Happily our bluestone house remains cool! But it does make me think back wistfully to Western Australia, and gliding through the warm blue waters of the Indian Ocean, seen above through a speed-splashed ferry window 
(or is it the computer monitor?). I don't need to show you what Rottnest Island looks like, or where it lies - you've already checked that out on maps. google.com (as described a few posts ago). It's 19 miles west of Perth, far enough away to have a distinctive flora and fauna - most famous the quokka, a foot and a half-tall marsupial Dutch explorers mistook for rats (hence Rottnest). I surprised several as I wandered along the southeast tip of the island; they seemed always to be in pairs, and bounced into the brush like balls.
The summer holidays are just around the corner, but I managed to have beaches and bush practically all to myself! This beach on Bickley Bay, on which I saw no other soul, is five minutes' walk from the converted army barracks where I was staying (along with a class of high school students who - but only occasionally - put me in mind of Lord of the Flies).
But the real treat came on the north coast of the island (facing... India!), where, courtesy of the Leeuwin current, Australia's southernmost reefs invite even inexperienced snorkelers to make themselves at home. Many kinds of seaweed, corals and lots of friendly fish, just hanging out. I floated around along the tops of reefs, into sudden (shallow) canyons, occasionally guided by a friendly foot-long pale blue fish with yellow spots on his scales. It felt like a kind of bushwalking, with a local guide!Funny to think of it, but I actually went to Western Australia only because it was the end of the Indian Pacific Railway, and planned to stay a few days only in order to take advantage of a cheap flight home.
Now I'm glad to have braved the train out there mainly because it got me out west - and through Adelaide, a delightful little city I'll surely visit again. Rottnest I went to because my sister had been a few years ago - thanks for the tip! The big discovery was Perth and its port town, Fremantle, which I really liked. Perth has that San Diego vibe, and Fremantle a mix of old charm and new trendiness married by a winning sort of flakiness one might even call Californian (a term of praise!). 
Of course I did have fantastic luck, catching Rottnest before the waves of holidayers, and catching a wonderful concert by the newly formed, Perth-based Arundo Reed Quintet in the courtyard of the Fremantle Arts Centre as exotic birds did their dusk swooping and cheering, where Byrd's "Browning" made me glow, Ton der Doest's "Circus Music" made me beam, and Contrapuctus IV from Bach's "Art of the Fugue" nearly made me weep for delight at - at everything: music, culture, nature, humanity and their unexpected counterpoint. (Both of these pictures are, of course, borrowed, but I'm sure I saw some of those friendly fish!)Did I mention I had a really nice time out west? If only it weren't all so very very far out!
The flight home was, surprisingly, less than four hours. We headed across the southwest tip of Western Australia and crossed the Great Australian Bight. (At left is where the bush which starts a few miles east of Perth meets the broad swath of the West Australian Wheat Belt.) Flying over water (and at least one stray iceberg!) made it seem like it indeed felt: Western Australia's on a different continent than Victoria - the Nullarbor is still a sea.
