Perth and Geraldton

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After hours sitting in Singapore airport (there are worse places to have to twiddle thumbs!) we arrived in the land down under!

Perth was unbelievable chilled out for a fairly big city, especially after the hectic times we've had in HK, Singapore and KL! As we had to get on our first Greyhound bus within 3 days of arriving we didn't have chance to see too much, but we did get to the lush beaches (priorities, you know!) and went on a brilliant full day wine tour around the Swan Valley. Dressed in our best gear (in the hope we might fool people that we know something about wine), we were whisked off by our guide and bus driver, Otto(!). We went to 5 wineries, a brewery and a chocolate factory and squeezed in a gourmet lunch too! We had up to 13 tasters in each place, so we were feeling fairly tipsy long before the end of the day! Being generally red wine people, we found lots of drinkable (or should I say coiffable!) white's, rose's and port's. All were complemented by some tasty cheeses too. After all this we had a pretty noisy journey back to the city centre (loose tongues!) with our fellow tourists, who we'd got to know quite well by now! We'll be back in Perth in a couple if weeks luckily, so can go and explore the rest of the city then.

Our first stop on the bus was Geraldton, 450km north of Perth, 7 hour bus journey and about 5mm above Perth on most maps! It's a fairly quiet town on a normal day but our 4 day visit coincided with Australia Day on Friday and a Sunday, where ALL shops close and no public transport runs. We met a top Ozzie bloke in our hostel, Mark (he was a lifeguard on Brighton beach of all places), who drove us to some out of town beaches for some body-boarding. The hostel, the Batavia Backpackers, was a different story- put it this way, our suspicions about it resembling a half-way house for people in crisis were confirmed on our last day by the poor lady who had to clean up the kitchen on Monday! Through our observations and overhearing various conversations/outbursts it seemed apparent there were 2 ex-cons, one guy awaiting trial, a lady who lived in a dressing gown all day and was very territiorial about the bathroom and a big Aboriginal family who needed emergency housing. Quite a bizarre mix- if you pass through this way we'd advise you pay the extra few dollars and stay at the Foreshore Backpackers just down the road instead!

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Photos

Sunset over Swan River
Ahh, beautiful (again)!

Wine tasting
Coiffing some great Shiraz (slightly uncouth in a lager t-shirt?!)

Geraldton
Some great surf in this town, but you need a car and a board to get to it!

Geraldton - Oz Day
Chilling in the park listening to the bands.

Fish and Chips!
Dinner on the seafront (a bench not a restaurant!). Our first taste of an Ozzie catch - yum!

Oz Day Fireworks
A pretty impressive show, especially considering the size of the town!

Comments

[Mum N]

Great blog, wonderful pics and you both look so well which is very pleasing for a Mummy !!

[spgreen]

oi stop tanning
Oh bargies you are looking very brown i am jealous. Haven't been able to keep up with the blog for a while and you've done soooooo much since i last looked, but it makes me miss you when i look at it so i won't do it too much. Love to you both, soph xxxxx