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| Di's Mum & Dad |
Perth / Fremantle 12/09/12 We meet up with Di’s Parents
We left Geraldton at 8am and headed the 440km drive south to Perth. It was a little strange on the drive down as the road wasn’t too busy, but the scenery was spectacular with green rolling fields full of wildflowers. We haven’t seen green fields since we left Queensland, so it was good to see a different colour on the side of the road. The lush paddocks were full of sheep. Once we hit the outskirts of Perth the traffic started to get heavy, and Craig realised how much he missed the country roads. We pulled into the Fremantle Village Caravan Park, arriving at about 2.30pm, which cost $45 a night. It reminded us of the van parks in New Zealand, as they had vines in between the sites with chalets as on site vans. It is a lovely little park only a couple of hundred metres from the beach. Di’s parents are over here in Perth at the moment, so we drove into the city & had a nice dinner with them. It was great to see them again.
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| Kings Park |
We met Di’s parents at 10am this morning at Kings Park and Botanic Gardens, which is one of the largest inner city parks in the world. It has panoramic views of the city and the Swan River, and all the wildflowers are on display producing a mass of colour. The gardens are huge with all different themes around the park, and they are well maintained and looked sensational. We had a BBQ lunch at the Lotterywest Family Area, & then the kids had a good play on the playground. In the afternoon we left Mum and Dad and went down to the wharf to book our lunch cruise for tomorrow. While here we saw the impressive Bell Tower, but unfortunately we didn’t hear the bells ringing.
It was washing day this morning, and then we headed into Perth city as we are going on a Lunch cruise with Di’s Parents from Perth to Fremantle. We left the Perth Wharf at 11.15am and headed along the Swan River, past all the Yacht clubs and the impressive waterfront homes until we reached the Fremantle Wharf. It is a perfect day to be out on the water with no wind and beautiful sunshine. Once we arrived at Fremantle they brought out the lovely buffet lunch while we cruised back to Perth. It was good to spend more time with Di’s parents relaxing going down the river. Once back at the Perth Wharf we all walked up to the Mall and had a look around, then headed back to Mum and Dads hotel for a look at how the other half live. Di’s mum and dad are leaving very early tomorrow, so we said our goodbyes. We then walked back to the car and headed back to the caravan park.
It was a day to catch up today, and relax by watching the motor racing. In the afternoon we went down to the Fremantle town foreshore and had a little look around the wharfs and the hub of pubs and restaurants.
16/09/12
We packed up this morning and moved caravan parks as Fremantle Village Caravan Park was booked up and we couldn’t extend, so we moved 5km down the same road to the Big 4 Woodman Point Holiday Park which cost $55 a night. We set up camp and relaxed by watching the motor racing. In the afternoon we went for a walk down to the beach.
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| Bell Tower - Perth |
17/09/12
It was car cleaning day today as the car is filthy inside and out from all the dust, sand and mud we have driven through. Most of the caravan parks do not allow car or caravan washing due to water restrictions. Craig went down to car lovers and got the high pressure cleaner all over the car and gave it a vacuum, but it cost $30, so he washed the car properly back at the park. Di did some work and the kids played. In the afternoon we went into Fremantle town to go to the Visitor Centre, do some banking, and have a look around.
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| Inside the Sub |
Today we went to the Maritime Museum at Fremantle. We chose to do the Museum tour as well as the Submarine tour. The Maritime Museum was fascinating with lots of interesting history to do with boating, and of course Craig loved to see the winning America’s Cup yacht “Australia 2”. We initially didn’t think it would take long to see through the museum, but there were three levels of different things to see. We must have spent a couple of hours looking through the Museum. We then had to take turns on the Submarine tour as Aaron was not allowed to go as he was not old enough. Di and Braydon went first on the guided 1.5hr tour of the Oberon class Submarine HMAS Ovens from the Cold War-era, which is situated on Fremantle’s historic World War 2 submarine slipway. After Di and Braydon came back it was Craig’s turn to have a look. The sub was the highlight for all of us as it was truly amazing how people could live in such a small space for months at a time. Even though the sub was not under water it still felt a bit claustrophobic, as the walkways and doorways are so narrow and small. Not the sort of job either of us would want to do.
19/09/12
It was a day to relax around the caravan park, going for a walk to the park so the kids could play on the playground, and just catch up on the Blog etc.
20/09/12
Today we went to Harbour Town in the CBD to do some shopping. Dianne scored very well with some nice new clothes at very cheap prices. On the way home we tried to get our dead computer fixed again, but the techs could not fix the problem, but they have improved it a little bit because it now turns on, but at a time of its’ own choosing.
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| Round House - Fremantle |
We drove into Fremantle today to have a look at the Round House, which is the oldest public building in WA, being built in 1831. It was originally a local prison. We then walked to the WA Shipwreck Gallery which is a huge Museum full of history about ships that have sunk in the area. We also went to the E Shed Markets which are down by the water.
22/09/12 We catch up with Tanya and Danny
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| Craig's cousin Tanya & Danny |
22/09/12 We catch up with Tanya and Danny
Tonight we caught up with Craig’s cousin Tanya and her boyfriend Danny who are on holidays from Ipswich. We met at the Fremantle Wharf and had dinner at one of the many restaurants in the area. It was great to catch up with all the news from back at home, and to get to know Tanya’s boyfriend a little bit.
The sun is out today with beautiful blue skies. This is only the second day in Perth that there has been blue sky. We made the most of the good weather and took a drive up to the northern beaches of Perth. We drove through Cottesloe Beach, City Beach, and had morning tea at Scarborough Beach, and watched all the surfers on the water. We are amazed at the amount of stand-up paddle boards being used in the surf compared to in Queensland. We were also amazed at all the huge million dollar houses right up the coast. There would be thousands of them, so Perth must be a very wealthy city. We then made our way up to Hillarys Boat Harbour and had a lovely lunch, before going onto Quinns Rocks & then making our way back to our caravan park. The northern beaches were absolutely lovely and they lived up to the reputation that we had heard about.
24/09/12
We took a drive south today to the town of Rockingham. It is a town right on the coast that appears to have a lot of heavy industry around it. Near here is Garden Island which is home to 6 frigates & all submarines operated by the Royal Australian Navy Submarine Service. A Clearance Diving Team is also based on the Island & has a Submarine Escape Training Facility - one of only 6 in the world & the only one in the Southern Hemisphere. The Island is linked to the mainland by a 4km causeway, but access is restricted to Navy personnel only.
25/09/12
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| Some of Perths Flowers |
Today was the day to sort out our mobile phones. Since we left Brisbane our Optus reception has been very bad with reception only at major towns. We went to Telstra and changed everything over to try and improve our coverage. We also had to sort out some banking, so it was a leisurely day.
26/09/12
It is raining again today. These are the days that you realise how small the caravan is, when you spend all day inside. Generally the kids are good until about 5pm when it all gets a little much. We had to take Aaron to the doctor today as one of his fingers got a large blister on it and his whole hand swelled up. The doctor said it was like school sores but for babies. He gave him some medicine to fix him up. We also had some bad news that our dog Brocky, who we left with Craig’s Mum and Dad, is really sick. He is a very old dog and he has got arthritis in his back legs.
27/09/12
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| Wildlife at our caravan |
We took the car into Perth for its 30 000km service today. While it was getting looked at we spent the day shopping at Harbour Town again. It is cold and raining once again today, with a top temp. of 15 deg.
28/09/12
We had to move site this morning as there is a tour group arriving where our van is. We did the clothes washing and washed the caravan. We booked a tour for tomorrow to go to Rottnest Island, as the weather is supposed to be nice.
The weather has turned it on for us today with beautiful blue skies and no wind. We were picked up by the ferry shuttle bus at 9.15am at our caravan park, which took us through to Fremantle at the ferry dock. Unfortunately it is the first day of the school holidays over here, so the ferry and dock were full of people, luggage, and push bikes. Since Rottnest Island has no cars, everyone gets around by bikes, so there were hundreds of bikes that had to get loaded onto the boat. We left the dock at around 10am, and the boat trip was relatively calm. Rottnest is 19km from Fremantle which took 25mins to cross. Once we arrived at Thomson Bay, there were boats everywhere, as this has been the first good day in a while. On bad days the trip over to Rottnest gets so bad that the ferries do not even run. Once off the dock you arrive at a nice little village with restaurants and shops. All the buildings appear to be very old and are all styled in a similar manner. We had a quick look around and then had an early lunch. We grabbed some Subway (yes there was a Subway), but a Subway with a difference. This Subway sells all the usual stuff, plus Pizza’s and healthy hot chips. We decided to try the hot chips with some subs, but while we were eating we were distracted by some Quokka’s, and a crow swooped down and stole our chip box and flew off. Di was not happy…….. There were quite a few Quokka’s roaming around in the town area. We then hopped on the only bus on the island, which is a jump on, jump off at your leisure bus, that continually drives around the coast line of the island with 18 stops on the agenda, which takes an hour. We were blown away by the beautiful bays and scenery. It was truly spectacular. We got off about ½ way around and walked up to the Wadjemup Lighthouse for 360 deg. views around the island. Once we had a look around, we went back to the bus stop and continued our trip around the island. We again hopped off the bus about 3km from the start so we could walk the last stage to take in the views. On the northern end of the island most of the bays were filled with huge boats with Villa’s on the water’s edge. We would love to stay in this location. Once back at the village it was time for a quick bite of afternoon tea at the Bakery, and then back on the boat for a smooth trip back to Fremantle. It was a day to remember, and has definitely been put on the list of places to visit again one day - hopefully.
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