Our first full day in the campervan today and we overslept! Check-out times on campsites are apparently 10am and can in some places be rigidly enforced. Luckily at Mount Barker it wasn’t as we didn’t leave until about 10.45! From there we headed initially east and then turned off the A1 onto the B1 – Princes Highway. This long, straight road took us...
Today the campervan beckoned … We have booked a campervan so that we can head across to Melbourne. The only issue was that the campervan pick was about an hour’s walk away. So we could have just got a taxi, but no … walking an hour up a steep hill into the Adelaide Hills in 25 degree heat seemed like the best way, so we went for that. It was...
A leisurely start to the day saw us reversing our route from the airport – ferry to Elizabeth Quay, train to Redcliffe (changing at Perth Central) and bus to the airport ….. An easy run which meant that we were a couple of hours early at the airport. Turns out that the flight caterers were not as a ahead of the game as us and the flight ended up leaving...
Continuing the theme of syllabally-challenged names, today we went to Freo – perhaps better known as Fremantle. This vernacular diminutive – Freo – is what most locals call the port at the mouth of the Swan River. We had been through on the ferry to Rotto yesterday, but from the water it looked fairly unprepossessing – mainly just port-like...
Today we decided to have a day out to Rottnest Island. However, never ones to waste time with excess syllables, the locals simply call it Rotto. Rottnest Island is about 11 miles to the west of Fremantle, so to get there we picked up the Rottnest Express ferry (Go Rotto!) from Barrack Street jetty at 8.45. This took us on a great run down the beautiful Swan River for...
We woke far too early – hardly surprising given the jet lag, but with a nice sunny (and hot!) day in prospect we decided to head off early. We took the very handy ferry from South Perth across to Elizabeth Quay which is very handy for the city. Our destination though was Kings Park, just to the west of the city centre. Kings Park is one of the largest inner...
We rashly decided on this occasion to take the non-stop flight to Perth. Slightly alarmingly, when you look at the timings, it appears to take over 24 hours and the thought of a day in the same seat didn’t really appeal. However, once you take account of the time difference, it comes down to sixteen and a half hours – not quite so bad. Even so, wedged in...
Our last day today, so we headed up to Palm Beach to walk up Barranjoey Head to the lighthouse. How appropriate then that we walked past them filming Home and Away at the Surf Lifesaving Club. Chatting to the security people it seemed that we might have recognised one of the actors there from when we watched 30 years ago, but we haven’t watched it since living...
Today was market day in Avalon – the once a year market held here. So, with various roads in the area closed, it seemed easiest to just go to the market! The range and selection was huge, but after a while we just went cross-eyed with choice, so headed for a coffee on Avalon Beach. A notable resident of Avalon is apparently Yahoo Serious. You may not be...
A driving day today. We headed off first thing from Port Stephens and drove down the coast to Avalon Beach. Avalon is named after Avalon (!) – the final resting place of King Arthur, though we can be fairly sure he didn’t make it out here. According to Celtic legend Avalon is an earthly paradise and though it is nice here, earthly paradise may be...