On New Year’s Eve 2016 I ventured to Australia from Italy, facing a long 20 hours’ flight.
I love travelling and, whenever I can, I pack and leave crowded Rome for more relaxing places.
Australia is a different world, endowed with incredible nature and gorgeous beaches, where you breathe different emotions, meet aboriginal culture, live in big cities like Sydney, where you may find a bat in your flat but you also meet people smiling at you in the street, relaxed, happy people even stopping their cars at zebra crossings (unusual in Italy).
I spent New Year’s Eve in Sydney enjoying the famous fireworks, then started organizing my next trip to Western Australia.
Four hours by plane to Perth, then by ferry, I arrived on little Rottnest Island, home to quokkas. Don’t you know what I am talking about? They are funny, little marsupials, actually looking like big rats, which is the reason for the name of the island. They are considered the happiest animals in the world! Very sociable and curious, they are not afraid of humans. When I left my bag on the ground they entered to explore its inside and tried to steal a banana, which I finally let them eat; they shared the pulp, while one of them was just happy to have the peel all to himself…
You can ride the island by bike, but don’t follow my example: when I went biking around, I fell down and found myself in the infirmary of the island…
Actually all the nurses were really efficient, caring and nice to me, but X-rays said that I had fractured the radial head of my right arm. As I am right-handed the following days I had to struggle a lot to do all the common things that we normally take for granted, like dress or brush my teeth.
But I didn’t want to give up and, with my right arm in a blue cuff, I flew from Perth to Esperance National Park, in the south west of Australia.
In Esperance there are really amazing, wild beaches. I engaged a guide, a talkative, middle-aged man, who drove me to the famous Cape Le Grand National Park.
When I arrived at Lucky Bay I couldn’t believe my eyes! Tens of Kangaroos were walking down the beach. Moreover the white sand was sticky and spongy, so that it made a squirrel sound when you walked on it, something never experienced before!
The day ended up on the Great Ocean Drive, a 38 kilometers circular loop taking me to sheltered, pristine beaches like Twilight Beach, West Beach, Hell Fire Beach, together with my Puppet Koala, always sharing travel emotions with me. He is now sleeping next to me, dreaming of kangaroos.
