WE'RE IN PERTH

Sit yourselves down with a nice cup of tea, as this will be quite a long blog, covering e 4 weeks we spent in Perth all in one episode.

THURSDAY 6^th JUNE    -   We left Busselton at 8am and were very excited to be heading to our next destination Perth.    We had a short pit stop along the way and the rest of the drive towards Perth was on freeways.  We arrived at Crystal Brooks Caravan Park in Orange Grove at 1pm.  The park was fairly old, but the management were making lots of improvements and had recently put in a brand new facilities blocks and laundry.  It was mainly permanent residents staying there, many of whom did fly in fly out as it was 20 minutes to the airport.  It was set in the foothills of Perth with huge houses and blocks of land, very rural.  It was also 10 minutes to Centro Maddington the local shopping centre.  It wasn’t ideal or the fanciest, but it was only 30 minutes away from Daniel in Nollamara and 30 minutes to Richard’s brother Bob in Sorrento.  At the bottom of the park was a grassed dog exercise area with paddocks of sheep and horses alongside.  Four baby lambs were born whilst we were there and they were fascinating to watch skipping around the paddock.  We quickly settled in and met our new neighbours Bill and Pauline, who had recently sold their house and were waiting to finish work and head off in their caravan around Australia, so we got some good tips from them about places to visit.

We went to Daniel’s for dinner and it was so good to see him again.  He looked really well, despite his number one hair cut that I haven’t seen on him since he was at school.

The next few days were taken up getting the car serviced and having a bit of a battle with Toyota as we’d discovered there was fluid leaking from the power steering when we were at Ceduna.  The warranty expired on 21^st May, which was typical, and Toyota weren’t going to fix the leak under warranty as they argued it had expired.   Richard was having none of that as he’d phoned the Toyota dealer in Ceduna who had advised him to “top up the fluid and it should be right” which was exactly what he’d done and had been doing ever since.  The leak had gotten worse and beyond “topping up” and needed some serious fixing (ie taking out the entire engine to get to the leaking valve – big bucks if it’s not done under warranty).   After many phone calls back and forth, they finally agreed to repair it under warranty (thankfully) and gave us a courtesy car for the 2 days that it took to fix.  One problem solved.

THE CAMERA   -  You may remember Richard’s been hankering after a new, improved camera for quite some time.  After lots of research and disappointment, he finally found a place  -   Camera House in Leederville  -  who had the one he wanted in stock and were very knowledgeable and helpful.  He couldn’t contain himself and headed straight there to pick up his new toy.  It’s a Nikon DS200, tamaron lens, 18-270, 24 megapixels  -   for those of you that have a clue what all that jargon means.  It came with a bright red shiny casing as that was the only colour they had in stock.  Well, he couldn’t wipe the smile off his face when he arrived back at the van  – he was like a kid in a lolly shop and practically slept with it for the first few nights, looking at it and reading the instruction booklet.  It certainly was his pride and joy and now goes everywhere with us.  He had to get a new tripod, small and large to sit it on and goodness knows how many other extras.  I haven’t even dared ask the 64 million dollar question “how much was it?” Hopefully you will notice a remarkable improvement in the photos on the Blog from hereon in!!!   Another problem solved in Perth.

We visited Bob, Shelly and Alexander (AJ) in Sorrento and had a drive around Hilary’s Marina and took Sally for a walk on the beach.  It’s a beautiful area with lots of huge houses being built along the ocean front.   There was a big park close to their house and Sally enjoyed a good run around there too.  I hadn’t met AJ before.  He’s a strapping 18 year old rugby player, with a HUGE appetite, quite normal for his age.  We hadn’t seen Bob and Shelly for 6 years since their last visit to Sydney, so it was lovely to spend time with them all again. 

TUESDAY 11TH JUNE     -  We took a drive south to Rockingham and Mandurah, two beautiful coastal areas an hour from Perth.  We drove down on the freeways and came back through safety Bay and along the coast road to Perth.   It was a beautiful drive.

THURSDAY 13TH  JUNE   -   Karina and Kieran arrived in Perth at 11.30am.  I was just so excited going to meet them at the airport.  Perth airport was relatively small compared to Sydney.  There was no separate arrivals or departure areas, everyone just came out the one entrance.  We walked through to the luggage carousel to find them walking out.   We didn’t even have to pay for parking as the first 30 minutes was free.  That would never happen in Sydney.  We went back to the caravan for lunch.  Karina was really pleased to see Sally once more.  Then we went to Daniel’s so that they could unpack and get settled in before Daniel got home from work.  It was lovely to have dinner together with them again.

FRIDAY 14TH JUNE   -   Fremantle Goal   -    We had coffee in the Convict Café before the “Doing Time” tour of Fremantle Goal.  It was $20 and lasted for an hour. We had a very interesting and funny tour guide called John.  The jail was much bigger than we'd imagined.  It was built as a convict barracks by convict labour using limestone quarried on the site in the 1850’s.  It was closed as a maximum security prison in 1991. We toured through the gatehouse, perimeter walls, kitchen area, upper, middle and lower galleries and the gallows and flogging area and saw the one cell where prison art was allowed on the walls inside. It was cold, dark and miserable and would have been freezing inside during winter.  The walls were 2’ 6” thick and the prison was on a 15 acre site.  During it’s time there were numerous hangings, floggings, escapes and riots.  In 2010, it became the first building in Western Australia to be included on the World Heritage List.

After the tour we walked around Fremantle and had a fish and chip lunch at the famous Cicerellos on the water’s edge. Then we drove back to the famous Cottesloe Beach (like Bondi in Sydney).

SATURDAY 15TH JUNE   -  Kings Park   -  It was a stunning park set in 400 hectares, overlooking the City and Swan River.  There were free guided walking tours three times a day, walking through the memorials, picnic areas, manicured lawns and native gardens.  It was a hive of activity with cyclists, joggers and people having picnics.  We had lunch in the café overlooking the Swan River which was delicious and walked through the park seeing 3 bridal parties having their photos taken by the picturesque pond settings.  We also saw the Giant Boab Tree that was transplanted from The Kimberley’s by road to Kings Park.

THE GIANT BOAB TREE

TUESDAY 18TH JUNE   -   We drove to The Margaret River Chocolate Factory in the Swan Valley for morning tea.  We couldn’t contain ourselves gorging on the free tasting bins of white, dark and milk chocolate tasting pieces and looking around at all the goodies for sale and wanting them all.  There was such a variety it was impossible to decide.  There was also a viewing window to watch the chocolates being made.  We sat outside on the verandah and had hot chocolates and yummy cakes for our morning tea.  Just when we thought we were so full we couldn’t move, we discovered a free wine and cheese tasting at a vineyard opposite and just had to try it out.  The wines were delicious.  My favourite was a Lancaster chenin blanc, $20 per bottle.  There was also a good selection of cheeses.  I really liked the chilli cheese.  We ended up buying 6 wines and a block of the chilli cheese, perfect for future happy hours.

We next headed for Mundaring Dam, set in the Perth Foothills. We stopped at the sculptures in the park which were quirky, some better than others.  We then headed to Mundaring Dam and walked across the dam wall.  The water levels were extremely low and we could see the old steps directly underneath the main wall where people used to be able to step into their boats to cruise the dam or to swim.  We had a picnic lunch in a gazebo on the grassed picnic area and were surrounded by lots of beautiful ring necked parrots.  They were really cheeky and took food from our hands and stood on the handrail around the gazebo.  They even flew onto the table for titbits and flocked together on the grass.

THURSDAY 20TH JUNE   - Karina and Kieran flew back to Sydney today.  We had lunch at the café in Kings Park again.  I was so sad and teary saying goodbye to them as we’d all had a lovely fun filled week together.  Hopefully we’ll see Karina again for Christmas in Perth.

We had to take the caravan in for warranty repairs for one day as the shower still leaked from the 1,000km service, and we had a few minor faults to rectify.  It still leaked even after they had replaced a leaking pipe, so Richard ended up taking it completely apart and replacing the silastic all around the shower himself.  Thankfully it no longer leaks now.

We bought a satellite dish kit from Access wholesale in Perth.  They really knew what they were talking about and were very helpful.  We bought the bigger dish which they recommended for better coverage and the upgraded model.  The kit came complete with dish, satellite finder, decoder and angle finder.  They assured us we’d have no problems further up the coast or in the bush.  The secret is to point the dish towards north and get it at the right angle for the area.  We’ve got a list of angles for each area we may be in. It works fine in Perth so we’ll let you know the outcome further up the coast.

Richard decided against the metal boxes underneath the caravan to store wood in. He couldn’t get them made to the right size that he could actually open the lid and put anything much inside.

MONDAY 1ST JULY   -   Our 35^th Wedding Anniversry and our last day in Perth.  We went out for dinner at North Beach to the Ocean Dragon Chinese restaurant with Daniel, Min, Richard’s Brother Bob, Shelly and AJ (alexander).  We had a lovely meal together which came to an end all too soon.  It was sad saying our farewells as it had been wonderful spending time with the family again.

The time has gone by so quickly and we’ve been pretty flat chat getting things done, catching up with friends and family and getting organised for the next league of our epic journey.

NEXT WEEK:    We will be heading north to Sandy Cape past Jurien Bay and Coronation Beach past Geraldton