You may well ask. A quokka is a cute cat sized marsupial living on Rottnest Island, a protected nature reserve 19 Kilometres off the coast of Western Australia. In search of cuteness, we load our bikes (there are no vehicles on Rottnest) on the ferry and enjoy the half hour crossing. In 1988 A fleeting visit to Rottnest left me with a memory of a wilderness island. How times change. A lot of building is underway at the harbour end, and we lose count of the number of boats on moorings. As for the quokka, we see not a one. Talking to others on the return journey we hear there are a lot at the mall – Shopping day? No, despite the myriad signs of do NOT feed the wildlife, it seems the quokka find a winning smile and cheeky look will get them treats at the cafe.

We bypass the shopping area, missing the quokka, and take to our bikes. It’s an easy ride around the island, probably around 30kms if you go in and out of the 20 different bays, all of which are beautiful. Tossing the old bike and now riding my e-bike means I am still in a good mood at the end of the day. It’s true Rottnest is a sandy, low lying island dotted with lakes, but the maps don’t show what are charmingly termed “undulations”. We meet many red faced, sweaty and grumpy cyclists with a “are we there yet?” look about them, especially towards the West End. It is here we walk out along a boardwalk keeping an eye out for wedgetail shearwater nests in the undergrowth, and another eye out for humpback whales meandering along the coast. We see the latter breaching in the distance, but the birds must be deep in their burrows. There are also several osprey nests – these get quite large as the birds return each year and engage in home renovations, adding a fresh stack to last year’s nest.

Back on the mainland, we’re staying in the seaside suburb of Fremantle. I’m not sure what it says about a place where three of the notable buildings include two prisons and a lunatic asylum, though none of the three operate in their original capacity – the asylum is now an Arts Centre. Overlooking the harbour the Roundhouse, dating from 1831, is the oldest remaining public building in Western Australia. It is a clever design by the architect Henry Reveley, with eight cells opening off a central yard so all inmates can be easily monitored. Until 1886 this gaol held the settlement’s prisoners, then it became a police lock up. The second noteworthy building, so noteworthy it is World Heritage listed, is the Fremantle Prison, now closed. The huge site covers 15 acres and includes the prison, gatehouse, perimeter walls, cottages and tunnels, all built by convict labour in the 1850s.

Being an early settlement, the residential streets are narrow and the Victorian cottages close together. The styles are similar – generally brick, made locally, and often featuring some or all of the following: a rolled verandah roof; decorative brickwork; iron fretwork; Everything seems to grow here and many gardens are a riot of both native and exotic flowers and foliage. It is a joy to walk down a street where everyone respects the historic value of the property.

The Victorian era building that houses the Fremantle markets dates from 1897 and is open Friday, Saturday and Sunday. There are 150 stalls selling beautiful fruit and vegetables along with the usual suspects – crystals, soaps, souvenirs, handcrafts and so on. I toss up between 45 minutes of tarot card reading for $45 or two mangoes as big as my head for a tenth of the price. What would you choose?

And so we reach the final few days of this trip – it feels like an abrupt end as we did not expect to get MIQ places so readily. Tomorrow (14/10) the car and caravan go into storage for, we hope, six months. Of course, we don’t know if we will be able to return then, but we’re ever hopeful. We have a few days in a hotel in Perth itself, get our pre-flight Covid tests on Friday (15/10) and fly out Monday (18/10).

Stand by for dispatches from MIQ.