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Published: April 29th 2007
When the plane landed in Perth it seemed to take forever to get through Immigrations & customs, when we walked through the doors I thought I'd cry but I didn't but was really happy to see Mom, Dad, Uncle John & Nikki. It was about 1am I think by the time we got through, it may have even been about 2am, we headed back to John & Nikki's in two cars & had some wine to celebrate. Mom, Claire & I stayed up till 5am I think drinking & chatting but it had to be done!
John had to leave at about 6am to fly back to Albany to go to work on Monday, Claire & I got up about 10ish & had breakfast in the garden in the sunshine. Afterwards we walked to the Marina near their beautiful house & had drinks & cakes sat outside chatting, then walk for a lovely long walk up the beach. In the evening we had a roast chicken dinner, (thank you again Nikki it was great!) & Mom made an apple crumble (cheers Mom!), they were both better than I remembered! After dinner Nikki, Mom, Claire & I played cards & Mom
made me scream with laughter when she asked what card game we were playing & why she hadn't had a go; it was the same game we'd been playing all night & it was her go, (I think someone had too much to drink!?) Claire & I searched the internet for flights & talked about our route to get to Sydney, leaving us confused about what we should do.
On Tuesday we had breakfast & headed out. Nikki drove us to Whitfords shopping centre & we brought some bits & pieces, (I'm sure this must have been hell for Dad who got dragged around with 4 women & spent most of the time sat on a bench reading the paper!) We had lunch in a nice little cafe & Nikki drove us to Hilary's, (an area with marina) there we went to The Ice Block Creamery. Bascially you pick a flavour ice cream, (there are loads to choose from) & then you pick some sweets to be mashed up in the ice cream, it was raining at this point so not the best weather for ice cream but we had a look around the shops & found a British
sweet shop where I got a can of Lilt & Claire got a bag of Walkers Smokey Bacon Crisps.
We headed home & got changed & we all went to the pub in the Marina, had dinner & did a pub quiz, (we were shockingly bad!). As Wednesday was Anzac Day, (a bank holiday), John flew back from Albany on Tuesday evening & joined us in the pub a bit later, afterwards we went home & played more cards.
On Wednesday morning Claire & I booked a campervan for almost three weeks to get us from Perth to Cairns which we would pick up on Saturday, our original plan was to drive up through the centre to Cairns, a journey of about 6000 kilometres, the equivalent of driving accross Europe; exciting but mad! Then the seven of us headed into the city on the train & then on another train to Freemantle for the day. It was a lovely sunny day & we had a walk around the shops, went to a bar which was full of people from the Australian Navy & had a few funny ales, (I think I had a curry flavoured one & some
other one). We stood watching a street entertainer try & escape from a chained box on the balcony whilst drinking our drinks.
We walked to the harbour & had lunch in Little Creatures Brewery, there was a great atmosphere there & the food was really good too. After lunch we walked around the harbour & had an ice cream, (I talk about food far too much, I blame my parents!) We had a look in the Fish Market & a couple of other shops & then in an indoor market on the way back to the train station. On the train back to Perth Mom, Dad, John & Nikki all decided to have a sleep, everyone was looking & laughing at them, bless!
When we got back into the city we walked through the centre to the waterfront to a bar Uncle John wanted to take us to called "The Lucky Shag", for those of you that are not familiar with the term 'shag' it is an Australian bird! We had a drink & headed back home on the train. When we got back it was dark so stopped off in a park in Joondalup to see the
Kangaroo's. We got so close to two baby Joey's it was great & they let us take as many photos as we liked. It was so funny watching them hop, they are gorgeous animals!
On Thursday morning John flew back to Albany really early, Claire & I got up & sorted a few bits out including a dive at AQWA, (the Aquarium of Western Australia) for the same afternoon. Nikki drove us there & it was so good; Mom, Dad & Nikki got to watch us threw the walk threw tunnel, (along with all the aquariums visitors). Basically we had to make ourselves negatively bouyant & crawl along the bottom of the tank, so it was different from our normal dives. Also in the fact they we were guaranteed to see some amazing creatures up close!
Amongst the contents of the Aquarium were Port Jackson sharks, huge Stingrays, black tip reef sharks, 6 massive Nurse sharks (which look really evil but eat rocks), Eagle Stingrays, Fiddler Stingrays, Sandbar Whaler Sharks, Turtles & much more! I was waving at all the little children walking through & one little boy started to hug his Gran & cry, I think he
thought the sharks were going to eat us! Mom treated Claire & I to a 'Shark Diver' t-shirt which I love. We had a quiet night on Thursday, it had been an exhausting & exciting day!
On Friday Claire & I went into the city on the bus & the train whilst Nikki drove Mom & Dad to Bunbury to see one of Dad's cousins. We had a look around the shops, walked up to Kings Park & took some great photos of the city skyline & then walked down to the waterfront for a glass of wine in the sunshine on the deck at The Lucky Shag, (overlooking the Swan River). We had tea & cake in the sunshine back in the centre & headed home to watch the sunset over the ocean from the balcony with a beer, it was lovely.
John came back from Albany, Mom, Dad & Nikki returned from Bunbury & we had a takeaway Indian & played board games, mainly Scattegories which was hilarious & of course it was rude as Uncle John was playing, I got accused of cheating which I didn't I was just being imaginative with my answers! The
In the Aquarium with the sharks!
On the better side of the glass tunnel, (in the water!)idea of the game is you roll a dice & it gives a letter of the alphabet, you then all have to answer the same 12 answers beginning with that letter. The highlight I think was the letter P, the question asked for famous females; Claire's Answer was Peter Andre, Uncle John almost fell off his chair laughing & wouldn't let poor Claire forget about it for the rest of her stay in Perth.
On Saturday John & Dad took Claire & I to get the campervan whilst Mom & Nikki went for shopping for the evenings little get together. The campervan is a transit van with all essentials like a fridge, air con/heater, microwave, toilet & shower, cooker, kettle, toaster, double bed, the works. I hadn't driven in 6 months, let alone ever driven a transit van but I won the toss of the coin to drive it back home, I was alright though & it was ok to drive.
Claire & I went food shopping in the afternoon & stocked up the van with food to start off our adventure. When we had collected the van, (who we named Shack, after the basketball player who is
also massive), they had told us we could not take the route we wanted to, so our route was going to be what we originally wanted to do, up the west coast to Exmouth, Broome, Darwin & across to Cairns, although it was doubtful we would have time to do the centre.
On Saturday evening some friends came around, we had a lovely meal; Mom made Lasagne, Nikki did Lemon chicken & there was loads of other lovely things. We played Scattegories again in teams of two; poor Claire got Uncle John & his rude but funny answers although I think they probably won as they did rather well. I tried to pack & write cards & wrap presents & do five million other things so got a bit stressed; I think the thought of saying goodbye was also getting to me. I eventually left the packing to the morning & went to bed after the guests had gone home & we drank the champagne I had brought & played cards.
On Sunday morning we had breakfast & I finished packing, we said an emotional goodbye & headed on our way up the west coast, Claire drove the
first leg as I was rather tearful but was ok after a while. So that was it, the week was over so quickly & it would be another 6 months till I saw Mom & Dad & I didn't know when I would see John & Nikki again. I had an amazing week in Perth & I would just like to say again a big thank you to John & Nikki for letting us stay, you made us both so welcome & showed us an amazing week. Also a big thank you to Mom & Dad for flying half way around the world to see me!
And so the journey of the long & winding road in Shack began...
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Andy
non-member comment
I'm lost for words Rico! You're beautiful! XXX