Last day in Perth

Well,put it down to travelling too far in too short a space of time, but we really stuffed up last night. After sitting in the airport for 2 hours, we finally went to check in about 11pm and they told us we were a day early. Couldn’t believe it. Both of us had checked the flight times but neither had noticed the day was wrong. We had it in our heads that we were travelling home to NZ late on Sunday night. Wrong! We’d handed in our rental car so went to get it back and discovered that we’d handed it in a day early too, so somewhere along the line we’d gone astray.

So another day in Perth. We tried to change tickets and go to Brisbane seeing as we were ready, but weren’t allowed.

Today was sunnier and warmer. We spent a couple of hours in the local art galleries, which was great. We have nothing like that variety in our small town. Saw some amazing pieces of work and a lot of contemporary aboriginal art, as well as a very odd movie in PICA. Anyone living in Perth, go upstairs in PICA and watch Marco’s movie. I still can’t work out whether it was supposed to be tongue in cheek, but it will stay with you. Lol.

King’s Park was inviting in the sun and although we had several downpours, it didn’t seem to stop people from sailing and jet skiing. There were loads of people in King’s Park. We took in the day time view over the city and climbed the DNA tower, modelled on the helix of DNA.

We took the Fremantle road to see if we could tour the submarine featured earlier, at the Maritime museum, but the tour was full. The E-shed markets were on, but there were a waste of time – all imported Asian trinkets. It’s a shame they don’t do a local craft market.

As the sun had come out, we went back to Cottesloe Beach to take a look. There were kids as young as 8 on surfboards or boogy boards, as well as adults. We travelled north for a look at Hillary’s harbour and wathced the sun go down, and then went as far as the Marmion highway goes before turning round and finding dinner at Joondalup.

The signposts are strange here. One minute the road is numbered, the next it has a name and if you didn’t know it had a name you start to wonder if you’re on the wrong road. I have no sense of direction, but Dave is usually pretty good. However, several times we ended up on the right road going in the wrong direction, or turned off because the directions had vanished when we were on the right road all the time. We are just getting used to it after several days.

Now we are back at the airport and this time we are going to Brisbane.

Random Photos again

This was coffee and cake at Rockingham.

A large flock of galas at at Point Kennedy in the newish housing estate.

This is the lookout at Bunbury. Quite high and very windy. It is on a hill just down the road from our Resort stay. There are some great views from the top of it.

This is a very yukky beach at Busselton which is normally renown for its beautiful beaches. There had and still was a huge swell which had made the beach this way so all was forgiven for the disgrace it presented to us. The pier in the back ground is 1.8 kms long and at the end is an underwater viewing room to see the fish. It was closed due to the bad weather. there is also good diving and snorkeling under the pier.

This is the beach at Warnboro Sound. Very long and good for dogs and motor bikes.GumNuts
Dr Suess would be proud. These grass trees are everywhere.
Waiting for the train.

Perth from the gardens at night.
Kangaroos in traffic.

Day 9

No rain this morning, but it was very windy. We went to the top of the Bunbury Lighthouse and nearly got blown off. Bunbury is a nice little town with beaches, a marina and a dophin discovery centre where dolphins usually come in each day. It has a reasonable town centre with most things, a lovely cafe strip by the beach and a popualtion of about 50,000. Looked good to us, but again it was a shame not to see it in nice weather.We decided to drive to Busselton, where Dave had once applied for a job. Stopped off in Dalyellup because some people on a pommy website live there. We were really taken with it. It's beautifully laid out, with houses of all price ranges. I love the fact that they've left bits of forest in between the houses, and the houses have to have double garages which means they don't appear so crammed in. There's a nice beach, although I hadn't realised there is a high sand dune area. The display homes weren't open so we just drove around the streets. There's an attractive lake in the middle of the town and a small shopping centre but it's only about 10 minutes from Bunbury and 20 from Bussleton. We hadn't realised there are a couple of mines within about 30 minutes drive which is where some of the people work.
On to Bussleton, where it was blowing a gale, which meant that the underwater observatory at the end of the pier was closed. the pier is about 1km long and you can fish, dive and snorkel around it. there's an old fashioned amusement park and cafes and a couple of art galleries. We saw a flock of cockatoos on a playing field, so Dave made a nuisance of himself with them.

On the way back up north we took a different route, through Brunswick junction and met some ex-pat Poms who have set up a woodturning studio and produce some beautiful furniture. We drove through dairy country up to Armadale, Kelmscott etc in the South East of Perth and then as we had time, we drove through the Swan Valley. It's really pretty through here and we wished we had more time to explore, but it was getting dark and we are on the plane back to Brisbane tonight. We found our way to King's Park and drove through in the dark. The lights are beautiful at night from this high vantage point and plenty of other people had the same idea, despite the frequent downpours of rain.

We headed back into Perth city, parked the car and spent an hour wandering the streets. Of course, most of the shops were closed and there didn't seem to be that many people about but the cafes, restaurants and bars were full. We saw one guy settling down in a doorway with a sleeping bag, but there didn't seem to be any trouble about. After several days we are just getting used to finding our way about Perth, and managed to take a different route to the airport without getting lost.

Just one more day to go in sunny Brisbane. Nothing more to do but explore the city and hug koalas.

Day 8 south we go

Woke to a miserable day, raining with thunder storms threatened. The sea had calmed a bit and I can now see that on a nice day the north beaches must be nice to swim in - the surfers were having a hard time catching a wave in the morning - but it was not the inviting turquoise sea and sun drenched sand you associate with Perth. It's a shame we haven't seen that.

We drove south to Rockingham and had a look round there. The kwinana oil refinery is a bit of a blot on the landscape, but by the time you get to Rockingham the beaches are nice and the place looks fine. Shoalwater bay is lovely! You could spend a long time exploring penguin island and the surrounds by boat or kayak.(Sorry no photos of Shoalwater bay)

We drove on to Warnbro and Port Kennedy. There are some lovely estates and most of the streets look OK, but some are less cared for than others. The St Michel estates look nice, although quite a way back from the beach. The beach is perhaps not as nice as I thought, but again it was a horrible day so hard to judge.

We looked at a couple of art galleries on the way down and deviated from the road to visit a winery at Cape Bouvard, close to Australind. It is beautiful bush out there, it would be a lovely place for a B & B. We had some not very nice wine served by a rather unhappy lady, who told us kangaroos were vermin that knock down fences and green parakeets should be popped off because they destroy grapes and dig up the lawn. She may be right, but we didn't think it was very good customer service when talking to tourists.Down by the estuary, we saw some Thrombocites which are living organisms that grow.

Just outside Australind, we drove along a coastal road with mostly small farms and saw masses of kangaroos grazing in paddocks near the road. In one paddock we counted about 60. Obviously these people didn't mind them, because they had a watch for kangaroos sign on their driveway, but I can see that if you had stock they could be a nuisance. Sixty kangaroos could eat a lot of grass. To us they are just fascinating. We got lots of video footage of them feeding, scratching and a couple fighting.We stayed the night in Bunbury at the Lighthouse Resort - very good rooms with views over the city and the sea for a very reasonable fee. Finally we had a serious lightning storm and I slept right through it.

Day 7 Perth

Today we went on a cruise from Perth to Fremantle. This is a view of Perth as we were leaving. It wasn't much of a day - it felt about 14, but the weather man just said it was 10, so that's unusually cold for Perth. Tomorrow is supposed to be 19 with possible thunderstorms.
Fremantle is very cosmopolitan. There are cafes where you can eat any sort of food you like (Italian, Indian, Turkish, Chinese, Lebanese), the genuine article, not an Australianised version. It's a nice town and we had a walk around and found this didgeridoo shop. You can have free lessons!



This was a maritime museum, featuring submarine that you can walk through, and a whole lot of stuff people have found on ship wrecks.
We drove to Perth (getting used to this now), parked in a parking building for $15 for the whole day. Perth is a beautiful town. It's clean and pretty and easy to walk around. You feel very safe and relaxed. We did a little shopping before going to "Freo" on the ferry.
Park by the old courthouse.
The bell tower. Awesome, no? And yes, it does have a bell that goes off to mark the hour.

Sculptures in the city.
Our motel with North Beach beyond.
Perth City from Riverside Drive.


Lovely friendly city. It seemed everybody was having a sale on something. Tomorrow we're going to go south for a look at the southern coastal suburbs. We'll probably stay in Mandurah.