World Australia Western Australia Perth

Round Australia with Ev and Az

Day 98-100 - Perth Oct 29, 2009

Tuesday – Rockingham – Boat driving.

As the boys have not adjusted to the time zone changes they managed to wake up this morning at something starting with a 5. Had we been in Melbourne this would have been great as it would have started with an 8. But we are in Perth so we all watched the sun rise out the side of the caravan

The weather is cool here, not as bad as Melbourne, but there is a solid cloud cover and we are not getting the perfect blue sky days we have got used to. No complaints, we are due some poor weather.

Seeing we had not strapped into ‘Mater and done some kilometres for at least a few days now we decided to go for a drive down to Rockingham, about 45 minutes south of Perth. I think it is too far to be called a beachside suburb so it will have to be a holiday village on the south coast.

There was a tragedy this morning when the GPS fell apart halfway through the drive. Specifically the internals of the 12V power cord fell out. It felt like a drug addict being denied a hit. We had relied on this thing to get us to the corner shops. We were now alone, isolated and needing to rely on something called a map and a general sense of direction.

First stop in Rockingham was Penguin Island. Guess what it has penguins on it. 600 odd mating pairs of blue penguins. I told you it was cold. Of course as the penguins are afraid of humans and spend most of the time in the water we saw a grand total of 1 wild penguin. 1 out of 1200. Pretty good result.

More easily accessed were the 10 penguins that had been rehabilitated but were deemed “unfit for release”. (WA officialdom strikes again, now with a rating system for penguins.) These were kept in an enclosure where they were fed three times a day so we watched this instead.

Penguin Island was also covered in seabirds (and seabird droppings), predominantly Pelicans, seagulls and the migrating hooded tern. Now I’m going all Harry Butler aren’t I?. All of the seagull chicks were hatching so there were all of these little mottled coloured fluffballs wandering around. Seagulls are kind of cute when they are young and silent, before they learn to squark……much like human children.

Understandably the seagull parents got particularly annoyed anytime you got close to their eggs. The poor bird that had decided to nest on the edge of the walkway between the visitor centre and the boat ramp was particularly upset when someone walked past every 30 seconds. Bad real estate decision that one.

From Penguin Island we took a glass bottom boat to Seal Island. Guess what, seal island is inhabited by…..well sea lions actually. Guess the WA Island Naming Committee (WAINC) has not been updated with the change of tenants. The glass bottom boat was a great idea, except the only thing to see was seagrass. Important yes, exciting – no. The boat’s soundtrack was interesting - Gilligan’s Island, the Love Boat theme and Ship of Fools were all on there.

The best part of the glass bottom boat ride was when the kids got a chance to steer. Evan had a great time, he didn’t go straight and basically didn’t go anywhere near where he wanted to go. The Gilligan’s island theme was going through my head for the whole time but he did have a lot of fun.

After lunch we managed to track down a Baskin and Robbins ice cream shop, amazing how that happens, before heading back to Perth. The RAAF Museum at Bull creek, home of a Lancaster bomber, filled in the rest of the afternoon before we headed back to the van for guess what, another BBQ for dinner.

Every van park has a unique quirk, the wildlife running through it, the over supply of signs or just an abundance of freaks. The Perth Central Caravan Park’s quirk is the music selection it pipes through the loos. Being right opposite the loos you can actually hear it from the van. Unfortunately the music mix reminds me of the music in WW2 war movies. You know the scene - all the characters are there, there is a big band and the next morning at least one of them has been blown up, crashed a plane or gone missing. Anyway that is the approximate vintage of the music, except in the middle of the night when it appeared to be a radio infomercial for pest control. Riveting stuff……Trust me.

Wednesday – Swan valley – WST does not equal EDST

As most of you are aware there is a three hour time difference between Perth and Sydney. Unfortunately this morning one of my good (ex) friends from Sydney decided to call to catch up…..at 8:30am Sydney time. I can honestly say I was awake for the second half of the call. I will not reveal the callers identity to protect the guilty (don’t worry Lowie, I’ve got your back. At least you called with good news).

I took the boys out to play at a playground (conveniently located right next to the international terminal at Perth airport - Al). Aaron perfected sliding down the slippery dip on his face and eating rocks. Actually he has had that last one under control for a long time.

Like four blind mice (no GPS) we headed up to Whiteman park which houses a collection of museums – a Tractor museum, a car museum, trams and a transport museum (as if the first three do not constitute transport). There was a big sign at the entry to the park that read, and I quote; “the best things in life are free”. Interesting considering there was an admission fee to all of the museums….but the 19 individually numbered carparks were free.

The car Museum could probably have been renamed the Aunty “Nitmiluk” Cath car museum. This place had one of every thing my sister in law Cath has ever owned, a beetle, a moke and a mini, even a magna wagon. What was a magna wagon doing in a car museum? I wondered the same thing. Apparently it was the prototype of the wagon so it had some historical significance…..as opposed to most magna wagons that only have hysterical significance.

More significantly it had a DeLorean (one of only two right hand drive models built), a Hudson Hornet that Ev loved from the Cars movie and a selection of Australian muscle cars, GTHO, Monaro, XU-1 etc. It was good but you have to worry when you drive up to a car museum and the staff car park has a proton and a magna in it. Hardly living the dream is it?

Leaving the car museum, Ev was obviously inspired. While pushing his brother in the stroller, he managed to roll it. How do you roll a pram, I don’t know but it looked like he was attempting a handbrake turn. End result – Aaron has a scratched head and Evan’s ride on the tram was cancelled. I can be sure that this is not the last time either of the boys will “damage” his brother. Fortunately it was minor damage.

As the tram ride was cancelled we, as good parents do, rewarded ourselves for the good parenting job we had done and went wine tasting earlier than planned. Yes that comment is dripping in sarcasm. The first winery we visited had a tasting fee, and after waiting 3 or 4 minutes no-one showed up to serve us, so we left. The second was much better, Chesters. Interestingly there were three Irish girls there on a bus tour, already tipsy and this was at 11am. The bus driver was in for a fun day. The last stop before lunch was at a brewery, something different. We decided that the Feral Brewery sounded masculine, Aussie and pretty tough. Turns out the name is just a description of the taste of their beers…..Feral. It seriously was not good.

Back to the van for lunch (the Swan Valley is only 20 minutes north of the van park) and another failed attempt at getting a passport for Aaron. Ironically Australia Post had not delivered the documents in time for us to make our appointment at Australia Post.

More hardship this afternoon with more wineries which to be honest ranged from good to poor. Sis I thought I had found you a supply of white Zinfandel but sadly it was pretty shocking stuff. It was bad enough that it proved the fridge magnet in California right, :friends don’t let friends drink white Zinfandel”.

For those wine enjoyers reading, Al and I have decided the overall rating for the Swan Valley will be a 6 out of 10. Worth a visit if you are in Perth but not worth flying across the country for. We are hoping the Margaret river will still have that appeal.

Tonight as I cooked the BBQ, chicken this time if you are playing at home, I again got talking to the old couple that have been there every night I have been to the camp kitchen. Every night I have been there, he has put away at least 6 beers and she has knocked over at least a few (cask) wines. Turns out they usually go to Broome for 5-6 months but this year could not make it so they stayed in Perth and have been in the park for 6 months. First thought 6 months equals 180 odd days, 6 beers a night is 1080 beers in 6 months or 2160 per year. If he was on a flight I would call him Boonie…..and he looks like he is in his 80’s ! (I didn’t ask)

Digging deeper I found out ‘home was 5 minutes up the road but they have moved out and their kids and grandkids are living there while they stay in the caravan…..You really do meet some interesting people on the road.

The office at the caravan park offers DVD’s for rent, $3 per night…..and yes they had ‘Australia’. Now as those of you who have been following the blog would remember that this movie has been stalking us for most of the trip – Bowen’s claim was being the ‘1940’s Darwin in the movie, the Kimberly was the main setting, Broome had the camels that were in the movie and Karratha had the mobile coffee van that supplied the cast and crew……we have done the ‘Australia’ tour of , well…err….Australia. But here is the thing - the camels didn’t make the final cut and unsurprisingly the coffee van was never seen, either by us or in the movie. Overall Al described the movie as ‘not bad’, I would say a waste of about $2.75.

Thursday – Rottnest Island – Quokka land

The boys started with a play on the playground (yes, that one at the airport again) before we headed off to Hillary’s Boat Harbour to catch the ferry to “Rotto” as the locals call it. Remember we are still being very adventurous as we are still without a GPS……..and to make things more fun we managed to leave the maps behind as well. With a general sense of which was way north and which way was west we managed to find the boat harbor in time for the ferry. It did stop Evan and his incessant “how long til we get there?” questions which now got a “we can’t tell, the GPS is broken” response.

Once we got to the island we got on the hop on/hop off bus tour. Unfortunately the tour is on the winter schedule so it only stops every hour. As most of the destinations are beaches and the temperature was low 20’s the idea of swimming was not overly appealing so sitting at one spot for an hour was not a great use of time. We tried to get into the working light house but as Ev was 4 and a half and not the mandatory 5 the overly officious volunteer would not allow him in. The kid can hike Valley of the Winds, around Uluru, tackle sugar cane factories in Queensland and rainforest walks in NSW….but a few steps is apparently too hard for him.

Rottnest does have some beautiful scenery. The beaches, bays and coves would be great to explore when the weather was warmer and swimming was an option you could take without a case of hypothermia. Instead we headed back to the main settlement to get on the train. Arriving with about 15 minutes to spare, we headed off to buy tickets (queue) and then had a 1 km run to make the train on time. Have you ever run with a 20kg pack on your back? I am now 2 inches shorter and Aaron has a concussion from hitting his head on the frame of the backpack…..but we made it…..in fact we were the only passengers so if we hadn’t arrived the train would not have left anyway!!!!!

As we were the only passengers Ev got a treat that was probably the highlight of the day, the driver let him ‘drive’ the train most of the way. While this mainly consisted of him hitting the horn and the ‘vigilance’ button (the driver did the throttle/brake), the smile on his face was priceless. I think every quokka on the island has moved to the western edge, the train horn was sounded so many times

At the end of the train ride was a hill where there were some massive 9 inch guns that were used to fire at enemy shipping in WW2. If you remember Darwin, there are some contrasts. These guns are real, Darwin’s are now made from plywood after the originals were sold to the Japanese for scrap and these guns were completed prior to the war and were used in anger (Darwin’s were completed in 1941 after 60 odd air raids on the city and then not used)

Back into the settlement again and we finally had an encounter with a Quokka. Aaron loved it judging by squeals emanating from the backpack (which is very close to my ear). Ev walked around and followed the quokka for about 15 minutes and then when it went near Al it bit her on the finger.

After the boat ride back we managed to find the van park sans GPS. It kind of helped that the park was right next to the airport…..there are a few signs for that. It was like life in the good old days, four months ago before we got a GPS.

Driving around tonight I managed to repair the GPS with a little help from Harvey (Norman), find a Baskin and Robbins and the cheapest fuel on the trip so far at $1.09. It feels a lot better than $1.88 in central Oz.

Perth has been a lot of fun as it always has been. Unfortunately we have not had enough time here so it is on the ‘revisit on the next lap’ list….that list is getting longer.