Perth, Australia June 2015

Perth, Australia, June 12- 22 This was a last minute booking – a little less than a week before the actual take off to our holiday! We had planned to visit Korea, and had done all the research, but MERS broke out there and we had to change our plans. No korea, and off to Perth. It was a decision we did not regret. We switched from a hot summer holiday to a winter wonderland in Australia. The weather was cool, temperature ranging from average of 10-19 degrees, with some sunny days and really wet days. Scoot has been upgraded so we enjoyed pretty spacious seating on our 5 hr flight. We arrived in Perth, travel lodge hotel in the evening, in time for dinner. The hotel was comfortable, gave us 2 bottles of wine for ‘being green’, or so they say. The next morning was a Sunday, and we made arrangement with an old time friend to visit her church. She has settled there with her family for 5 yrs now. It was good to meet her again, after loss of contact for almost 10 yrs. The church was a small size one with mostly youths, a cozy church. It was fantastic sunny day and we just had to go to the park to play. We packed our fish and chips lunch and had a picnic at king’s park for the rest of the afternoon. The 3rd day, we got our rented car and drove out to Margaret river. We stopped by a few interesting spots first, like the Busselton jetty when we took a tourist train ride along the 2.5km long jetty and visited an aquarium. Fishes swam in the wild, and there were coral reefs and all kinds of other fishes such as schools of anchovies. We even saw very large salmon. Hmm, dinner. Next, we drove off and stopped by Canal Rock. The kids loved it there, climbing up and down rocks and seeing nature up close. Nathan even spotted an orange crab. There were other explorers and we had a jolly good time on the rocks. Finally, the sun was setting and we drove to our new apartment along Margaret river. This apartment was conveniently located right behind the main street and next to Coles supermarket where we got our supplies for home cooked dinner. But first night dinner, we went to settlers café, our old time favourite from 5 yrs ago. The restaurant was warm and cozy. We turned in early as it had been a long but very pleasant day. Day 4 morning was spent at Sunflowers farm. Kids got their buckets of food and went around feeding the calves, goats, sheep, lama, chickens and even pigs. We fed the guinea pigs with lettuce by accident! There was an old horse which fancy us taking pictures with him. We missed the lamb bottle feeding so we returned again at 4pm to do that. We had lunch at the cheeky monkey brewery, had burgers and pizza. It had a small playground against huge landscape of mountains and rivers. It was scenic. Lunch was quick as the kids wanted to check out the Amazing mazes at yallingup. It was a short 10 mins drive away. We quickly ventured out and did a search and run to the various huts to find out the clues. After some running about, we settled down for a cup of coffee and a slice of brownie and some board games and intellectual stimulating puzzles. Dinner was home cooked. Kids watched TV and await the usual pasta which they happily devoured with great interest. 5th day weather was getting wetter. In the morning, we visited another farm, country life farm, alittle further up. The farm is really big and different from the sunflower one. It had attractions such as an indoor playground, boating, merry go round, bumper cars and even a ping pong table. There were also giant float slides which we didn’t go on them. The lady was trying to clean up the seats in the enclosures so visitors could have a seat. This farm was mended by 2 fairly old fellows, man and wife, and they looked every busy working around the farm. The animals looked fairly uncared for somewhat, a little joey walking around, 2 little ponies, some sheep and goats, but lots of guinea pigs and rabbits and very noisy birds. I don’t understand why they kept the noisy birds in the same cage as the fluffy ones but we didn’t like the birds flying around and overhead. Kids enjoyed feeding the very big rabbits and probably 30 over guinea pigs. Then it rained. We had lunch at a cozy family café. I had green pancakes with risotto rice balls, and the rest had the usual burgers and fish and chips. We returned early to Margaret river to do some shopping at target and had dinner at Mollies. The 6th day unfortunately, my stomach was not feeling well at all. I woke up with a cramp. Kids decided to visit lake cave. I stayed warm at the café with camomile tea and a beef pie. Thankfully, with that, I quickly regained strength. Kids wanted to visit canal rocks one more time, and they did. I stayed in the car. It was a really wet day, so we decided to stay indoors at Yallingup. Nathan had a go at ‘rush hour’ a road block car game and he got stuck to it. We spent quite a bit of time there before heading home to pack to move out the next day. Day 7, we drove off back to Perth city, but stopped at Madura for lunch break and shopping at Kmart before arriving at the apartment at Cottlesloe for dinner. We had grill’d, the aussie ‘s favourite burger and chips place, more loved than Macdonald’s. After dinner, we experienced the most shocking downpour of our lives. We had to dash with all our might to the car. The kids had hoodies on but they were in such a state of shock that they had totally forgotten about that. We hoped into the car and took shelter. But the heavy storm was short lived. Before we knew it, it stopped before we arrived back to our flat. Day 8 morning was sunnier, so we went to Peron point. The sun was in our face! There’s something about kids and climbing in the natural habitat. They simply loved it to bits. We met our friends for lunch at a tim sum restaurant. Yummy egg tarts, porridge and other warm Chinese delights that make our tummies really sweet and nice. Then we popped by their home for a while, and went to Monger river. Since the sun was out shinning again, we went to King’s park for the last part of the afternoon. That was a different playground from the first visit. Kids had a blast. The winds were blowing so strongly and we knew the rain was coming. We dashed back into the car before another heavy downpour began. We had dinner at Vanns, another old time favourite. I loved my pasta with duck, kids had their pasta, and daddy had baby chicken. Yum. It was a cold chilly night, temperature had dipped alittle to 10 and winds were really cold. Even the locals would say that the winds were extremely gusty that evening. We had experienced the worst of winter. Sunday, we decided to skip church and pay a visit to Scitech, Perth Science centre. It was a wow experience. We attended a live talk on space, seated comfortably in a 360 degrees screen, looking at the night sky filled with stars and planets. It was an eye opening talk about how astronauts train – under the sea! Information I never knew. Showed that being astronauts ain’t all that simple and nice, there was a lot of hard heavy work involved. Then, we went shopping again, at kmart in green garden city. Bought a lot more things, boys bought new shoes, girl got all her party supplies, and some t-shirts, and a big box of lego! Apparently, lego is much cheaper here than back home. With a handful of shopping bags, we headed back home. We wished hard for a sunny day on Monday, and we had. We visited the Caversham wildlife park., with all our luggages packed in the trunk. We marched in to pat some sleepy koalas, sat in a farm show, when girl bottle fed a lamb, milked a friendly cow, and saw how cow boys do their billy tea tricks and whip. Then, there was meet the furry animals show where we had pictures taken with a wombat. There were possums, owls and the singing kookabaru . There were snakes and lizards too, apparently native to Australia. Finally, it was time to return our rented car, and take a taxi to the airport to catch our plane. We are thankful for a safe and enjoyable holiday.