Emily's Adventures!

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For one joyous month Sarah and I were joined by Sarah's sister Emily, so seeing as she'd travelled half way around the world we thought we'd try and pack our days full of excitement and (at Emily's request) plenty of skin colour-changing sun. However, Sarah and I aren't the best at waking and getting up at a sensible hour of the day, and Sarah had some bread to be won for us both at the Stamford Arms, Scarborough's premier 'British' pub. But we reckon we had a strawberry jam-packed month, and here, loyal readers, are the details.

(The chronologicalicity (i'm claiming the invention of that word if it's not one already) of this all may be a bit misplaced, but only Emily will know that)

Swan Valley, John Forrest National Park and Lake Leschenaultia

After a similiarly itineraried day with my parents, we thought we'd revisit these sights with Emily. So in the Swan Valley we visited the Margaret River Chocolate Factory and made them rue the day that they decided to give free chocolate tastings (did i make that joke in the last blog?). Feeling pretty sick, we headed to the ice-cream factory where we comforted the lady working there after her asthma attack as we were arriving, before Sarah and Emily chomped down on some fantastically flavoured ice-cream. Next up was a brewery where we sampled their offerings, including one half wine half beer beer, and Sarah bought a t-shirt (which she later shrunk in a tumble dryer).

Being a hot day we headed to Lake Leschenaultia again, cooling off in the deep yellow water, swimming with ducks and diving from the duck-poo covered diving platform.

Over at John Forrest National Park we walked a different trail to the one we walked with my parents, to a different waterfall that was, although in a beautiful spot, slightly more than a trickle. The 100 or so metres leading up to the spot was absolutely infested with big biting ants. I really have never seen as many ants covering so large an area in all my life. It didn't help that we were all wearing flip-flops (at my suggestion). There really was no where to run (although we did try). The ants loved to climb up onto your feet and bury their fangs and head into your skin (the more adventurous ones would be found adventuring up your legs). To escape the little blighters we had to slide down a steep slope on our bums, which was fun.

After a brilliant experience at the pub located in the park involving kangaroos, kookaburras, parrots and an escaped and very expensive parakeet, we headed there where we were not dissapointed. There were about 15 kangaroos, including one huge male. The people working the bar delighted in setting up a photo for us (their idea) of luring the one tame kangaroo behind the bar (that apparently they spend all day every day chucking out of the bar) with Sarah and Emily while i took a picture. This took a rather long time, and we weren't all too bothered but the bar people really wanted to set up this photo, and eventually we captured the said photo. We also fed and patted the tame kangaroo and got a free beer, which was nice.

We probably went to our favourite restaurant that night, Annalakishimi, where you eat what your heart desires and pay what your heart desires. So we stuffed ourselves full of delicious vegetarian curries and the like.

Rottnest

We chose a slightly cooler day to visit Rottnest Island than we did with Ben's parents, which, it turned out was a good choice as we were not attacked by flocks (?) of eye, nose, ear and mouth loving flies! Sorry about that one Mr & Mrs G!! We rented bikes again (single gear - when will we learn!) and decided to take the unconventional anti clockwise route around the island (the bloke at the bike rental place would have done his nut (we have retained our English vocabulary!) had he found out!). This turned out to be a good choice and we saw some really beautiful beaches and had some good snorkelling and sunbathing adventures. We stopped off for lunch at a small shop with benches and tucked into our packed lunch - very prepared, our Mums would be proud. We soon found out we were not the only ones eager for a bite of our sandwiches - we were soon beseiged by some very tame quokkas who climbed onto the benches via our legs and made dives at our grub!!

After lunch we carried on with our journey round the island and stopped off at another picturesque beach for a lie down and more snorkelling. We had taken every detour on the map so at this point we were rather tired and achy, Ben fell asleep and thus we had a mad dash for the ferry in store!

Gigs

You may have sussed out that we are althernating on chapters on this mammoth blog.

We went to two gigs in the city with Emily. The first was The Bouncing Souls, which was bloody brilliant and in a very small venue. I even had a little chat with the singer and got a very good present for someone. I don't know if Emily enjoyed what i think may have been her first proper punk gig, but she seemed to.

The next gig was Frenzal Rhomb at a bigger club. Compared to the first gig, where there was plenty of space for moving and shaking your funky stuff, this place was raspberry-jam packed. You could barely move. We watched the support band (a crappy but impressively fast thrash band) from up in the posh bar bit from behind a screen, then stood by the side of the stage for the main act. The difference here in Perth to back in England is that the security do nothing. Anyone can jump on the stage and then leap into the crowd, although if you stay too long, a band member or roadie will throw you off. Here there was a punk guy who was paralysed and in an electric wheelchair who found his way down to the front of the stage and spent a good while spinning his chair round and round, his own private circle pit, while everyone else stood back and tried to avoid getting run over! It was brilliant.

Rockingham and Penguin Island

We made two trips to the town of Rockingham (or "swinging the pig" - geddit?), 50 kms south of Perth. The first was a result of an abandoned visit to a water ski park which our out of date guidebook told us about. In fact the park now has houses on it, which I for one cannot figure out - how do they float?? Anyhow, we decided to explore Rockingham while we were in the area. We made a trip to a famous ice cream shop where we made ourselves ill eating huge sundaes and waffles, then went for a swim in the very calm and turquoise sea and jumped off a floating platform 30 or so metres out. Just as we got back to the beach we saw a pod of dolphins swimming right next to where we had been! We then got some noodles and chips (not together) and Ben worked every seagull in the area into a feathered frenzy with the leftovers - they came from everywhere!

Our second visit to Rockingham was to go to Penguin Island, a small island not far off the shore which has the highest concentration of Little Penguins in Western Australia. There are two fine examples of the Australian habit of being very obvious with names for things - Little Penguins (they are) on Penguin Island. Ingenius. Apparently you can walk across a sandbar to the island at low tide, but we opted for the ferry as it certainly wasn't low! On the island we watched a penguin feeding session where the penguins who couldn't be reintroduced to the wild completely ignored the fish held in front of their faces. This was because they were moulting (some of them looked like exploded feather pillows) and in the wild they wouldn't be able to swim therefore don't eat during this time. We saw no wild penguins, but we did see a pelican nesting colony, a cave that someone used to live in, and more seagulls than you could shake a penguin at. A suggestion for renaming of the island to Seagull island perhaps? But it was very pretty and worth the trip.

Fremantle Prison

Although 4 years previously Sarah and Emily had visited this now closed prison, we went on two tours here. It had closed only 16 years ago, and was a morbidly fascinating place. The first tour took us around the grounds, seeing the inductment area of showers etc. We saw tiny cells and learnt of horrific conditions - the prisoners were blueberry-jam packed into the prison. We saw the gallows, the exercise yards, the chapel, the artwork on the cell walls. The prisoners really had it hard there, and it was not at all long ago. The second tour was escape story based. We saw one barbed-wire fence that still had tattered cloth on it from a bungled escape attempt. We learnt of one incredible escape that was ruined when the escapee took to the town on the night of his escape, only to get arrested for being drunk and disorderly, found out and thrown back into prison! We saw the female section of the prison and discovered the ridiculous conditions that women had to endure, including one cold bath a week sharing water with four others and an exercise area not a lot bigger than a kennel that had no shade at all. The reason the prison was closed was due to riots that burnt down half of the roof, and it wasn't hard to see what led to the discontent that sparked the riots.

We also visited our favourite - Fremantle markets while we were in town, we browsed while Emily treated herself to some reflexology. Then a quick "middy" at Little Creatures brewery before home!

Visiting the family - Perth Zoo, Aquarium and human relatives!

On a cloudy day we decided to go to Perth Zoo and visit our family (thanks Ita for that joke!). Some of the monkeys did bear a resemblance to Ben however... We had a good day, it's a pretty good zoo, we saw a MASSIVE saltwater crocodile (the reason we didn't swim a lot up north), some dingos that had been trained just like dogs and lots of colourful animals and birds. We enjoyed it so much we pretended we didn't hear the announcements telling us to get the hell out and we got locked in! We really did! But we managed to escape through the staff exit - so no climbing over fences or taming animals to help us escape, unfortunately for you, readers!

We also went to the Aquarium of Western Australia, cleverly named AQWA, on another cloudy day (there were quite a few, Emily brought the weather with her!) Here we touched starfish, a sea urchin (a pencil tipped urchin, not the conventional evil stick my spikes in your foot on your birthday type one), and a stingray! We saw loads of fish that we had seen previously whilst snorkelling which was pretty cool, and I may have permanently traumatised a pair of very beautiful sea dragons by accidently taking a photo with the flash on. (Got a good photo though,..woops!) There was also a massive tank where you walked through a tunnel and had enormous sharks, rays and turtles swimming over you. It was amazing,, just wish it had been in the real sea!!

One evening we went to visit our distant relatives for dinner (mine and Emily's Granny's cousins daughter and family - figure that one out!). It was a nice evening and we had some yummy food. It was really nice to get to know the guys, as we had never met before, and to learn about living in Zimbabwe and Australia! We shared a few rugby jokes, as we had English, South African and All Black fans amongst us!

We won't burden you with any more as this is a long'un, but we've got plenty more instore for you! We know you can't wait of course.

Happy new year everyone
xxx

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Comments

[Vincent]

Ah shit!! you have pictures now. that's brilliant. what the fuck's a quokka?! it's lovely to see you doing this crazy stuff. : ) thought, i must add.. i was very dissapointed when the picture for the caption 'penguin island' loaded up.. :( happy new year. x

[SarahP]

Penguin Island
You were right to be disapointed Vince - there were no Penguins to be seen!