Good, But Not Perth-fect

Howdi readers.

Here is my somewhat belated post that covers what we Cassons got up to when our good friend Mel came to visit us for the month of August.

Mel is always keen to explore this wonderful land so we are rarely left with nothing to do. Case in point, Mel’s first week with us was reserved for exploring Perth and it’s surrounding areas. A marvellous choice since I hadn’t been to Western Australia and had wanted to visit Perth for quite some time.

Perth is a about four-and-a-half-hours from Melbourne by an amazing invention called an aeroplane. Mel and I flew on one of these crazy contraptions that was owned by one Richard Branson.  The flight was quite pleasant and even had people on it that served you food and drink. What fun!

Upon touching down In Perth Mel and I rushed to get our luggage and then rushed a bit more to get our hire car. Then we rushed out of the airport in our hire car and followed the spoken directions of the lady in my phone. Some Harry Potter magic going on there.

Unfortunately the magic of the said Harry Potter didn’t extend to the hotel Mel and I had chosen to stay in. It was a crap hole and didn’t even appeal to cockroaches. If you’ve ever seen the room of the first victim in the disturbing but totally watchable movie Seven you’ll have an idea of what our rooms were like. After a short chat, Mel and I went to reception, told them what we thought of their room (politely), informed them that we wouldn’t be staying with them, instructed the receptionists we would be getting a full refund and then promptly exited the hotel of death. After a little online searching we managed to secure a couple of rooms in a hotel and began to plan our time in Perth.

So Tuesday landed in our laps and Mel and I decided to go and investigate some sand dunes about one-and-a-half-hours north of Perth by car. With a little help from the lady in my phone we arrived at our destination in good time. Although sand dunes don’t sound like a must see attraction these ones were renowned for being big, tall and out-of-this-world like in their looks. Also, they were significant enough to sandboard down (nope, didn’t do it). Upon first glance the size of the dunes wasn’t evident because their undulations and structure were obscured by everything being the same colour (just like the walls in a photography studio where the floor, walls and ceiling are all the same colour). However, once you got closer the magnificence of the dunes became quite apparent; and boy were they fun to explore. Mel and I ran, sank, stumbled, cartwheeled and laughed as were traversed a terrain that resembled the surface of an alien planet. It truly was spectacular and never got boring. Who would have thought that sand would be so much fun?

  

After going mad in the sand Mel and I headed back to Perth, with an unexpected pit-stop at a national park that promised food, drink, pretty birds, kangaroos and koalas. We’re not sure why we stopped here but we’re glad we did. Australia is full of little wonders like this park and if you’re not a local it’s important to seize the opportunity to explore these hidden treasures since the chance might not come around again. So explore we did.

  

Once we had cleared the park it was back to Perth for some food. Well more Freemantle than Perth since Freemantle is a foody’s paradise. Chic restaurants, gourmet food and some stunning interiors make Freemantle the place to go for food and drink. Suffice to say Mel and I enjoyed exploring this suburb of Perth.

Wednesday rang in quite early and wasn’t really welcomed until I had eaten a hearty breakfast and drank a gallon of coffee. Only then was I okay with being up early to catch a couple of boats to our destination for the day: Rottnest Island. By the way, the boat trips were cool. The first one was a gentle ride down a river to the main port, whilst the second was a speedboat across a choppy sea to the island. This was awesome and very bumpy. Quite a few of the passengers didn’t share the grin I had on my face as we crashed, smashed and forced our way through the rolling sea.

Once on the island Mel and I sort of hurriedly looked for some form of coach / bus terminal that our bus tour was departing from. We figured it was the best way to see what the island had to offer, and it was. It took us everywhere of importance and gave us quite a lot of info about the island (the name of the island was given to it by a Dutch explorer who thought the island was over run with rats, so he called it a rats’ nest which in Dutch is rottnest). The island is most famous for being home to the happiest creature on Earth: the Quokka. Once mistaken for a rat and getting the island it’s misinformed name, Rottnest Island is the only place you will find these amazing creatures (oh, and Mel found a type of bird that dive bombs you, steals cake from your hand, draws blood and makes any onlookers giggle with amusement). Quokkas also lend themselves to dad jokes and Mel and I had a great time making some up, for example: What do Quokkas eat and drink from? Quokkary. What is a Quokkas favourite month of the year? Quokktober. What creature does a Quokka fear the most? A quokkadile. See. Funny stuff. Mel and I had a ball coming up with Quokka jokes, which probably made us the happiest people on the island.

  

After the reverse boat trips back to Perth it was time to, once again, head to Freemantle to indulge in some more eating and drinking.

Thursday was our last whole day in Perth so we decided to stay local and check out WA’s capital city, and that’s where our trip becomes a little meh! What we checked out was okay (the Botanic Gardens, some of the suburbs and their marinas, the War Memorial) but Mel and I have seen better. Even Mel, an infrequent visitor to these shores, said she had been to better places in Australia. For us, Perth was saved by what was on offer outside of the city; by attractions it had on its doorstep. So although not a total let down Perth wasn’t as Perth-fect as Mel and I thought it would be.

  

Friday saw us reverse engineer our trip and head back to Geelong, via Melbourne airport.

The rest of Mel’s time was a combination of exploring other parts of Australia (the Gold Coast and Uluru) and chilling with us (drinking wine, eating cheese and bingeing on awesome TV shows). We all had a great time and look forward to seeing Mel in 2018 for Christmas in Geelong and New Year in Sydney (not Perth).

Goodbye for now lovey readers.

(Pssst! I will check this article’s grammar and spelling another time).