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Published: August 5th 2007
Perth revisited On Tuesday, I had myself a little day trip into Perth City. The main purpose of my trip was to help out the food co-ordinator of Students of Sustainability, an environmental conference being held at Murdoch in July. I've signed up to attend (might as well see what it's all about) so I thought I'd volunteer to help out beforehand. I went to a few stores and looked for bizarre items I've never heard of before. So it was an educational experience, and I got to help out a good cause!
After walking to all the stores, I decided to explore Perth a bit and found myself at the Art Gallery of Western Australia. Admission is free, so I went walking around. It was pretty, although VERY small. Everyone was trying to get me to come back at the end of July when a huge Egyptian exhibit would be coming in from the Louvres.
I was getting tired and hungry at that point, so I decided to head back home.
Mid-week Wednesday, Thursday I didn't do much...skating, food shopping, etc.
Friday it POURED rain but I desperately wanted to book a holiday so I
put on all my raingear (I was pretty pimping) and biked to campus to visit my travel agent. They were so excited to see me because no one was coming in during the holidays. So I successfully spent an hour planning out my perfect 4-day escape to Broome in the north of western australia. I've got a tour of The Kimberley (pretty area with lots of gorges and such) and an ocean kayaking tour to look forward to, in addition to some beautiful hours spent lounging on the beach. Be jealous, be very, very jealous!
Wave Rock On a stormy Saturday morning, I awoke bright and early. I retrieved my shnazzy raingear then headed to my bike for a trip to campus. This time, it was to catch a bus to go see Wave Rock, this rock east of Perth which looks like a giant wave. The trip was with CISWA, the council for international students of western australia. There was a familiar face on the trip, Anya, a German exchange student who I had met this past term. She was leaving Perth in a week so this was one of her last excursions before heading out!
There
were two buses PACKED to the brim with mostly east asians. I'd had to get up pretty early to catch the bus so I slept most of the way. We stopped at some outback gas stations for toilets and lunch before pulling into Wave Rock in the early afternoon.
When we arrived we were in front of Hippo's Yawn, a cave which actually looks like a giant hippo yawning! However someone pointed a path to me and said that Wave Rock was down the path. Since the mob seemed to be exploring Hippo's Yawn, I had the genius idea to walk to Wave Rock while it was empty, then come back to Hippo's Yawn when everyone else arrived at Wave Rock. So Anya and I began to walk to Wave Rock when suddenly the storm became MUCH worse and actually started HAILING on us! We took refuge in some toilets while we waited for the worst of it to be over. Then we headed to the rock.
It's a giant rock that looks like a wave. And today it was wet. We took some pictures when suddenly our whole group showed up in a huge mob. We happily
left the asians to their photographing.
We went back along the path to Hippo's Yawn and began to take pictures when another tour group showed up. So we weren't totally alone, but this group was MUCH smaller than ours.
We all headed back onto the bus to go to Mulga Cave. The sun came out just as we got ON the bus - what perfect timing!! So at least it was sunny for our second stop. It was a rushed stop, only 10 people were allowed into the cave at a time. Although we soon discovered it wasn't actually a cave but an overhanging rock which you could walk under. But there were some aboriginal drawings, which was cool. There was also a stunning view of the countryside at the other end of the "cave" since you were now atop a hill.
That was the end of our trip and we got back onto the bus for the long trip home. Somewhere just about an hour outside of Perth the other bus ran out of gas! They first loaded all of the people from that bus onto our bus. Then they all got off and we were
to go ahead to the next gas station and bring them back some fuel. But after about half an hour of driving we all got suspicious about having to return to the other bus. We were told after that a third bus was being sent to pick up the stranded people.
I biked home in the dark and rain. It wasn't the most well-organized trip, nor was it the best weather, but it was cheap and now I can say I've seen wave rock!
I've included pictures of wave rock. My digicam is STILL in the repair shop, so these were put on CD by the kind people who develop my pictures. Mulga Cave is on the next roll, so there are no pictures from that one.
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