, a very cool town about 20 mins south of Perth. Fremantle was historically a fishing town with a strong Italian heritage. The fishing boats are still here and the city center is now one of the coolest couple blocks in Australia. Sydney and Melbourne get all the Press but Fremantle was Tony’s type of town. Streets fringed with good coffee shops, great restaurants and lots of small breweries with delicious beer. Erika enjoyed the funky bookshops and great people-watching. Imagine a small Seattle or Portland in a location where the sun shines non-stop. Although we only had a short glimpse, if Fremantle weren’t so far away from everything else in the world, we could probably live here.

Many non-Australians do not know that the English were not the first Europeans to land on Australia. The Dutch landed in Western Australia in the early 1600s and there are some who think the Portuguese may have preceded the Dutch. Dirk Hoatag Island in Shark Bay was the first confirmed European landing site in Australia and all along the West coast there are localities with Dutch names. These typically are not Dutch settlements, but are instead the names of Dutch ships that wrecked on their way to Indonesia.

Rottnest island is one of the Dutch-named areas in Western Australia. Rottnest is a small island off the coast of Perth and Fremantle and it translates to “Rat Nest Island”. The Dutch gave the small island such a lovely name because of the large numbers of Quokka – small marsupials that resemble either mini-kangaroos or large rats. Despite the rat-like appearance they are pretty cute and Tony wanted to cuddle one.

Today Rottnest island is a day-retreat from Perth. Surrounded by a beautiful coastline with reefs and rocky outcrops for snorkeling (we didn’t swim, it was too cold), it is an attractive place to spend the day. There are very few cars and everyone rides bicycles around the small island which adds to the fun. Besides the Quokka, we had two great wildlife encounters. One was a pod of dolphins playing in big surf off the west of the island. They would enter a 12 foot breaking wave that formed a full tube and ride it as the wave built. You could see the dolphins through the wave. It was incredible, but unfortunately we did not have the good camera and they were too far out to get a good photo. As the wave broke, the dolphins would all jump out the back of the wave at once. It was common to see 3 or 4 dolphins all completely out of the water at once; very cool. The second encounter was a large stingray that coasted by a beach as we were sitting and enjoying the sunshine. The ray was probably 5 feet in diameter and about 10 feet from the shore. He cruised by, splashed his fins above water once or twice and moved on to deeper waters.

Fremantle was also our last two nights sleeping in Mad Max. We love the big fella but are looking forward to a bed we don’t have to make up each night and a proper bathroom to ourselves.