- hillbilly
a term used to refer to a person from a backwoods or other remote area.
Join the Hillbilly children on a tale of wild adventures and endearing characters.
All is shown through the eyes of a young narrator, the oldest and...
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• Rottnest Island and the native animal, the quokka, that's only found there •
"Remember the time we met Rocky?" Brodie would always ask me, years after the incident.
"Yes," I would reply, a sour look on my face. "How can I forget? You remind me all the time."
With an annoying grin he would persist, "Remember how we found Smalls and how much fun we had with him?"
I may have forgotten to mention before that we had a dog called Smalls. Well, we didn't actually have him at the time. We found him after Christmas when we went on our annual summer holiday trip to the isle of Rottnest.
Australia is an island itself but it also has lots of smaller ones around it. One of Dad's favourites to go too was Rottnest - a small island with the best snorkelling spots, an impressive-looking lighthouse, and white cottages that looked like they had been cut out of a picture from Greece.
Rottnest had no actual roads and you weren't allowed to bring your car. In fact, I think it was quite impossible too because the only way to get there was by a bright red, double-decker passenger boat and there was no way you could fit a car on that! Or, if you were lucky enough to own your own boat, you could dock right off the shore so it wasn't uncommon to see lots of boats bobbing up and down on the crystal blue waves.
To get from one place to another, you had to ride bikes. They had a mini bus for all the older people - or the lazy ones - and it would toot its little horn at us as it rumbled down the tiny dirt tracks that criss-crossed the island.
There were shops there too and cafes, even an old Catholic church. A fancy hotel was right by the water and there was a restaurant and a bar. We didn't go there. That was for all the rich people who could afford it.
Instead, we always stayed at the other end of the island in the little white Greek houses nestled beneath the lighthouse right next to the beach - glorious and blue.
Auntie Barb, Sam, Juli, and Ren would stay next door to us. They didn't always come but this year they did – which Brodie and I were extremely happy about. Sometimes even Uncle Tom and Auntie Di would come too.
