Advertisement
Published: January 2nd 2008
WesternXposure group
My travel companions for a 7-day trip from Perth to Exmouth and back. Wow, it's already been a month since my last entry (excluding the Newlands update). The time seems to be flying by. A quick warning, this will be a long entry as I have quite a bit of catching up to do.
Being this is my third time to Australia in 3 years, I decided to explore some of the areas I haven't been to before, which include Western Australia and a bit of South Australia. I landed in Perth on December 1st with a few weeks to explore before heading to Melbourne to spend the Christmas holidays with my friend (and former Stamford neighbor) Liz Warrell. For those of you unfamiliar with where Perth is located, it is probably one of the most isolated large cities in the world. I think it's actually closer to Singapore than Sydney.
After a few days relaxing at Scarborough beach and another few days wandering around Perth's Northbridge and city centre areas, I decided to take a 7-day tour that went north from Perth to Exmouth. The total distance we would be traveling round trip was about 2600 km (roughly 1600 miles), so this meant we would be spending a lot of time
Posing at Nature's Window
A famous sandstone arch in Western Australia. Beautiful sandstone...but it still can't compare to Arches National Park in Utah! in our bus. Luckily, the group on our tour was really nice and a lot of fun, which made the time in the bus more bearable. Unfortunately, the weather wasn't very "hospitable". From the time I arrived in Perth till the end of our tour, it was pretty chilly, windy and rainy. So much for summer! I had anticipated hot days at the beach, but instead was bracing myself from the wind and the cold while attempting to see the sights. Now, we did have the occasional "nice day" but on average it appeared to me more like the weather in the northern hemisphere than the southern. (must be that global warming!)
The tour took us to the Pinnacle dessert, which was interesting...but honestly a bit boring. If you visit Perth, don't drive all the way there just to see the pinnacles. We continued north to do a bit of sand boarding in/near Kalbarri. It was fun, but I think I got an unexpected exfoliation treatment from all the sand being blown in my face by the wind. I was wearing a fleece on sand dunes in the summer...there is definitely something wrong with this picture. We moved on
Shell Beach
Amazingly...the entire beach looks just like this! to the Murchison Gorge where we hiked the Z Bend Gorge. It was really pretty, even though it's a different country, it did remind me a lot of home. (Don't tell the Australians...for some reason this would offend them! Sort of like how the Canadians get offended when they get called Americans...how dreadful!:-) The gorge reminded me a lot of hiking along the Colorado River. From there we visited Natures Window which is a sandstone arch with nice views. Again, it reminded me of Arches National Park in Moab, Utah. At one point on this trip I did start to wonder why I traveled so far to see these sights given they were so similar to back home, but then you see something like Shell Beach or Coral Bay and you are reminded that it is a different place. Shell beach was very cool, an entire beach of shells. I couldn't get over how many shells there were. The water at Coral Bay was beautiful and the snorkeling was really nice...even though the water was FREEZING! Brrr...I get chills just thinking about it now. (Admittedly, I may be a wimp.) We would sometimes bide our time playing games after dinner.
Monkey Mia Dolphins
Dolphins swim up to the beach at Monkey Mia a few times a day to be fed. This is a momma and her baby. I learned how to play the Box Game. This entails bending over and picking up a box with your mouth, but the box keeps getting shorter and shorter until you are essentially licking the floor. I gave it my best go and made it to the last round and admittedly had some sore hamstrings the next day. (Ouch!) After Coral Bay we continued on to Exmouth where we saw lots of Emus (a large flightless Australian bird, similar to an Ostrich) and had an opportunity to do some diving at the famous Navy Pier. The dive was pretty good, we saw some white tipped reef sharks and lots of big fish, however I'm not a fan of diving under a pier. You have less sunlight and therefore less visibility. I personally wouldn't place it in the top ten dive sites in the world(as some dive magazine did), but if you are in the area it's definitely worth doing.
Now it was time to head back to Perth, 5 days to get to Exmouth and we were driving back in 2. This meant long bus rides...so we all charged our IPODs for the journey home. On the way back, we
The dangerous Stonefish
As you may know, Australia is famous for it's "deadly" creatures. The Stonefish is one of them...very difficult to spot underwater, so be careful where you step! stopped to visit Prince Leonard of the Hutt River Province. Surprisingly, few Australians (and even fewer non-Australians) even know Hutt River exists. What is so interesting about this province is that it seceded from Australia in 1970. They have a border (although it isn't guarded) and even have their own passports, currency and stamps. It's quite an interesting story. If you are curious to learn more, check out http://www.principality-hutt-river.com/. The next stop was the Greenough Wildlife Park which was a highlight for me. Here we were able to feed the kangaroos, emus, and lots of other animals. We also had a chance to handle some pythons. I volunteered to help the ranger and as a bonus got to put all 5 snakes on me once everyone had a chance to handle them. They were pretty awesome...not really scary. Well, I did get a bit nervous when I felt one tightening around my neck...but I'm sure it wasn't intentional. 😉 This was the last stop before heading back into Perth where we would all go our seperate ways again. Several of us hadn't been over to Rottnest Island yet, so we decided to meet up 2 days later and go biking
Box Game
This would be me trying to keep up with the 20 somethings by playing the "box game" one night on our tour. I made it to the last round...not bad! and snorkeling on the island. It was actually a pretty nice day for biking, even though it was a bit windy. I decided to brave the water once again with a fellow North American, Richard from Canada. We were the only two to venture in...apparently the others were a bit smarter than we were. You would think I had learned by now that the water would be cold. I followed Richard for about 20-30 minutes to find the reef he "knew" was nearby, which we found 5 minutes before I had to get out of the water for fear of losing all feeling in my fingers and toes. Oh well, no one can say I didn't try. I spent the next few days in Perth just exploring and making some new friends (and teaching inflexible guys at my hostel how to play the box game....quite entertaining). I decided it was time to head south and work my way towards Melbourne so I caught a flight to Adelaide in South Australia. As a side note, I liked Perth. It's very different than the other Australian cities I've visited before, but it was easy to get around, there were great bike trails
Prince Leonard Statue
This statue is a true likeness of Prince Leonard of the Hutt River Province. (The "other country" in Australia) and parks and they had nice beaches on top of a plethora of restaurants and bars.
Most people I know warned me not to spend too much time in Adelaide, as there isn't a lot to do there. I managed to find plenty in the 3 days I was there (4 or 5 days might have been a stretch though). Now that I was firmly back in a developed country for awhile I felt the need to do a bit of shopping, so I headed to the Rundle Mall. I found it intriguing to see a sand sculpture of Santa in the middle of the mall instead of a Christmas tree. I guess when you have lots of beaches near by, that makes sense. I signed up for an awesome wine tour to Barossa Valley the following day and had a really nice day visiting Penfolds, Wolf Blass and several other wineries. The best part was we did a wine making experiment at Penfolds where we got to mix our own varietal blend of wine. Once we decided which blend we liked we were able to bottle it up and take it with us. For my last day in
Just a few Pythons
I decided I actually don't mind snakes after getting to handle a few at a wildlife park...there were 5 pythons (various sizes) hanging on me in this photo. (pretty cool!) Adelaide I decided to take advantage of the warm weather and head down to the beach. There were a few people wearing Santa hats with their bathing suits. It still didn't feel like Christmas was just a week away though. Rather than taking a flight to Melbourne, I opted for a 3-day tour that offered hiking in Grampians National Park, beautiful views of the Great Ocean Road and some time for a swim at the beach. The key word in that sentence would be "offered". Once again, the weather worked against us and most of our hiking attempts at the Grampians were cancelled due to rain and the windows in the bus were fogged up constantly due to the cold weather outside. You can guess that we didn't spend any time swimming and our views of the Great Ocean Road involved battling massive wind just to get to the look out points to take photos. Finally on our last day we had a slight reprieve in the weather and had a chance to see some koalas in their natural environment and did the Otway Fly Tree Top walk. The walk was pretty amazing as we got up to 47 metres
Some New Friends
After finishing a 7 day tour, a group of us got together for a fun day of biking on Rottnest Island (near Perth). (154 feet) in the tree tops (hence the name, tree top walk). :]
I arrived in Melbourne 2 days before Christmas, but was convinced I was really somewhere in the UK given the crappy weather I'd experienced more often than not since arriving in Oz. Staying with Liz was quite luxurious as I had my own room and bathroom, which when you stay in hostels frequently is a really nice treat! She has a lovely home in the Richmond area, which is known for the Vietnamese restaurants in the area. I got to meet her new 6-month old puppy, Mini. Mini had such an adorable face that I couldn't resist playing when she would bring me a toy and give me those puppy eyes. You look at the picture and tell me if you could say no to that face. On Christmas Eve morning Liz's Mom called bright and early to make sure Liz was planning to bring the Peking Duck for Christmas dinner. Given that Liz WASN'T planning to bring the Peking Duck, we had some shopping to do. We headed down to Victoria street to buy a few ducks (there were 25 people expected for Christmas dinner).
Perth Kangaroos
Dallas has statues of cows in it's downtown area, Perth has kangaroos...rather fitting! Who knew Peking Duck was such a popular Christmas Eve/Christmas dish?? There was a wait at the first shop we stopped into as they had run out of ducks and had to cook more. I went off to the Vietnamese grocery store to look for the pancakes. Liz found another restaurant that had some ducks so we were just about done, except we didn't really know how to make them even though we had most of the ingredients. We got a few tips from a woman standing in line also and were back at the grocery store to get a few more ingredients. Luckily, we found everything and were off to meet two of Liz's friends for Yum Chow (same as Dim Sum). After Yum Chow, we needed to prepare the duck, but still didn't really know exactly what to do so Liz called her friend Sally (an expert on Peking Duck apparently) who came over and we spent Christmas Eve making 50 peking duck pancakes. It was a fun night and the pancakes turned out pretty good.
After a long walk on Christmas morning (trying to preempt the overeating that was sure to occur) we headed to Liz's
Santa Sand Sculpture
Instead of Christmas Trees at the malls, in Australia they have sand sculptures...rather fitting. This one is at the Rundle Mall in Adelaide. parents home for Christmas dinner. Her entire family was so sweet and very gracious. They were so nice that they even put a few presents under the tree for me. I was surprised! I am now the proud owner of lovely kangaroo and emu Christmas ornaments as well as an Aussie safari coffee mug....oh and some beautiful new earrings from Liz (thanks again!). The food was all really good and even though we planned to walk again after dinner, we were in too much of a food coma to get motivated to go. In Australia (the UK and NZ), they get the day after Christmas as a holiday (Boxing Day). Similar to home, it's a big shopping day..so Liz and I headed into town to check out the sales. I've never seen so many people out in Melbourne at the same time. We didn't buy much, but enjoyed looking. Clothes are much more expensive "down under". Of course, the decline in the USD hasn't helped, but regardless the prices are much higher here. The rest of the week seemed to fill up fast, we met more of Liz's friends for lunch (some of which I'd met in the US), visited
Wine Bottle
This was my own Penfolds blend. It was fun being an "assistant winemaker". a few wineries in the Mornington Pennisula (good wines and very scenic) and caught up with friends I'd made during previous travels. I really enjoyed my time in Melbourne. It was nice to not be so much of a tourist for awhile, although we did a few touristy things as you have to do when you haven't seen everything there is to see. Liz was a very gracious hostess and Melbourne did surprise me with a few nice days of sunshine before I left, even reached 40 degrees celsius (that's 100 degrees farenheit). Melbourne is known for having variable weather and definitely lived up to it's reputation.
I flew to Auckland, New Zealand on New Year's Eve and had a quiet evening on my sister's couch watching movies. It was awesome! Oh, I didn't mention my sister and her family are in the US for the holidays, so I have the house to myself. It's been really nice. I'm flying to Christchurch tomorrow to catch up with Paul (my friend from Germany you met at the beginning of my trip) and we are going to travel along the northern tip of the South Island. I also didn't mention that
Great Ocean Road
After visiting the Great Ocean Road two years ago and encountering terrible weather, I was determined to visit again. Unfortunately, the weather didn't cooperate this time either. It's summer but I was bundled up and trying not to get blown away by the wind gusts. the weather in New Zealand has been PERFECT since I arrived. I don't want to jinx it, but am very grateful for the sunshine (and it's not 40 degrees celsius either). So, that's it for now. (If you've made it this far...nice job. I would've probably fallen asleep half way through. 😊
Best wishes for a happy, healthy and prosperous 2008!!!
Advertisement
Tot: 0.084s; Tpl: 0.014s; cc: 5; qc: 45; dbt: 0.0476s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.2mb
Debra
non-member comment
still sounds like a blast
sorry about the weather in perth and all. So glad you went to the Barossa Valley, I had a great time there too a couple years ago tasting wine. I want to hear all about it when you are back and see more pictures from New Zealand. I'm dying to go there someday.