Day 1 – Thursday 24/11
Arrived in
BTW there are 3 buses in
Day 2 – Friday 25/11
Day of frustration. Mum wanted to watch “Dirty Dancing”, some supposedly good show tonight. But the price on Friday is like $10 more than Thursday, cos it’s considered a ‘weekend’. Drat, should have gone yesterday.
Walked around
I’ve realised that when travelling with parents, cannot expect things to be done on my time (ie. Strict tight schedule), because they are obliged to spend lots of time on pleasantries and small talk. So by the time “lunch” was done, it was 3pm or so. Sigh.
Aunt Susan suggested going to Subiaco (ubercool suburb with a Friday flea mart) or Garden City, which is a suburban mall near
Met my Uncle Toney and cousin Julian in the city at about 9pm, they had driven up from Bunbury to meet us. They brought us to dinner at Northbridge, which is renowned for its food, but we ended up eating at (of all places) a FOODCOURT due to my father’s desire to stop walking around choosing restaurants. Subsequent to dinner, went to my mum’s fave café at
Day 3 – Saturday 26/11
Did the drive up to the Pinnacles, a rock formation in the desert about 2 ½ hours drive up from
Arrived at Cervantes, a town of about 1000 or so, for lunch. Funniest, we stopped at a tavern first (the word ‘tavern’ should have warned us already) and the carpark was full of trucks; me and Jules walked into the tavern and this whole bunch of rednecks (or bogans as they call them here) turned around to stare at us. Hoho, 2 Asians walking into this remote tavern must have been a rather strange sight. We cleared out straightaway.
Now the classic eg. Of time wasting. Across road from tavern is fish and chip shop. I recommend fish and chips for lunch but get shot down by uncle who wants a sit-down lunch. So off we go looking for a proper sit-down lunch and eventually after lots of wrong turns end up at the Cervantes Motel, where one solitary staff member runs the reception, café and shop area and takes almost 20 min just to take our orders. The order? Oh yeah, you got it, FISH AND CHIPS. *sigh* And yes, once we sit down for lunch, more chatting and pleasantries and by the time we get moving to the Pinnacles, it’s about 3pm. Yay for a 2 hour detour that landed us the same lunch we could have gotten in a quarter of the time and price. Result – we managed the Pinnacles, but not a visit to New Norcia (which would have been on the way),
Pinnacles themselves are cool, thousands and thousands of limestone pillars in weird shapes sticking out of the sand. Apparently they form by the reverse process as stalagmites, they form due to water dissolving the softer areas of rock between the hard limestone and leaving limestone formations sticking up out of the desert soil. =) The best time to see them would have been at sunset, but that would have meant driving back to Perth along unlit roads (even Australia’s major highway, the M1, is not lit between cities), so I guess that’s why we turned back early. Ate at Woodpecker’s woodfired pizza in Subi. Their pizzas are good, salad is OK and soup is really salty. Down the road from Woodpecker’s is Sicilian’s, another café where we bought very good cakes.
Day 4 – Sunday 27/11
Drive down to Bunbury begins. We stopped in Fremantle,
Bought myself a purple button necklace (way cool) and a brooch with glass beads. Had lots more Freo-ing to do but time was up at we had 2 hours to go to get to Bunbury and we had to reach by 6pm to attend church where my other cousin Danielle was playing piano. The church, St Mary’s had actually been destroyed by a cyclone previously, so services were held in a makeshift hall that belongs to some school or community club. The priest is from
Dinner that night at my uncle Toney and aunt Geraldine’s house, was pasta. My uncle and aunt, especially aunt, express their love through gift-giving. So, the pasta dinner was WAY in excess of what normal people eat. Heh. Although my aunt is an excellent cook, everything is done to excess – she has a fridge, a freezer the same size of most peoples’ normal fridge, a larder the size of a HDB storeroom and all are packed chockfull AND more food scattered around the tables and kitchen. Can you see the fats accumulating on me already.. sigh..
Day 5 – Monday 28/11
Went with Jules and Dani to the beach to tan in the morning. After 2 hours of lying in the sun, Jules is darker all over, so is Dani and I am NOT. Sigh. Except for the sunburnt bits around the edges of the back of my swimming costume where Dani forgot to apply sunblock on me.. Thanks Dani, for giving me the weirdest tanlines possible.
Lunch at some fish and chip shop in town, was very good indeed, with fish and chips, squid, mussels and a killer clam chowder. They even managed decent desserts (tiramisu and some fruit and nut slice). Cannot remember the place name but it’s near a bar/restaurant called
After lunch, at about 3pm again, we went to Bunbury’s city center. Bunbury is the 3rd or 4th largest city in WA, and apparently one of the fastest growing, but it still feels so small town. People park on the streetsides for free and there is so little traffic on the road you can just walk across practically without looking. Jules and Dani brought me to Hillzeez, a surf shop that had specials on their bikinis, but I can’t fit any of them, boohoo. Their sizes are 8, 10, 12 etc and I am in between them. Sigh. The bargains were really good though, 50-70% off for brands like Billabing, Quiksilver and Seafolly, so you would pay something like $30-40 in total for what would have cost $100 in
Dinner at home was beef rendang, steamed fish and egg with asparagus and mushroom. Yumm.
Day 6 – Tuesday 29/11
Woke up early in the morning (OK, not that early, 7am or so) to go to
Returned home after for lunch, which was the leftover pasta. Still just as good. Went down to Bunbury city center again for more walking around. Tuesday is the day waffles are half priced at Gelare, so we had waffles – ooh, heavenly. Bought myself a pair of earrings in red and blue.
Dinner again at home; steak, sausages, potato salad and greens, typical gwailo food. Heh. But very good gwailo food indeed. Tomorrow we are going to