Living on Rottnest Island

If you told us we would be Living on Rottnest Island, we wouldn’t have believed you. When we got to Perth in December 2018, Rottnest Island was always one of our dream places to visit.

Also known as Wadjemup (the aboriginal name) and Quokka Island, home to the happiest fluff balls on the planet. We decided to make it our mission to visit Rotto for my birthday in January.

This Journey is written by Milly if you didn’t guess already.

Can’t remember our Journey before Rottnest? Check out our Melbourne to Perth Journey here.

Milly’s Birthday On Rottnest Island

I found it difficult to find a job in Perth as every interview I attended would dismiss me for being a ‘backpacker’. It was either that or they would check my visa and see I only had 4 months left in Australia.

We were fully relying on Olly’s paycheck and I was in a dark place. I ended up crying a lot because I hated depending on Olly so much. Because of this, he planned the best birthday I could have ever asked for.

My birthday rolled around and Olly surprised me with a trip to Rottnest Island with our new besties Brad + Roisin. This day was AMAZING! We got there early and explored the island as much as we could.

I finally met the happiest animal in the world and I instantly fell in love with Quokkas!

It was the best birthday and I fell in love with everything Rottnest, I was just sad my day there was over.

Rottnest Island Jobs – 5 Days Later

That week Olly happened to be browsing the website Gumtree for jobs in Perth. To his surprise, an advert had been put on 2 minutes prior, for a job on Rottnest Island. The famous Rottnest Bakery was looking for a couple to employ for 3 months.

He immediately sent them an email and within the hour we had trials at Rottnest Bakery the next day. This felt so surreal to have someone get back to us about a job and also be looking for a couple.

We jumped on the Rottnest Express Ferry and went over for our trial. Before we arrived we assumed the bakery wouldn’t be too busy as it was a Thursday. I can assure you we were extremely wrong. It was hectic but, the time passed without us even noticing and we got the jobs!

Klook.com

You Can Live On Rottnest Island – Off We Go!

The few days before we moved over to the island, we thought it would be a good idea to do one last road trip with Brad + Roisin, our new parents!

Me, Olly, Brad + Roisin jumped in the cars and headed for The Pinnacle Desert. Together we explored the beaches and saw dolphins and seals. In the evening we camped out in the pinnacle desert and star gazed for hours. It was a magical weekend and a great send-off.

On our way home from the road trip, we managed to break down and our van completely died on us. Did I mention we didn’t have a breakdown cover at this point? Not having jobs and not having a breakdown cover is a great combo, we highly recommend it!

When we broke down we couldn’t transfer money into our Australian accounts, as our English apps were down due to maintenance work. The lifeline that is my Dad, managed to bail us out in the sheer panic of losing our new jobs before even starting.

That Sunday we had to empty the van and took the ferry from Fremantle Port with all of our belonging and move to Rottnest Island.

That weekend we moved in was the weekend the previous couple was moving out. We had a few cross-over days until they left and we had the house to ourselves.

The job came with our own house, which was lucky as everyone else shares a house with 4-6 other people. This also meant we only had to pay $50 each a week’s rent which included bills. Everyone else was paying $100 for just a room in a house, we soon learned we were extremely lucky.

That week we cleaned the whole house from top to bottom as it needed some TLC. That’s when I think I gave off my ‘princess’ vibes to everyone else at work. Our house was a few hundred meters away from work and was perfectly surrounded by Quokkas.

A lot of people do not realise you can live on Rotto (you can tell we are locals now, shortening all our words). In the summer months, there are around 160 permanent residents/ staff members living on Rottnest.

In the winter months, this drops down to about 45. Rottnest is a big island but the accommodation and amenities are all kept in one area. This means it’s easy to meet new people, and the island has a great social life.

Working On Rottnest Island

Work was very busy as it was still the summer holidays. We had no idea how much Australia love a bloody pie. Honestly, it is shocking that people ask for a pie at 7:30 am. This bakery sells 12,000 a week during the busy period!

Learning what Aussies like was a baffling lesson as kids would ask for ‘A bucket of Hot Chips’ when chips are always hot to us? Why would they think I would give them cold chips. I soon realised they call crisps Chips, and a bucket is a cup. IT’S WEIRD AND I WILL NEVER GET OVER IT!

This bakery has a pretty high reputation which meant it was always busy. Sometimes it was hell, other times it was hilarious. Sometimes it was just spooky that we would meet English people from our hometowns.

Our main goal here was to save money to keep travelling. It was hard to not be tempted by going out and spending money but we became very anti-social and for once, we didn’t mind it too much.

I missed our friends in Perth a lot and I left like I was going crazy some days. On other days I was glad for the days I didn’t spend any money. Thanks to this job, we were able to plan our WA road trip, book flights to Asia, and back to the UK.

What Living On Rottnest Island Means

Work was busy and we were earning good money but living here was so much better than we expected. After we finished work we had our bikes to explore the island. Given our bikes were awful, we tried to explore as much as we physically could.

On our days off we would either relax on a new beach or cycle around finding new places. If we weren’t relaxing then one of us was going back to the mainland to buy food as it was a lot cheaper in Perth than Rottnest for groceries.

I can’t even fathom how incredible it was here, we would look out to the sea and either see Sting Rays or Dolphins pretty much every day. It was honestly paradise and it will forever be my favourite place in the world.

Living on Rottnest Island meant we got to meet so many people! It was the perfect place to meet up with people we had been following on Instagram. We met up with 4 different couples which probably wouldn’t have happened if we weren’t living on Rottnest Island.

If we weren’t here to save money, we would have socialised a lot more with people that lived on the island. However, we have learned from our mistakes and tried to save as much money as possible here. That meant working out rather than drinking, staying home watching films rather than dancing on tables, like we used to.

Want to check out Rottnest Island Best Bits? Click Here

Quokka Island

If you don’t know what a Quokka is, then you need to click here immediately. They are the cutest little animals you could find.

Being surrounded by the happiest animal on the planet, was enough to keep me happy every day. There wasn’t a day that went by that I didn’t stop to watch, take photos or gush over a Quokka.

We learned that they don’t travel far so I was able to name a few that would live outside the bakery. It was just such a shame to see the effects of tourism on these little creatures. Being there for a few months we would see what would happen once the tourists fed them or left their rubbish around. It was heartbreaking and I hope people weren’t so stupid sometimes.

While we were living on Rottnest, we met a cameraman who was also living on the island. He was filming a documentary for Discovery Channel called ‘Meet the Quokkas’. One of our favourite Quokkas ‘Mad Max’ might be famous by the time we publish this post!