Bunbury

Wednesday 5^th October

As we left Perth we got onto the Kwinana Freeway which is a fairly new road, and that took us all the way to Bunbury.

Just like driving along the southern motorway out of Auckland. The country side was flat and green, much like New Zealand. Our motor camp is on the eastern fringes of Bunbury City.  After we set up camp Cameron went off to explore the camp ground.

We decided to go into the city to the visitors centre and have a look around. Cameron was still out exploring somewhere, so Christel went looking for him and found him sitting on the ground holding his foot.  Turns out he was running across a wooden footbridge in his bare feet and somehow managed to get a huge splinter in his foot.  He hobbled back to the caravan with Christel’s help where we had a look at it and fairly quickly decided there was no way we were going to be able to get it out.  It was well and truly buried in his foot and there was nothing sticking out to get hold of to pull it out, so it was off to the Accident and Emergency at the hospital, which was luckily just around the corner form the motorcamp.

After a heap of laughing gas and a couple of injections the doctor decided the only way to get the splinter out was to cut it out. Thanks to the laughing gas Cameron thoroughly enjoyed the whole operation, and was able to give the doctor a couple of his Jim Carrie impersonations while she was busy chopping into his foot.

He was sent home with instructions to keep his foot up for 48 hours, so now we are all a bit handicapped as to what we can do.

Thursday 6^th October

After the usual morning’s school work we drove into town for a look around, then seeing as one of us couldn’t do much walking we decided to have a drive through the surrounding countryside.  Cameron was quite comfortable with his foot up on the back seat. 

From Bunbury we drove east towards the town of Collie.  On the way we took a detour to have a look at the Wellington Dam and Lake in the Wellington National Park.

We then continued on to Collie, and as we were having a drive around the town came across a tank parked in front of the local RSL. 

From Collie we headed south to Mumballup, and then west to Donnybrook where we called into the local for a beer.  Donnybrook is the official home of the Granny Smith Apple. We then carried on east to Boyanup and then back up to Bunbury.

All the way we drove through beautiful green countryside with lush green pastures and rolling green hills.  Very much like the Waikato countryside at the height of spring. We’ve obviously left the outback well and truly behind.  We passed through towns and localities all with rather odd names like Bibbulmum, and Munda Biddi.  It seems the early settlers had a fixation with the word up when it came to naming towns in this area. As a result we have lots of towns ending in up.  Like Burekup, Binningup, Dardenup, Myalup, Balingup, Nannup, Dinninup , in fact just about every sort of up you could think of. But we didn’t see whatsup, holdup, stuffup or ballsup.  We’ll keep looking.

Friday 7^th October

The invalid was getting around quite well on his injured foot, so we decided to have a look around Bunbury, and in particular the Dolphin Encounter Centre which appears to be Bunbury’s main claim to town.  We called at the Visitors Centre and found out that apart from the Dolphin Encounter Centre there was bugger all else to see or do.  We had a look around the shops and then went to McDonalds for lunch.

From there we headed out to the Dolphin Centre which is located on the beach front.  It has been set up there because apparently dolphins have been frequenting the area for ages.  They didn’t frequent while we were there but the centre held quite a few good attractions.  Overall another lot of noise about nothing much which the Aussies seem so good at. 

From there we drove along the waterfront to a lookout over the town and bay.  Some of the houses along the waterfront were absolute mansions. Bunbury is a lovely seaside town and has a nice feeling about it. 

Then it was another drive around town before heading back to camp.  Tomorrow we will head further south to Busselton which is only about 60 km away, and is renowned for its jetty, which is apparently the longest wooden jetty in the southern hemisphere.

Perth 2

Friday 30^th September

Today we drove down to Fremantle looking around the town and port and also visited the Fremantle Maritime Museum.  One of the museum’s exhibits is an Australian Navy Submarine, which was based at Freemantle, and in service up until about 15 years ago.

The submarine has been pulled up onto dry dock, and the museum conduct tours through it.  It was quite fascinating seeing just how cramped everything was for the crew living aboard it.

They also had Australia 2 on display, which was the first Australian yacht to win the America's Cup.  There was also a huge shed full of steam engines, most of which were operating.  We all thoroughly enjoyed this visit.

After the museum visit we drove into Freemantle Central and had a drink in the Sail and Anchor Hotel which was one of Philip’s favourite watering holes when he was living here.  It‘s still rocking. 

We then had a look through the nearby Freemantle Markets before calling it a day and heading back to camp.

Saturday 1^st October

Spent the day at camp and then went out for dinner at the local Pub, a really old building with lots of atmosphere and lovely meals.

Sunday 2^nd October.

We had been in contact with Bruce and Marilyn Linehan, who are friends of Phil and Jayne’s; from the Aero Club in New Plymouth, and who we had met in NZ.  Marilyn used to teach at Waitara High School and we were keen to catch up with them. They moved to Perth about 18 months ago.

We arranged to meet them at a bar at Hillarys Boat Harbour, which is a northern suburb of Perth, and is where the Western Australian Aquarium is situated.  We had been told the Aquarium was well worth a visit and arranged to meet Bruce and Marilyn after we had visited the aquarium.

On the way to the Aquarium we drove along the Hillarys Beach Front, ogling all the flash houses built on the water front.  Most of them well above the million dollar mark I would think.

The aquarium was brilliant with lots of displays and a long walk through a glass tunnel with huge sharks and the world’s largest stingray swimming over the top. 

After the aquarium we met up with Bruce and Marilyn for a drink at a waterfront bar before following them back to their place for drinks and catch up, and a lovely BarBQ tea.

Monday 3^rd October

Today we headed to one of Perth’s southern suburbs to visit the RAAF (Royal Australian Air Force) Museum at Bull Creek. 

One of the main planes they had on display was a WW2 Catalina, and beside the plane was a video show. 

We couldn’t believe our eyes when we stopped to watch the video and found the presenter was none other than Brett Emeny, our neighbour from Norfolk Road, who has the helicopters. The video was all about New Zealand’s Catalina Flying Boat, and Brett is their Chief Pilot.

There was also another video for sale about the Vampire Jet, and this was also presented by Brett,  as it featured the Vampire he owns, which is the same one Dad had a ride in for  his 80^th birthday.   We didn’t watch this video but read all about it on the video case.

Besides lots of other planes, one of the other more noticeable planes on display was a WW2 Lancaster Bomber. 

There were also interactive displays which Cameron thoroughly enjoyed.

Tomorrow we will continue our trip and head about 200 km south along the coast to the town of Bunbury where we expect to spend a couple of days.

Perth 1

Hi everybody.  No we haven’t disappeared off the face of the earth.  We are camped just out of Perth and doing the tourist thing in and around the city.  We decided to keep all our Perth sightseeing in one blog, hence the quiet spell.  Sorry to cause you all so much worry.  So here goes.

Wednesday 21^st September

Welcome to Perth.  We woke up to a cold wet windy day.  After the morning’s school work, we went for a drive into Midland, which is the closest Shopping Centre to us, and also the closest place for us to catch the train into Perth City.  We had a drive around and found the Railway Station and generally familiarised ourselves with the area. We then went back to our cold wet soggy motor camp.  What a change after all the beautiful weather we had experienced coming down the west coast.

Thursday 22^nd September

We woke up to wet blustery showers.  As the morning wore on the weather improved. After School Work we went into the village of Mundaring which is just up the road from our motor camp, and called at their Visitor Centre.  They suggested we visit the nearby Mundaring Weir, which is a huge dam built in the late 1890’s, to supply water for the gold mining towns of Coolgardie and Kalgoorlie 600km away on the edge of the Nullabor Plain. It was a huge undertaking in its time, and there was a lot of controversy about it.  The engineer who designed the whole scheme received lots of criticism, and ended up committing suicide before the scheme was finished.

One of the stabilizing legs on the caravan had seized up so we decided to head into Perth to find a caravan yard to get a replacement.  We ended up in the suburb of Kenwick on the southern outskirts of Perth, where we managed to get a new one.  On the way back to camp we drove past Perth International Airport.  From our motor camp we can watch the planes on their final approach to the airport, and it seems there is a plane going overhead about every 5 minutes.

On the road leading down to our camp ground we saw one of the biggest mobs of kangaroos we have seen in Australia in a paddock beside the road.

Friday 23^rd September

School work again and then we drove into Midland where we caught the train into Perth City.  We wandered around the streets, enjoying the performances of the various buskers and entertainers, and admired a huge chalk painting of a pavement artist.  We ended up down at the waterfront by the Bell Tower,

where we could look up at the skyscrapers that form central Perth. 

We then walked back through an old fashioned shopping mall, and wandered through some of the huge shopping complexes like Myers, before going back to the train station for the trip home. 

The train makes 14 stops between Midland and the city. At one of the stations a woman got on and as she walked past us we were nearly knocked out by the stink of her body odour.  Just our luck, there was a vacant seat next to Christel, and that’s where she sat.  We tried holding our breath, but you can only do that for so long.  Thank goodness she only stayed on for a couple of stops, and when she stood up to get off, a huge brown cloud of B.O. followed her. We all took a deep breath and held it until she was off the train., Yummy!!!!

Saturday 24^th, Sunday 25^th September

While mucking around at the motorcamp this morning we discovered a hole about the size of a 50cent coin had been punched in the front of the caravan just below the roof level.  It must have been caused by a rock flying up somewhere as we came down to Perth. So it was another trip into town to buy some sealant before any more rain got in.  Bit of a bugger as we have been so careful with the van.  Hopefully our Insurance Company will come to the party.

There are several kids here for the weekend so we haven’t seen much of Cameron.  We decided to stay around camp for the weekend so he can make the most of having some kids to play with. It’s good for him to mix with kids after spending so much time with just us for company.

Monday 26^th September

Away back up in Darwin or somewhere, in a K Mart, Cameron had seen a particular LEGO set that he had set his heart on.  We told him if he kept saving his money he could afford to get it once we got to Perth.  Of course we weren’t allowed to forget it, and as soon as we got here to Perth we had to go hunting for it. Unfortunately, every K Mart we went into had sold out of it.  He was getting quite downhearted about it.  We even tried Target and Big W, all without luck.  

So while we were in Perth Central we had a look in the Myers Shopping Complex by the railway station. Sure enough they had it in stock.  K Mart’s price for the set was $119. Myers price was $169.  He had saved up $120 and was really hacked off when he saw the price at Myers.  We told him we would keep looking as there were lots of K Marts in Perth. 

We had heard about a huge shopping mall called Carousel, in one of Perth’s suburbs, so decided to have a look there.  Again nothing in K Mart, but there was another Myers Store there, and sure enough they had it.  And would you believe it, they just happened to have a toy sale on, and their price was $84.  Was he a happy boy!!!

On our way back from there we took a small detour and drove past one of the houses Phillip lived in when he was working here in Perth about 25 years ago.

Tuesday 27^th September

Another showery day, so after school work we decided to visit the Western Australia Museum which is in the centre of Perth.  We took the train in again, no smelly woman this time, thank god, and then had a short walk to the Museum. We spent a very interesting 3 or 4 hours viewing the various displays, including one hall with stuffed animals, another with hundreds of birds and another with thousands of butterflies.  They also had a huge life size dinosaur in the entranceway.

Wednesday 28^th, Thursday 29^th September

We stayed around the camp for two days doing school work and washing and things.  Cameron spent most of his time buried in his new LEGO set, making a huge truck and trailer and two cars.  He did the whole think himself without any help from us and was a very proud boy when he showed us the finished product.