Quokkas, crystal clear water, white beaches, wildlife and bicycles, Rottnest Island is a paradise and easy to reach from the capital of the west coast, Perth.
The reason why I was so excited to go to Rottnest island if you can guess it, was to meet the happiest animal in the world. The Quokka! Don’t get me wrong, Rottnest Island is much more than just a home for Quokkas but I will tell you more about that later on.
What is a quokka?
The quokka is a marsupial and does only exist on Rottnest Island. They are probably the friendliest animals on earth who loves attention and food. They look like a big rat, who moves like a kangaroo, with a smiley face and a little pouch. Super cute! A few years ago the Quokka became famous via Instagram. People were posting quokkaselfies on instagram whereby they stole the heart from many many people in the world. So the goal for our visit to Rottnest island was to get a quokka selfie. Believe me, that is more difficult than you think it would be (I will tell you more about the best technique later :P).
How to get the perfect quokkaselfie?
I was so excited when I saw our first Quokka, they are really cute and funny to watch. It’s not difficult to spot a Quokka, they are literally everywhere on Rottnest Island but the difficult part is to find a quokka who is not occupied yet. They are really curious animals, and of course, because people have been feeding them (which unfortunately happens a lot), they will come to you and try to steal some food. So to get the perfect picture, you need to find a quokka who does not have a lot of people around them.
We were cycling to the next beach when we noticed 2 very cute quokkas under a three. We stopped and finally we had some private time with these cuties. We had some dry biscuits and fruit to get them closer to us, we tried not to feed them but before we noticed it they stole the cookies out of our bag. I think we took about 300 different photos before we were finally happy with the result. Believe me, they move a lot and the only thing they try to do is steal your food. Their nails are very sharp so I was covered in scratches after our photo session but the result was there!
So to get the perfect picture you need:
- Some fruit or vegetables to get their attention
- Find your “own” quokka, not one who is distracted by other people
- Be patient
- Enough memory on your phone to take a lot of photos
