Rotto from space
The first European settlers to Rottnest were 13 Dutch sailors. The island was originally named "Rattnest" meaning "rat's nest" in Dutch. In fact, there are no rats on the island. The Dutch saw the island covered with what is called a Quokka and mistook them for rats. They are part of the Marsupial family (like Kargaroos) and they are only found on some of the smaller islands off the coast of Perth.
A Quokka
Originally Rottnest was inhabited by Aboriginals. When the Europeans came, as was their habit in Australia, they converted the island to a prison and promptly locked up the Aboriginals.
Rottnest is one of the biggest tourist destinations in the Perth area now. Unfortunately, we haven't made it there yet even though on a clear day we can see the island from our beach. The snorkelling at Rottnest is supposed to be fantastic.
Today is the annual Rottnest Swim. Hundreds of competitors swim from Cottlesloe Beach (not too far from our place) to Rottnest Island. There are different categories of competion including singles, doubles and foursomes. In the doubles and foursomes the swimmers take turns swimming while their teammates rest in the boat. All of the swimmers must be accompanied by a boat for safety. The youngest competitor in the swim has been 13 years old.
Even though there are many sharks off the coast of Perth and Rottnest, as far as I know there has never been an attack during the race. However, in October of 2011 a man from Texas was attacked and killed by a Great White off the coast of Rottnest. He was on a boat and the anchor got stuck. He put on his scuba gear to go down and free the anchor. Unfortunately, he never came back up. The Great Whites have moved away from this area at this time of year since they only hang around here primarily in October and November. Now the only shark related danger is the occasional Tiger Shark and while there have been attacks, Tiger Shark attacks are pretty rare around here and fatalities are even rarer.
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Australia has been in the international news recently for the infighting among the current Prime Minister Julia Gillard and the former Prime Minister Kevin Rudd, both of the "Labor" Party. Rudd was briefly PM until he suffered from an internal revolt in his party. Rudd was fairly popular in his short stint as PM among the public but he was very unpopular among his colleagues. He has been described as secretive, unorganized and brutal. Gillard led an internal revolt to get him ousted and then took over the job of PM. She subsequently won the election in 2010 and managed to win a slim majority in Parliament after 3 independent MP's joined her. After the elction Rudd had been appointed as the Australian Foreign Minister. This week he was in Washington, DC doing his Foreign Ministering when he somewhat promptly and abruptly resigned and announced that he would be challenging Gillard for leadership of the party and job of Prime Minister.
While this may sound like it came out of nowhere, in fact, it is well known in Australia that Rudd has been scheming his take-over for quite some time. He has been causing ripples within the party for months while trying to build support among his fellow Labor MP's. Gillard ended up calling his bluff and has announced that on Monday there will be a leadership vote among the party. Based on most of the data she should win the leadership challenge handily. Rudd will likely then be ousted to the status of bitter, grumbling back-bencher. While Gillard may be more popular among her colleagues than Rudd was, she is significantly less popular among the electorate. My sense is that most people here don't really like her. My own opinion is mixed. On the one hand she is a typical cheating, lying, hypocrite politician (during the 2010 elections she famously promised that there would be no carbon tax only to put in a new carbon tax in 2011) so she can't be blamed for essentially doing what's expected of her. On the other hand she is increasing taxes, doing nothing about the cost of living and taking away my living away from home allowance tax break. While I am generally politically left leaning she is even a little too liberal for me. She always goes on about a "fair Australia". I'm not sure what it means exactly but it smacks of heavy handed socialism that, rather than helping to bring those at the bottom of society up, it brings those at the top down.
Meanwhile, Tony Abbott, the leader of the Liberal opposition (which is actually conservative) is loving every minute of it.
An interesting side note on Australian politics:
Labor Party- left leaning, liberal agenda, American spelling of "Labor".
Liberal Party- right leaning, conservative agenda.
National Party- very right leaning, rural focus, lots of wingnuts. Some of these folks think that Rick Santorum is too liberal.
Green Party- very left leaning, socialist and environmental agenda. Rarely get much done because they lose track of the time while listening to Fish, eating Doritos and saying "dude" a lot.
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