Documents and Historic Photographs

The ferry Zephyr arriving at Rottnest on a calm day 1920s.

A nineteenth-century book illustration, showing a Fata Morgana when it either flips the ship’s image or raises it above the water. There is theory that the mirage may explain the images of the Flying Dutchman a legendary ghost ship that was believed would never be able to make port and was doomed to sail the seven seas forever.

The Campy Store at Bickley Bay was a wooden structure built to provide a general store service to the rows and rows of semi permanent tents that were constructed around Bickley Bay. You can find a painting of the tent camp in my section on Art.

From the National Library of Australia Collection.

An early photograph of women from the nearby Bickley Bay tent campsite enjoying the beach. From the State Library of Western Australia collection.

Photograph showing island visitors arriving on the ferry Zephyr at the Main Jetty. At this time the ferry journey was 8 hours from Perth to Rottnest.

Early photo of visitors to Rottnest by yacht and then ferried to the beach by dinghy. Horses were used across the island until the 1970s.