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The flight to Perth was, thankfully, again, a relatively painless experience. We arrived at about midnight local time. Senan had been accosted by sleep on the plane about 2 hours previous, but sadly Qantas didn't get the concept of the need for a buggy at the plane door as we were curtly informed that it was 'available at oversized luggage'. In fairness it wasn't a huge walk, but the buggy would have been welcome rather than carrying the dead weight of a sleeping child through the queues at immigration. Fortunately, despite a few protests, he accepted being transferred into the sling and carried on sleeping as I carried him on my back all the way out of the airport. We quickly checked in at the Aurum Airport Apartments where we scored some breakfast bags for the morning (a great idea for late arrivers!), dumped the luggage and fell into bed.
Our first few days in Perth were devoted to catching up with family and friends living here. First up, my first cousin Piaras, his lovely wife Marie and their absolutely edible 6 month old daughter Ava. The weather wasn't really working with us, but after a mini-family reunion at our
apartments, we decided to stick to the original plan and headed off in our rental car to visit Whiteman Park.
Upon driving into the park we immediately lived entirely up to our tourist title, gaping excitedly out the window at a field filled with Kangaroos. That's about the extent of the wildlife we saw though, as after a quick playground pitstop for Senan and a visit to the Motor Museum, it was lunchtime and the weather was seriously turning. After a delicious lunch we conceded that the weather combined with toddler/baby sleeping priorities meant that the best course of action was to return to the car so Senan and Ava could nap. Instead we spent a lovely afternoon hanging out with the rellies in their house over a few cups of tea - which was pretty much the main goal anyway. Once Senan awoke and befriended their little terrier Monty, we didn't need any other entertainment anyway!
After bidding the cousins farewell, with the promise to try to drop in again on our return leg, we made the most of our rental car and took a spin into Central Perth, to score a local SIM card and get
a feel for the capital of Western Australia. It's a nice enough city, however after the bright lights and high rises of Tokyo and Singapore, it was hard to get particularly excited by it.
On Monday we were due to hit the road for our first stint of campervan life. As Philippe headed off to get the campervan, Senan and I were picked up by another ex-colleague, Dean, and his Dutch partner Jan, who took us to a lovely little Cantonese restaurant in the neighbourhood. Philippe joined us in the campervan and we enjoyed some bi-lingual catching up over some delicious 'pasta cakes' (dumplings).
After some obligatory photos and an 'OMG that's big! ' moment when I saw the campervan, we eventually bid farewell to the guys and hit the road, heading south towards Bunbury.
Bunbury was an overnight stop at a nice Discovery campsite on the outskirts of the seaside town. We got in late and basically used our time here to stock up the camper and take care of some practicalities.
The next day we trundelled a little further south to the town of Busselton, which is famous for it's 1.8km long Jetty into
the ocean. Keen to give Senan a Thomas the Tank Engine experience, we took the little train out over the jetty to the observatory/aquarium. Seen as Senan was conked out anyway, we took our time walking back, enjoying the nice views in the sunshine.
Now it was seriously time for a take stock moment.. While the weather for the next day was due to be nice, for the rest of the week it was due to bucket rain.. It was time for a new plan! We decided to stay in the area just long enough to take advantage of 'the' nice day, and then use the bad weather day(s) to head north in search of nice weather. It would mean no wineries for me, but to be honest I needed warm weather more.
And so it was that we found a lovely Mandalay campsite in Busselton and closed the day with a fish & chips supper near the sea. Yesterday we just had a chilled day of swimming pools, playgrounds and reading in the sun, topped up with an evening BBQ, before being woken by torrential rain and thunder and lightening last night!
We hit the (very
wet) road again this morning in our oversized mechanical snail. Final destination still unknown, but we suspect it'll be somewhere like Pinnacles Desert or beyond!
(Photos to follow once we get good WiFi!)
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