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Published: February 4th 2011
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Melbourne SkylineWe’d finally arrived in Australia but unfortunately not for good yet, as we are still waiting for our application to go through and have been told that we could still be in for a long wait. We were still able to come over on a tourist visa, spending a maximum of 90 days down under so we were busy planning where to go in this vast country... First stop Melbourne.
We chose to fly into Melbourne for a few days, as the Welshies Shenaide, Jenny, Laurie and Lynsey were currently living and working there. After touching down on Aussie soil we boarded a bus to take us to the suburb of St Kilda but in true Lynsey fashion, she’d only gone and given us the wrong address! An hour passed with us trying to ring the girls to see where they actually lived when we luckily spotted Shenaide across the street, the welshies actually lived just round the corner from where we’d been patiently waiting! With the panic over we spent the evening at their flat having a few drinks and a catch up. The following day we hopped on the tram early in the morning and headed into Melbourne
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The Welshies! city centre for a full days site seeing. First stop off the tram was Federation Square which houses a unique collection of building of modern architecture, here we decided to view the Disney Exhibition “Dreams come True” which showed us how many of the cartoons have been made over the years from oldies like “Snow White” to new computer animated ones like “Tangled”. After this we were starting to feel a bit peckish so ventured out to the Victoria Market, mainly to see the food court en-route passing a Welsh Church! The Market reminded us of being back in London with all the Del Boys trying to flog their goods from the individual stalls. After a huge Bratwurst sausage and our tummies well and truly full we hopped back on the Tram to take a ride around the centre of the city, we then got off and had a stroll along the river front to take us back to the historic train station where we caught the tram back to St. Kilda. That evening the welshies treated us to an open air cinema event on the roof of the Old St. Kilda Baths, I say treated us but as they
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Vino Time! worked there they snuck us in for free! We all sat in deck chairs watching the sun go down before watching “The Social Network” with a beer in one hand, some chips in the other and a blanket covering us to keep us warm. The beach was on the agenda for the next day, so we took the short walk down to the sand shores of St. Kilda beach, we strolled along the seafront heading to the “Luna Park” Theme Park but unfortunately it was closed so we continued to walk down to the quirky Acland to have a look at the unusual shops. Later on that day we met back up with the welshies after they’d finished work and headed out for a few drinks, not too many though as we were catching another flight early the next morning! Cerri loved catching up with the girls and we were both sad to say goodbye as we’re unsure when we will see them next.
We boarded the plane at Melbourne airport in the early hours departing for Perth on the west coast of Australia. We were greeted in arrivals by.... wait there’s a lot of different names coming your
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Mum & Joey way now so to make it easier please read the following:
Mel & Mahala – Cerri’s Uncle and Auntie
Adam & Aisha – Cerri’s Cousins, Aisha being Mel & Mahala’s daughter & Adam her husband
Tallon & Braithe – Adam & Aisha’s kids
Matt & Michelle – Cerri’s Cousins, Matt being Mel & Mahala’s son & Michelle his wife
Addison & Harper – Matt & Michelle’s kids
Uncle Matt & Jo – Ben’s Uncle & New Auntie
Laura & Sophie – Ben’s cousins, Uncle Matt & Jane’s daughters
Irvin – Jo’s son
Jane & Brad – Ben’s ex Auntie and her Husband
Right I think that just about covers it, hope that all makes sense!?! As I was saying we were greeted in arrivals by Aisha and Matt, who drove us from Perth airport down to Mandurah. Mandurah is a small city about 70km south of Perth situated on the coast of the Peel Region, where coincidently the majority of both our families live within a close proximity of each other, small world! Our first day in Mandurah saw us getting right into the Aussie lifestyle with a good old fashioned family BBQ followed by some ice cold
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Christmas Canal Light Show beverages at Adam and Aisha’s, where we spent the day getting to know the family and the dogs one of which is possibly the biggest but friendliest dog we’ve ever encountered, he’s called Max they also have a smaller dog called Koda. The next day we met up with Jane, dropped off our bags at her home and got to see her dogs the cute daisy and the 9 week old puppy Willow. From here we made our way back up to Perth as for the second time in as many weeks we were going to see a U2 and Jay-Z concert, courtesy of Uncle Matt. The concert was held at the Subiaco Oval which is home to the Aussie Rules team the West Coast Eagles who I’ve been told I have to support when we get over here for good, luckily they wear the blue and yellow colours very similar to the mighty Torquay United, so I can’t see that being a problem! We spent the subsequent day visiting and having a good old catch up with Mel & Mahala at their home just down the road, Cerri spent the evening chatting away to Aisha till the early hours
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Sophie, Laura and the christmas hats whilst I spent the evening giving Adam a spanking at pool in his own Billiard room!
Jane had very kindly lent us a car for the duration of our time in and around Mandurah, so we jumped on board and drove the lime coloured Citreon C2 appropriately named “The Frog” down the coast about 200km to the Margaret River where Uncle Matt has a time share in one of the many vineyards that dominates the region. The house is situated in the middle of the surrounding grape vines looking out on a beautiful lake. Upon arrival Uncle Matt had arranged for us to do some wine tastings, so off we went first to the Xanadu winery and then onto the Voyager estate to sample a variety of reds and whites. We finished off the day with a visit to Smiths Beach before retiring back to the Vineyard Mansion which we were sharing with Uncle Matt, Jo, Irvin and one of Matt’s work mates and his Mrs. The next few days were taken up by visiting some of the beautiful beaches in and round the area from Meelup, to Yallingup and Eagle Bay. We also paid visits to the Cape
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Merry Christmas! Leeuwin Lighthouse down in Augusta and the Cape Naturaliste Lighthouse near Dunsborough. Whilst we were down in wine country we frequented a few more vineyards, with our favourites being the Swings and Roundabouts Winery and Saracen Estate which also had a German Beer Brewery. Finally we popped into the Yallingup Maze to say Merry Christmas to the owners, as our fellow caravan club members had worked here during their stay in Oz and finally made a trip to the famous Chocolate Factory down here mainly to grab plenty of handfuls of the free samples! During our stay in the Margaret River we spotted our first wild kangaroos, at this point Cerri got very excited and trigger happy with the camera and with us spotting our first wild kangaroo it finally hit home that we were in Australia.
We left the Margaret River and headed back to Mandurah as it was the day before Christmas Eve. Now being in Australia with temperatures around the 35 degrees mark it wasn’t feeling particularly Christmassy, but Jane had make a cracking effort with plenty of Christmas lights, a tree and even a giant reindeer! As previously mentioned Mandurah is situated on the coast
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Christmas day couples combo with a large estuary leading out to the sea, along this estuary is a network of canals and are home to some multimillion dollar flats and houses. Through this network over the festive period many of the homes on the canals have a competition to see who can have the best Christmas lights display, so Jane and Brad organised to borrow a boat off a friend of theirs and that evening armed with some nibbles and a beer or two we set sail to view the neon light shows. We were amazed at the amount of effort people had gone to and also wondered how much their electricity bills were going to be as some of the house were literally covered from head to toe with an array of coloured light bulbs. . . . As you can imagine Cerri loved it! Continuing on the water theme, on Christmas Eve we went out for a paddle in the estuary and canals with Jane and Brad. As we glided along the calm waters in our kayaks we got to see plenty of Pelicans bobbing alongside of us. Later that day, Laura and Sophie joined us for the Christmas Eve feast made
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Matt, Michelle & the Gang by the official Christmas sponsor Jane alongside many drinks of champagne with Uncle Matt and Jo turning up fashionably late! Next morning Christmas Day was upon us, we left Jane’s very early in the morning with fuzzy heads and wearing our traditional Disney Christmas hats, mine being Goofy and Cerri’s being Minnie Mouse and made the short ten minute trip to Adam and Aisha’s. We spent the day with Cerri’s side of the family as we wanted to see the kids open their presents. Tallon, Braithe, Addison and Harper ripped open a couple of trees worth of wrapping paper to uncover their new toys, which we ended up playing with more than them! Aisha was the hostess with the mostess as she produced such delights as Pink Gin, Chinese spiced banana prawns, Kilpatrick Oysters and the traditional roast turkey with all the trimmings, whilst Adam turned bar man keeping the drinks topped up with his supply of home brewed beer & cider and buckets of champagne! A great day was had by all the family and me and Cerri could get use to Christmases down under! Boxing Day turned into beach day as went down to the nearby beach with
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Pinnacle Jump Shot Adam, Aisha and the kids, obviously remembering to slip, slop and slap on the sunscreen beforehand. We followed this day up with a trip to Fremantle or “Freo” as the locals call it with Matt, Michelle, Addison & Harper. Freo is a relaxed place with plenty of historic buildings and markets to match. Our first port of call was the Little Creatures Brewery on the waterfront for a spot of lunch, this place is a gem, an old converted boat shed which is now home to a Brewery and a great restaurant. After eating and drinking what they had to offer we thought we’d get some culture and made our way to the Old Fremantle Prison where we took a guided tour around the prison site, learning about the hardships or prison life, viewing some of the prison cell artwork and about some of the infamous cell mates, me and Cerri found it really interesting especially that the prison was only shut in 1991 and this was due to prisoners health and hygiene issues as there were no toilets in the cells they literally had bucket to share in what sometimes could be 40 degree plus heat . . .
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The Pinnacles smelly times indeed! After the prison tour we headed back into the centre of Freo for a refreshing ice cream, Little Harper even managed to blag a free ice cream off the owner! We had dinner that night with my side of the family back on Freo’s waterfront, before retiring to Uncle Matts home in Perth. The next morning we were heading three hours north of Perth to one of Australia’s many natural wonders called the Pinnacles which are nestled in the Nambung National Park. Here we found thousands of otherworldly limestone pillars scattered in a moon-like landscape across the golden desert floor. We strolled amongst the Pinnacles and took a drive along the off road track to get some better views of the strange formations as well as taking some comedy photos. On the way back we spotted our first emu and that was the end to our first two weeks in Oz.
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