Saddle Sore in the City

Saddle Sore in the City
Perth, Australia

Perth, Australia

So here we were on a flight from Heathrow about to enjoy our first ever free holiday, courtesy of Wanderlust magazine we had won a 10 day holiday in Western Australia, as we had already booked our own flights to KL we built in a few days here to get over our jet lag as we learnt last time that travelling this way not on a 4 month overland journey left us totally paralysed with jetlag.

There is however one small problem with winning a holiday, it means that I have to do something that I have barely done in the last 3 years and I had to hand over control of our booking and our destiny to a travel agent. Western Australia Tourism had passed control to Austravel a specialist in booking Australian travel so I felt we were in safe hands and whilst with £3,000 to spend I could have probably made it last significantly longer than 10 days, we figured what was the harm in going with the nice hotels and posh tours that they had arranged and have a holiday like normal people. We never ever anticipated that we would be returning to Australia for a 2-3 week holiday after our 6 month journey but at least it was to a part we had not visited properly before and of all the places around the world that we have friends, we have by far the highest concentration of friends to visit and stay with in Perth than anywhere aside from Jersey.

Whilst I say that I was happy to hand over control to Austravel, that is slightly untrue as I managed to get them to change our half day Perth city tour to a day trip with bikes over to Rotness Island, somewhere that we have visited previously but that was before Tim began his quest to get a selfie with every animal known to man, and quokkas are quite possibly the cutest most adorable creatures we have ever met so a return trip to see them was a no brainer.

Our time in KL was a bit of a blur of jetlag, sun and swimming pools. We had booked an apartment on AirBnB which was really nice and spacious and had two fabulous pools one with awesome city views, but the problem was that it was over a 6 lane motorway which was never ever quiet and didn’t assist us with our broken night’s sleep. The location was ok, on a train line, but it was a slow process to get just a few kilometers across the city. This is where we discovered the sheer joy of Uber. I had never really thought about using Uber, the only thing I knew about it was it was kind of a taxi app, but when I registered and used it for the first time I was blown away. Basically you set your location and destination, it tells you how far away a ride is and an estimated price. What was unbelievable was that using Uber was half the price at least of getting a train and took a quarter of the time. Result.

Thankfully by the time we were headed back to the airport we had battled our jetlag and we were back in the game just in time to head to Oz. We were so lucky to land in Perth and to be greeted by our gorgeous friend Melissa, Austravel had short changed us a little as we had no airport transfers or breakfasts included in our stays but thankfully we had some good friends to look after us. A huge thank you needs to go to Melissa, James and their adorable little family for looking after us so well for our 3 days in Perth, we were transported around, we were fed, entertained and treated like royalty, you guys rock and we can’t wait for our next visit to see your 4 legged family member all grown up.

Having done Perth before it was nice to enjoy a relaxed few days, we were staying in an Ibis in the city center and all we had planned aside from catching up with friends was our day trip to Rotness Island or Rotto as we (and every Australian) likes to call it. Whilst Austravel had advised us that April was a perfect time to Visit Western Australia, I began to question their Australia expertise as Perth was just about to come into winter. The sky was overcast, the nights were cold and there was rain a plenty, so we did begin to think that our memory of Rotto being a picturesque island with stunning blue waters and the perfect location for a picnic on the beach were about to be ruined. As expected we woke up that next morning for our trip to Rotto and the weather was vile, cloudly, grey and cold. We packed our daytrip bag with everything from swimwear to raincoats and decided not to bother packing a picnic this time as sitting on a cold wet beach with squashed sandwiches was not going to be ideal. However as our boat set off over to Rotto it seemed like someone was looking after us, we left the grey clouds behind in Perth and on Rotto, the sun was shining, the sand was white, the sea was turquoise and it could not have been a more perfect day.

The best thing about Rotto is that it only has about 4 buses, one bin truck and a couple of utes so cycling around the island is safe and enjoyable, especially for someone like me that really hates riding bikes with traffic. We set off on our bikes with a plan, not to seek out the best views on the island, but to seek out the friendliest quokkas we could. Our mission started quite well, we had a selfie before we knew it, but we knew we could do better so we just kept going. We love Rotto, it is just so pretty and quaint, it is basically just full of holiday cottages and we were there during the school holidays so whilst it was significantly busier than when we last visited, it was still pretty quiet and we barely passed 3 bikes an hour and could easily find an empty beach to relax on. But there was no time to relax, after a delicious lunch from the bakery of one day old sandwiches which were half the price of the fresh ones we set off for our final quokka hunt. Over lunch we had been trying to work out how long it had been since we had ridden bikes and it turns out that is was quite possibly over two years previously when we had been on Rotto. Needless to say we were both very quickly becoming saddle sore and walking our bikes was becoming preferable to riding them. However we pushed through the pain and before long we had located quite possibly the best quokka ever. We named him Ton-of-Fun because he was literally a ton of fun. He was so relaxed and happy to have his photo taken he had Tim and I lying on the floor behind him taking photos whist he happily posed with a twig like a Jedi master, he checked out our bikes and before long he was ready to climb all over Tim who had decided to lay on the floor in an effort for the perfect shot. Tired, sunburnt and saddle sore, our mission had been completed and we got quite possibly our best ever selfie with a wild animal; Ton-of-fun, you rock!!

Little did we realise on getting back to Perth that we were going to have more than just memories and photos of our day on Rotto. Anyone squeamish should skip to the next paragraph as trust me not even I wanted to be involved in this memory. We were both saddle sore from riding the cheap hire bikes for kilometers in search of quokkas but Tim had taken saddle sore to a whole new level. He gave me that coy ‘babe can you have a look at some thing for me’ request, which always fills me with dread as it is never good news. Before long he was on the bed, legs akimbo with what I can only describe as a man-gina on display for me. He was red raw and swollen and I then spent the next week lovingly applying nappy rash cream and talc to try and ease his suffering. Whoever said married life is bliss, lol!! You should all just be thankful that I quickly deleted the photo I took to show Tim what he had done to himself!

Our time in Perth was fantastic, it was our base between trips but for the ease of writing one blog I am adding all our other visits here.

We went to quite possibly the best named toasted sandwich bar in the world, Toastface Grillah, we did our best to blend in with the hipsters whilst we enjoyed a toastie that well and truly exceeded expectations before we joint Melissa, James and Family on a trip to the Fire Station Museum. More aimed at entertaining the children we were over the moon to get to sit in a fire engine and nothing, not even a queue of small children,
was coming between Tim and the chance to dress up as a fireman!

On another visit we decided to treat ourselves to hire car which gave us a little more freedom and we were lucky enough to be offered a room with our old Jersey friends Gillian and James, who live in the northern suburbs of the city. Little did we realise that we were going to be given the guest wing, treated to movie nights in the best set up living room come cinema that we have ever seen and once again were spoilt rotten with fine wine and dinners. As it happens the cinema set up and magnificent tv wall mounting was by none other than James who just happens to run Pro TV http://www.protvperth.com.au/ available for all your digital antenna, tv mounting and set up services in Perth and beyond!!

As I mentioned earlier, we have by far the most amount of friends in Perth than anywhere in the world so we still had more to see, next up Tony & Roo. We met these guys in Vietnam on a blind date after reading one of Tony’s books and as we were visiting Perth, he was just finalising the manuscript for the next book, which just happened to feature none other than yours truly. So we had a fine afternoon of chatting, laughing, drinking goon, testing Perths finest milkshakes and burgers before getting a photo of all of us featured in the book clutching a section!!

Last but not least we had one more friend and one more day trip to fit in, Lorna and Ez were kind enough to let us house sit for them when we arrived in Perth on our first trip. We never really got much of a chance to catch up with them so it was great to be back to see them and they had a recommendation for somewhere that we had not been before, Yanchip National Park.

Just north of where we were staying with Gillian and James, it was a perfect place to visit and with the mention of kangaroos and koalas we definitely did not have to be asked twice. Even the drive out to Yanchip was fascinating as it seems that this is the new area of development and all along the motorway Truman show style identical estates are popping up lining the entire stretch of motorway, seemingly these are planned to be the new retirement villages for the Poms headed to Oz.

Yanchip was great, once a hunting ground for the local aborigines it is now a protected area which is thriving with all sorts of birds and wildlife. Once a huge lake made up a part of the park but this has noticeably dried up and boat docks are now surrounded with dried up lake beds and reeds. However the birds, wallabies, kangaroos and koalas are still thriving in the area. We had a delicious lunch which drew in brightly coloured parrots that were brazen enough to come and take snacks straight out of your hand if you were not careful. Our last port of call in Yanchip was to visit the vast cave system which lies within the park. We visited Crystal cave, but there are many more including one which has been turned into a wedding venue!

Crystal cave is a limestone cave which has been carved out by hundreds of years of water flow and is full of sparkling crystal like stalactites and stalagmites. On our tour the regular guide was sick and we had a stand in who was absolutely hysterical and gave us a no-nonsense tour though the vast cave. We were all a little less concerned with the guide and were very carefully checking the small glass slides that were glued to various sections of the cave to show if the walls, floors or ceilings were moving! On our way home we took a short detour (partially because Ez fell asleep when he was meant to be directing Tim and Lorna and I were too busy chatting to notice) before heading to Yanchip Lagoon for a look at the view and an obligatory ice cream. Thanks so much Lorna & Ez for a great day!

Well we did it, we saw everyone we needed to see and had a thoroughly great time doing it, as always Perth you have been amazing but we need to spread our wings and visit some more of Western Australia, next stop Broome!