From
http://ianrstewart.blogspot.com/
We all travelled across the continent to Perth on Friday - 3 hour flight, but gaining two and a half hours of time, meant we almost arrived when we left! We couldn't have timed it better with another heatwave descending on South Australia, taking temperatures in Adelaide up in to the high 30's, whilst Western Australia was experiencing a much cooler spell - mid-high 20's - much more comfortable.
We picked up our hire car - oh how I hate that experience - why are they never ready for you? - and drove up the Swan Valley, WA's "Valley of Taste" as they call it. Our resort is an upmarket golf resort, with 2 superb courses with an international reputation. The apartment is very nice too and, every evening as the sun goes down, a mob of kangaroos bounds across the golf course and stops just opposite our place for their supper. They're as prevalent here as rabbits on our courses back home:
Staying on the wildlife theme, we spotted another huge beaut of a spider outside one of the apartments here:
We had dinner on Friday night with Kelly's pal and former Aberdeen flatmate, Sophie and her daughter. Then, on Saturday morning, I awoke to a dawn chorus of a family of magpies on our balcony:
What a racket they make. As Chris said, Australian birds don't seem to sing like European birds - they squawk.
Jumping forward to Sunday, in Kings park in Perth, we saw a praying mantis, dancing up a wall:
On Saturday, Chris wanted to take us down to Fremantle and visit a well known microbrewery there, Little Creatures. Logistics were proving a bit difficult - we didn't want to take the car and seriously considered hiring a limo, but a cost of A$200 or so rather put us off. Chris eventually found a good public transport solution - walk a mile or so to the bus, then connect with the train - total cost just A$18 for all of us - bargain! It's about the only thing that's cheap out here - especially given the current exchange rate. Beers for £8 - £9 are at Scandinavian levels.
Fremantle is a funky little town - whilst still also being a big container port. Like other places on the edge of the world - Key West, for instance - it attracts more than its fair share of hippies/dropouts/alternative lifestyles. We also discovered it has not just one, but three microbreweries, so the day become a bit of a circular pub crawl between all three, interspersed with coffee stops and a brief nap in the park.
Little Creatures was excellent - a huge modern brewpub in the American style, sitting right on the harbour front. We had lunch there, but supper was at the Monk, which is much smaller and on the main street, just opposite the Sail and Anchor, a proper old fashioned pub with a huge selection of brews in an old colonial building:
Jo reckoned they had the coolest toilets she'd ever been in. Later on, we returned there and sat upstairs on the balcony:
Sunday was quieter - we drove in to Perth, had a coffee and strolled round the malls, then bought supplies for a picnic in King's park, which overlooks the city and the Swan river estuary:
We walked round the gardens and across the glass bridge - Jo a little tentatively:
Then we drove Kelly and Chris back to the airport and their flight back to Adelaide, so Jo and I are now on our own again for a few days, until we return to Adelaide on Friday.
