Chronicles of Christmas 2

Chronicles of Christmas 2....
Dec 21st, 2006 7pm-ish (1st day of summer in Australia!)
So, we didn’t end up being on our flight at 1:15 am....nobody did! It got delayed until 4am due to the truck that pulls the ramp/walkway away breaking down. Needless to say nobody was impressed. But, they put us on a better plane, fed us some Chinese food and off we went....albeit in a major daze. I don’t remember much of the flight as I slept most of the way. We arrived at 8am Australia time (1 hour ahead of Singapore/Malaysia time). On the plane we sat next to an Aussie bloke who had just moved to Perth himself, so couldn’t recommend much to see/do. Once in the airport, Johnny bought Vodafone SIM card to put into his Indian Nokia phone...so now we have a veritable Aussie phone #! We then took a very rude Czech cabbie from the airport to the hotel, The Criterion Hotel. Unfortunately we couldn’t check in right away, so in a continued daze we walked down to the harbour on the Swan River and lay on the benches in the sun, trying not to fall asleep for good! The Swan River is named for the black swans..yes, black swans! We saw some, they are very pretty! Perth seems to be a very chill Nova Scotia-ish, small Toronto-ish vibe-y place. Johnny says it’s like being in Kingston after exams- only here it’s a whole lot warmer. We are sooo happy to see the sun after the drizzly dampness of KL and Singapore. And no more humidity! It is dry as the desert here...Australia’s worst drought in 30 years or something like that. Ah- I can’t wait for the beaches!! Our hotel had a room ready for us around 1...so we crashed until 5:30 when we received a nice Christmas gift- delivered to our hotel room in Oz, but from Annie and Mike- John’s sister and brother in law. They sent us 2 bottles of Australian wine and a big box of Ferrero Rochers :) Yum! We are currently at an outdoor pub where I am having a delicious glass of Brown Brothers reisling wine and John is having some Aussie beer. Love it. Also- we just realized we have been to 3 capital cities in 3 different countries in one 24 hour span.
Dec 22nd, 2006 10:15am
We slept like babies and have just had a so-so brekkies at the Criterion Hotel café downstairs. We just showered and are now watching t.v.- our favourite Aussie commercial so far is one for a restaurant where their jingle is ‘where tomorrow’s fish are still swimming.’ Hah! Soon we’re heading out into the blessed sunshine- yay for sunshine!!!!
Dec 22nd, 2006 1:20pm
We’ve just spent the morning wandering and shopping, drinking coffee and soaking in the sun. The shopping here is great. I’ve hit up some of the stores that Rachel told me about and I’ve bought 2 tops, 1 dress and 1 purse and a necklace. We also had a ‘flat white’ coffee at Gloria Jeans coffee chain as we were instructed to do. Coffee in Oz basically comes black or white (you generally don’t add your own milk) and flat or not flat (still don’t know what that means yet..) The flat white seems exactly like a latte to me...but they also had a latte on the menu so it clearly differs somehow...I have yet to find out how! Keep ya posted. At any rate it was tasty...now we’re back at the hotel dropping our purchases off and planning our next move. Oh- also on the street we saw a street performer swallow a sword! That’s the first time I’ve seen that. And they really do swallow it- you can see him almost gag....crazy.
Dec 22nd, 2006 7pm
Just got back from spending the afternoon wandering around the Swan River and up to King’s Park and the Botanical Gardens. The park and gardens were so neat- there are so many species of living things that I have never seen before. I saw a pelican in the wild on the river (it’s gullet is HUGE!), I saw eucalyptus trees, grass trees, and lot of different types of banksia (a cool flower whose ‘flower’ resembles a toilet scrubber brush!) Eucalypts are huge trees. The jacoranda trees are fat too- and they are neat to look at because their roots are exposed at the bottom. We also wandered into an aboriginal art store- and the aboriginal paintings are just gorgeous! If I had lots of money to spare, I’d be buying Aussie aboriginal art. I had lunch in the park too- a smoked salmon sandwich. We also got sunburned.....sorry Mom... We forgot for a minute that we are below the equator and the sun is...well.....different. So, we might be hurtin’ a bit tomorrow. Now we’re going down to the river area for dinner. Countdown till Christmas: 3 Days.
It doesn’t quite feel like Christmas though...but there are lots of street performers singing/playing Christmas carols, so that is nice. One other thing we did is used the hotel tour guy to book us a trip to Rottnest Island (‘Rotto’ to locals) for the 24th. On the 24th we’re gonna have to get up pretty early, cab it to Fremantle (15 mins outside Perth), drop our stuff at the Painted Fish B&B and then make it to the jetty nearby for the ferry to Rotto at 9:30am. It’s doable!
Gnome pics: Next to a Perth sign on a street by the river and in the grass at King’s Park
Dec 23rd, 2006 12:05 pm
We slept in deliciously late for the first time this holiday (John’s got a bit of a head cold, so he needed this too!) We also made some calls home and I talked to Daddy (yay!) and tried to talk to the slumber-bum Riley but he was too slumbery..... Last night we went to Northridge area in Perth and ate at a place called Barocco- a place actually in the Lonely Planet even though we didn’t plan on it! It was very yummy, as I am finding out all food in Oz is! We had salad, garlic prawns and I had a ‘pizzer’ (a pizza, but with the Aussie accent it sounds like pizzer!) The funny thing we’re finding in Oz though is that they don’t do doggie bags. Weird. Anyway, this morning we plan on splitting up to do some Xmas shopping and then who knows what else?!
Dec 23rd, 2006 7:40pm
We shopped and walked around all day and went to a really neat Aboriginal art store. Johnny’s not feeling so great, so we’re just chilling before dinner. We plan to go for sushi at this place right near the hotel. Then, it’s a 7:30am taxi to Freo tomorrow morning. Ack, that’s early!
Dec 24th, 2006 Christmas Eve 3pm
Christmas Eve in 30+ degree weather on an Australian island. How crazy is that? We are on Rottnest Island (‘Rotto’) a 25 minute ferry ride from the Fremantle harbour. We got our cab this morning to our B&B, The Painted Fish, which didn’t look like much at first glance, but our separate room, a converted rail car is very lovely and hippie-ish. It’s got a bed and a sitting area and a kitchenette. It reminds me of Aunt Penel’s old house/shed before they built the big house in McDonald’s Corners. ...but I was like 4 years old then, so my memory might be a little foggy! The story with this place is, the main building built mainly of tin used to be inhabited by a family with 13 kids until it was acquired by Tim, the current proprietor. All his friends thought he was mad, buying a crappy tin house...but it is prime property. He has now fixed it up...well, is still fixing it up as it might be a forever fixer-upper....but has made 3 rooms into a B&B and they are awesome. Anyway, back to Rotto. This island is gorgeous. Turquoise blue waters to rival any Caribbean beach and clear as glass. The rock outcroppings are so unique and majestic...the whole island just keeps you in awe! So far we have seen one brown snake (John almost ran over him with his bike!) and one quokka (a cute little mini kangaroo type animal.) There are lots of annoying flies (Oz is known for their flies I guess) but other than that it is amazing. You can definitely tell why Oz is the sunburn capital of the world though (I mean, skin cancer capital of the world...) The sun is HOT and unforgiving...it feels fabulous! However we are glad we brought the SPF 45 sunscreen along after all! We could make do with an SPF 60!
Gnome pic: On the Ricey Bay beach where we went swimming.
Dec 25th, 2006 11:30am
MERRY AUSTRALIAN CHRISTMAS! We spent Xmas eve doing some grocery shopping for today (as everything will be closed) and then watching the sunset on South Beach- right up the street from where we are staying. We brought glasses of wine with us too, even though it’s probably not allowed- but we were going to feign ignorance if caught! Then we came back and had some antipasti that we bought at the organic grocery store- and some of the yummy wine that John’s family sent us. Now it’s Xmas morning and I just talked to Momma and I was a bit sad, especially last night just missing the fam. But I feel better now. We’re just having coffee and fruit for brekkies then...who knows?! Tomorrow we have to go into Perth again and pick up our rental car.
Dec 25th, 2006 4pm-ish (?)
Ahh...so nice not to have any idea what time it is! Right now we’re lying on Freo’s South Beach listening to the surf and feeling the effects of the ‘Fremantle Doctor’ as they call the wind that kicks up around 2 or 3 in the afternoon. Christmas on the beach...where is Santa in surf shorts?! It also seems like an Aussie Xmas tradition is to have a family picnic in a park somewhere- we see lots of tents and coolers and families spread out here, there and everywhere....families and cricket games just seem to meld into one another. Cool.
Dec 26th, 2006 12:45pm
So, last night we ended up going to a fancy hotel- The Esplanade to treat ourselves to Christmas dinner. It cost us $125 each (eek!) but we didn’t care, it was Xmas Day and we were going to make sure we had a proper dinner! It was good too. We did the Aussie Christmas tradition and had prawns (chilled) with thousand island dressing (weird, I know- but it’s their tradition!) Luckily there was also turkey with cranberry sauce and beef and little mini lobsters called marin. It was good- it also included unlimited wine and yummy desserts. This morning we woke up at around 9:45 and booted it into Perth to get our Avis rental car. We had to wait a bit as the people who had the Hyundai Getz before us had brought a beachful of sand back with them in the car! It’s a cute car and will serve our purposes just fine. Now we’re just having brekkies (late!) and then we’re heading off to the Freo Maritime Museum so Johnny can see his Americas Cup boat-the Australia II then we’re beachin’ again at Cottesloe Beach. Tomorrow we shove off!
Dec 26th, 2006 5:20pm
We’re on the beach right now at Cottesloe- and it is awesome! We did the museum and Johnny saw his Australia II boat that shocked everyone and won the Americas Cup in the U.S. in 1983. It was actually an excellent museum. Then, we drove to a bottle shop for some drinks (which you’re allowed to drink on the beach! AND bring into restaurants BYO style!) [Insert from Johnny: In my field of vision I can see a white sand beach upon which I am sitting with my elephant bedsheet. In front of me are two surf-skiers who are racing around buoys on Gage Roads (the water) 10 km in front of me is Rotto, 6km to the south (left) is the mouth of the Swan River. About 1 km north (right) is a kite skier. Oh- and I have a bottle of Little Creatures’ Ale in my hand on a public beach! Where am I? No, it’s not Scarborough (also a town in Western Oz), although I can see Scarborough from here, it’s COTTLESLOE!] Now we’re on the beach at 5:30pm and the sun is still gorgeous and the breeze is lovely. BOXING DAY 2006 BABY!
Dec 27th, 2006 2:40pm
We woke up this morning and packed our bags and bid adieu to The Painted Fish. We signed out in their guest book which is quite funny because it starts out with entries addressed to Tim and Karyn who started the B&B and then there a 5 year gap in entries and then entries to Tim and Shani. In the same book no less! I wonder if that is weird for Shani!! Anyway, John wrote a little something then we left to explore downtown Freo, as we still hadn’t just wandered. We saw the harbour and went into a few shops and then went and had fish and chips at the famous Cicerello’s. Cicerello’s I guess is a bit of a Freo institution...it’s been there forever and is famous for it’s fresh fish and chips. It’s so cool- they come wrapped up in a piece of newspaper and we dumped on some malt vinegar- yum! I am also trying Bundaburg Ginger Beer. It’s so funny how many drive-in bottle shops (liquor stores basically) there are here. There’s one on every corner, basically like Tim Hortons in Canada! Right now Johnny and I are driving along Hwy #1 on our way to Dunsborough for the day and night and then on to Margaret River (Ausralia’s answer to Niagara On The Lake!)
Dec 27th, 2006 4:16pm
We’re currently driving thru Bunbury still on the way to Dunsborough. Of note though is that we passed the remains of a brush fire. We couldn’t see the flames but we definitely saw smoke. It is soooo dry here right now. WA is going thru one of their worst droughts in 30 years.... and the charred tree bottoms and fizzled grass areas show it!
Dec 27th, 2006 7:56pm
Johnny and I are sitting on the beach in Leeuwin National Park at Yallingup Beach watching a dozen or so kite surfers catch some of the famed Yallingup waves. They make it look so effortless. The teenage boys are having a blast seeing who can wipe out the most! The cloud cover is almost covering where we are and it’s giving everything a misty, hazy light as the sun is dropping. We saw at the reception at The Dunsborough Inn that sunset today is 8:27pm. So nice- not like 6pm in India!
Dec 27th, 2006 10:02pm
Well, after we went to the beaches yesterday we went for a tiny drive into ‘the outback’ as I call it a.k.a a rural area- and we saw KANGAROOS! Yep- real, live gray kangaroos in the wild...not to mention 2 brown snakes that we ran over in the car and we saw one kookaburra and heard another. Oh- and just in case I haven’t yet mentioned it- brown snakes are #2 on the deadliest snakes in the world list! Yep, #2! It was like we were in our own private zoo! It was so strangely exhilarating to see the roos....I don’t know why. It was just so foreign- and I loved the way that they hopped across the highway. They locomote so differently than any animal I have ever seen (well, other than the quokka!) We are now at a cafe/wine bar in Dunsborough and we are drinking one of the most divine red wines I have ever tasted! It is Edwards 2004 Cab Sav (Edwards is a Margaret River winery.) Johnny is having rack of lamb and I am having beef sirloin- both are sublime.