Anahm Rottnest comes from the Dutch words for Rats Nest, when the Dutch first arrived at the Island the Island was full of Quokkas but as they sort of resemble large rats 🐀 they named the Island 🏝 after them.
Quokkas are actually related to Kangaroos and can be found all over Rottnest Island, they mainly eat green leaves 🍃but they will try to eat anything they can find.
Quokkas aren’t really too concerned about humans, and so lot’s of people come to the island and get close-up photos with them.
OK so story time, after arriving at Rottnest Island, we spent the first couple of days taking pictures with the Quokkas as everyone else was and we’d see a few in the campsite wondering around which was fine. A couple of days in, I get woken up at silly o’clock in the morning about a Quokka that had got under the canopy of the tent ⛺️ 🤷🏻♂️ after shining the head torch 🔦 at it, it ran off as expected, crisis averted.
The next night, there was a similar episode, and I was woken again this time by fellow campers shouting there was a Quokka trying to get into thetent, I got up 😴🥱 thinking it’s just a Quokka why’s everyone panicking. I shone the head torch 🔦 at it, but this one didn’t want to move. I made a few noises, but it wasn’t budging. So to give us extra space in the tent, a few zipped cooler bags had been left under the canopy but outside the main tent, and this Quokka had opened the zip and was trying to get at some food inside 🤦🏻♂️. It was time to get out of the tent and move the Quokka on, nudging the bag, but it didn’t deter it, so it turned into a bit of a tug of war as it was half in the bag. After I got the bag off the Quokka, it just stared at me. It wasn’t impressed. It followed me around the tent before sniffing the other bags and then wandering off. All the cooler bags had to put into a backpack and take into the tent. Luckily, it had only gotten to some bread 🍞 that had to be thrown away.
