Tuesday 31st October – Exploring Freo and Halloween hi-jinks

I had a lovely night’s sleep with none of my recent middle-of-the-night disturbance and slept in until 9am.  After a couple of cups of tea, I was ready to go and catch the ferry to Rottnest Island as planned.  However, something ground-breaking was happening…. Simon decided it was time to get rid of his beard! It was back to the old ‘goatee-Simon’ for the first time in a year.  I can’t decide if I like having the old Simon back or whether I had got used to the beard?!

We finally arrived down at the quay past midday and found that there were no ferries until 315pm.  It would not be worth spending about £100 to spend only a couple of hours there before the return journey.

Me enjoying my massive veggie Dawg

Time for Plan B – explore the town and, most importantly, get some food.  We opted for ‘Wassup Dawg’ for a gourmet hotdog (which was lush!) before wandering to the seafront. We were confused as to why there were unexpected blocks of yellow painted on the town hall and other buildings we walked past.  All became clear when we reached the steps leading up to the ‘Roundhouse’ (the other name for Freemantle Gaol, the oldest public building in WA, built 1831) and turned around to get the right perspective:

So that's why the town hall looks like this....

A piece of artwork, called the Arcs D’ellipses, by Felice Varini that suddenly made sense. 

From there we continued on to the harbour (right) and there we found a trendy brewery/bar called ‘Little Creatures’, where we paused for a sample.

Always on the look out for a good bird shot!

In some literature that I had picked up I had read that the Freemantle prison tour was worth a look.  Especially as the prison is the only built world heritage site in the whole of West Australia having been built by convicts between 1851 and 1859.  It was the West’s main prison until its closure in 1991. We opted for the ‘doing time’ tour which lasts an hour and fifteen minutes.  Our guide was very informative and showed us all of the tiny cells, exercise yards before the tour culminated with the gorier side of prison life – solitary confinement and the gallows.

The main entrance to Freemantle prison

View of the main cell-block from outside and (below) inside

The cells were tiny and extremely basic in the beginning

Si preparing for 20 lashes

The well-used gallows

We enjoyed exploring, but we had a prior arrangement back at the Allens. Halloween was in full swing and Si had been volunteered to don a gorilla suit to scare the trick or treating youngsters as they left the premises.  The Allens do this holiday in style – all wearing fancy dress, with the house looking amazing and providing enough sweets for the whole neighbourhood! We were then treated to a lovely lasagne before spending time with the kids, playing some darts and blogging before bed.

I'm not convinced that they were very scared.....

Monday 30th October – Aussie Admin and a lovely bike ride

What a rubbish night – despite being in bed and asleep before 10pm, we were both wide awake again at 1am and I managed to see 5am before feeling there was any chance of dozing off again.  I thought we had beaten this thing??! It would appear not.

When the alarm went off at 9am it was time to mobilise and keep active.  We had some admin to take care of.  Off to a local Medicare centre we went to enrol.  Their website informs visitors to Australia from the UK can enrol to enable us to get reduced or free medical care if required.  However, having secured a parking space near the centre we were quickly advised that we shouldn’t worry about enrolling unless we need to make a claim after we have needed to utilise their services.  Meaning that if one of us needs an ambulance or a hospital stay the credit card will have to wear it for a while!

That was easy.  On to the next task.  We headed to the nearest Telstra store where we invested in two SIM cards and bought a pack of data, texts and calls (including unlimited international) for only AUD$40 for a month so that’ll come in handy for navigation, booking campsites AND potential calls home.  Aussie phone numbers sorted.

We did a touch of essential shopping at Anaconda mega-outdoor store.  We managed to only splash out on fly nets to protect our heads when the flies get too much in the middle and some 80% deet mosquito protection.

I had pre-arranged an afternoon bike ride around Joondalup Lake with Lisa.  We met at the house after she finished her shift and following a little tweaking to the height of the saddle on Ken’s bike we were off.  It was a beautiful sunny spring day and we both enjoyed being out on a ride with someone else who really wanted to be there rather than our other halves that had probably been bribed or pressured into it instead! It was just over 19km to do the whole circuit.  We saw a skink, lots of parrots and gallahs and even some waterfowl when we stopped at a viewing spot.  In just over an hour we were done, and I felt much better having had some exercise for the first time in days.

View of Joondalup lake

After a speedy shower, the rucksacks were hastily re-packed and flung into Lisa’s car which she is kindly lending us the use of until we get our camper on Friday. Then it was off to our next hosts in East Freemantle, or Freo as it’s known round these parts. Simon knows Linton and his wife Daniella slightly better than I do.  In fact, I think I may have only met them once and that was during a very drunken night at a Walkabout Bar in Temple, London and that was about ten years ago! It would take far too long to explain how we know them, let’s just summarise that it’s through our network of mates.  Nuff said.

We arrived at the Allen’s house about 6pm.  They had been busy preparing for Halloween and, boy, had they done an excellent job?! The place was covered in cobwebs, spiders and bomb tape.  We met their boys, Daxton (5) and Bailen (3), Daniella’s parents from Pitsea who were also staying and their Boston terrier, Winston.  We had a lovely BBQ along with lots of beer, wine and even fortified wine for when wine alone is just not enough! It was quite a late and tipsy night.

Sunday 29th October – Exeter University reunion

Broken sleep, but having turned in so early we still manged a reasonable night.  The alarm at 9am was a bit of a shock but hopefully this will help us turn the corner to beat the jet lag.

We’d arranged to be picked up by Simon and Aimee about 10am.  They arrived in the biggest bluest truck (or yute I should probably say) along with their children Edward and Molly.  I was in the same year as Simon at Exeter studying Biological Sciences between 1997-2000.  Aimee was in the year ahead of us, but we were all members of the university scuba club.  That was where their relationship began so they’ve been together for quite a while.  There aren’t many couples I know of from uni that are still happily together after all this time! And we hadn’t all met up since about 2001!  They emigrated to Oz in 2004 following some members of Simon’s family who were already living here.

It was a squeeze but Simon (the Simons referred to as ‘my Simon’ or ‘your Simon’ for the rest of the day!) and I hopped into the truck and we headed to the Swan Valley.  This is a wine region containing many wineries and bars.  We arrived at the Henley Brook pub as it opened at 11am, securing a premier table on the lawn.  Finally, the Australian weather turned up today and spring is here!  

Our prime table at the Henley Brook pub

Edward and Molly meeting the animals

Aimee’s Simon seemed to be on a mission to drink from one end of the bar to the other.  I had to hastily warn him that I no longer have my Uni stamina as far as drinking is concerned!  But we enjoyed sampling some of the local brews as recommended by the bar staff and caught up on each other’s lives over the last 16 years whilst sat in the sunshine. We had our first experience of the high price of living here – beer and food are not cheap – a pint will set you back 8-12 AUD (Aussie dollars) depending on strength, that’s between £6-£9 a pint, ouch!  Going ‘out out’ will have to be a rare treat during this stint of the trip!  The pub was surrounded by grassland containing horses and a mobile petting zoo arrived to offer something to help keep the kids occupied. 

This orphaned Joey was an extra special surprise

Simon watching Gilberts (the band not the horse)

A live band, Gilbert’s cover band, started at one.  Named after the pub’s horse (!), the musicians seemed unaware of how talented they were.  They play here every week and are a really tight unit playing a mixed set containing tracks from Stevie Wonder to Matchbox Twenty, one of my Simon’s favourites.  No matter how many horses or baby Joey’s there were, the kids became restless, so we tore ourselves away from the beer garden.  It wasn’t such a hardship seeing as the next stop was for chocolate and wine tasting!  Now mid-afternoon we were dropped back at our temporary residence. Saying farewell to the Joneses we had discussed the possibility of a camping trip down south of Perth next weekend. I really hope that it happens so that we can spend some more time with them before we head North. 

Please can we try some more?

Afternoon drinking had made us both feel dozy, but it would be dangerous to sit down this early in the day!  For a change, both Ken and Lisa were home, having both worked early shifts.  The four of us took the dogs over to the quarry for a leg stretch and then our hosts suggested an evening trip to the coast.  An unexpected treat for our day.  

A couple of shots of Mullaloo beach

An Ibis

About 20 minutes west was Mullaloo beach.  I took a brief wander down to the golden sands to get a couple of shots whilst the others ordered some coffees at Dome café and secured some outdoor seating. 

It was a glorious evening with not a cloud in the sky.  Instead of remaining there for the sunset, we headed further south to Hillary’s, a fashionable boat harbour containing numerous outlets, restaurants and bars.  The place to be seen in Perth.  The sun disappeared rapidly and the temperature dropped. We enjoyed some extremely rich and thick hot chocolates before returning to Edgewater. 

Sunset over Hillary's boat harbour

Discussions with all our friends today have made us consider some sights south of Perth that it would be lovely to see before heading north…. Maybe we do have time to squeeze these in??! I have been making copious notes in my smaller ‘Part II travel book’, you can’t remember all this stuff without writing it down somewhere!