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Published: December 24th 2007
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Peacock 2
Again, caught us by surprise. Perth is a pretty isolated place being in Western Australia, seperated from (most of) the rest of Aussie by miles (or kilometres over here) of barren outback. Although it houses most of the population of Western Australia, it is still a pretty quiet place and is nice and chilled out. Quite refreshing for a city visit anyway.
We left Mandurah early afternoon and bade our farewell to Rita and Robert whilst thanking them for the great hospitality they provided. Our 70 odd km journey was to be by bus and it passed by very quickly and we soon found ourselves standing at the bus station in Perth trying to figure out what way to walk, where to stay, and how knackering the walk would be in the hot sun. Hottest we've had for a fair bit.
My brother Alistair had recommended a hostel up on Newcastle St called Underground Backpackers so we decided to head up there, although we didn't know exactly how far down the street it was and ended up going a long way for a shortcut. We checked in and had our first taste of dormitory accommodation, sharing initially with a German girl and an Irish
guy called Dave. He liked to drink and sleep at random points during the day, but we all got on well.
We headed out for food and discovered how versatile the cuisine was in Northbridge where the hostel was situated. Pretty much every form of ethnic food it would seem so we were pretty spoiled for choice, although somehow we ended up in Subway, the prospect of a footlong Subway Melt being too enticing having missed them for months. We spent the evening in the hostel bar where we claimed our free drinks (given them from reception, good stuff) and scoped the place out. Due to the communal nature of the place, it seemed a lot more sociable than the places in Southeast-Asia, although speaking to some people, they seemed to have just come over to drink and sleep full time and do little else. Fairly costly endeavour.
Dorm accommodation was certainly an adjustment as we were guaranteed a few wake up periods during the night, with people stumbling in and out drunk, turning lights on and off, and on one occasion, Dave drunkenly slobering down the remainders of a barbeque meal from 6 hours previous. It was
Rottnest Island 4
The last beach we stopped at. We were pretty much the only people on it. fun though as it was a bit more sociable despite the lack of a good night sleep. The worst part of it was having to have the window open which had a broken mosquito net. Needless to say, on the first night a mosquito inflitrated the room and proceeded to feast on Emma, practically to death. I only got a few bites but I heard him right at my ear during the night with that high pitched whine, a noise Emma had mistaken for a fly. The next morning she was not happy as she saw all the punctures and itchy bumps all over her, including her face.
Our first full day was spent wandering the city centre of Perth so didn't get up to too much although we sampled a bit of a wider range of cuisine than a Subway. The next day we ended up going to the Caversham Wildlife Park as Emma was quite excited to see some Koalas and there seemed to be a fair number of things to do there. The journey out was overly complicated as had to get two different buses and a shuttle bus, so it was quite late by the
Koala 3
18 hours a day sleep. What's the point? time we got there but we still had enough time to have a relaxed wander. Ended up seeing Koalas, Kangeroos, Wallabies, Dingos, Gallahs and any other stereotypical Aussie animal you care to mention. Sampled a camel ride too which was rather uncomfortable as well as getting to touch the koalas (these ones were too big to hold) and we even got to have a Wombat sit on our lap. It was all fun, although the wombat defecated while sitting on Emma's lap much to her disgust, although nothing landed on her fortunately.
We were heading to Fremantle the following day, which is a town/city just outside of Perth. A train ride later, we were walking about this place that was even more relaxed than Perth and a bit more arty and bohemian. We didn't really have too much of a plan so we ended up just walking about and had a relaxing day in the sun. We considered doing a spot of diving while we were here (I'm addicted!) but we decided to save our money for the east coast to do more. In the evening, we had ourselves booked into a "spooky" tour of the local, and now
Kangeroo
There were a lot of them. defunct, prison. The tour itself was by torchlight and it was very entertaining with the guides trying their best to scare us with inmate ghost stories, but it was the cells themselves and the death row section that were the most interesting.
Rottnest Island, or "Rotto" as the locals call it, is an island located to the west of Perth and Fremantle so we decided to make a day of it too the following day and got up early to catch the boat across. It was warm when we got there but had a bit of a wind chill, and although it's tradition to get around the island by bicycle, we went for the lazier option of the hop on-hop off bus to make sure we saw it all. It was good fun and there were umpteen beaches to chill out at, although the water was FREEZING! Too cold to swim in I discovered. Before we got the boat back, we had some food and a couple of drinks at the harbour area and saw a few of the local residents, quokas (furry Australian marsupial, pretty much native to Rottnest), who wandered in and out of the bar so
Peacock
Came out of nowhere and walked in front of us. we ended up giving them a few crumbs. More bizarrely, a gigantic peacock walked in to the bar later on, which gave Emma a fright when she turned around and saw it.
Our last day in Perth we were booked in for a wine tour of the Swan Valley. We got picked up in a minibus and we were relieved to see the rest of the tour group were not the OAP's as we had initially feared and were all about our age, and not really wine snobs either. It was a great day as ended up going to 4 wineries (one which served gourmet cheese too), a chocolate factory (no Oompa Loompas), a lunch barbeque and finished off the day in the pub. At the wineries, we sampled on average about 6 different wines (as well as buying a nice bottle of Rose) so by the time we hit the pub, everyone was pretty merry, particularly an English guy who hadn't sobered up from the night before. The "one drink" at the pub ended up swelling into a good few as we headed out later to an Irish pub and got some cheap pub grub as the alcohol
Lama
Didn't spit either. flowed. As the night went on though, we realised we had to get moving for our flight over to Sydney which was at 12:55am that night! We were pretty tipsy as we got in our taxi to the airport, but by the time we eventually got on to our plane, the alcohol had worn off and had left us absolutely shattered from the past few days. We hoped to get a bit of kip on the plane, but this was of course not to be.
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