Post Archive - July 2018
When on 29 December 1696, Willem de Vlamingh landed on Rottnest Island. He saw giant jarrah, trees, numerous quokkas (a native marsupial), and thinking they were large rats he named the island "rats' nest" (Rattennest in Dutch) because of them. He afterwards wrote: "I had great pleasure in admiring this island, which is very attractive, and where it seems to me that nature has denied ...