Forbes Family Blog: Western Australia

Letter No. 249

Dear all,

We had a fabulous Christmas Day as usual with Mum and Dad, Lisa & Andrew and Andrew’s extended family. Three days later we set off on our annual summer holiday; this year to Western Australia to explore Perth and the South-West corner.

Day 1 – Brisbane to Perth

We got up early and caught a 5½ flight from Brisbane to Perth. I could only get one guest into the Business Class lounge at Brisbane Airport using my points and there had been extended family discussions about who my chosen family member would be. I would have taken Molly but unfortunately she was staying at Mum and Dads. I finally offered the spot to Katie but she kindly let Matthew go as he loves airports so much. We went in and had champagne and crispy bacon for breakfast while the girls slummed it in the main terminal.

We caught a taxi to the Fremantle Prison YHA where we were staying for four nights. We had a nice family room within the prison compound and it was really interesting looking around the old prison building. We went on to the Freemantle Markets which were a short walk down the hill. They were great food and craft markets in a lovely historic restored building.

We wandered down to the harbour and spent the afternoon lying on the beach. Matthew was the only person who went for a swim. Jessie wasn’t feeling too well and had a sleep on the beach. About 5pm we went to a nearby cafe for tea, which subsequently turned into Sundowners drinks and then a seafood feast for dinner. It was a lovely easy first night watching the sun set into the sea.

Day 2 – Perth

I went for a run at 5:30am down to Fremantle South Beach. On the way I went past the marinas where the yachts that competed and won the America’s Cup between 1983 and 1987 had been docked. There were plaques telling you all about the boats and the races along the footpath outside. I stopped and read them all so it was a slow run.

After breakfast we walked down to the train station and caught a train into Perth which took about 25minutes.

We stopped at a doctor’s surgery at central station and made an appointment for Jessie in the afternoon.

We caught a taxi down to the Perth Mint which was really great. The Mint no longer produces coins for circulating currency; it only mints collectable gold, silver and platinum coins plus gold and silver bullion. There was a huge amount of jewellery for sale including a pink diamond for $559,000! There was also a huge coin which had been minted with a face value of $1million. It was one ton of gold and actually worth $81million! It was about 800mm in diameter and 25cm thick.

There was a melting house where they poured a gold bullion bar. It was pretty impressive. They turned out the lights and we watched the guide pour the molten gold in the half light. After it had cooled for about a minute it was quenched in water for 30 seconds. The guide took it back out of the water and touched it with his glove which instantly burst into flame it was still so hot. Later we got to pick up a 12.5kg gold bar which felt really nice to touch. There were also scales to weigh you and work out your value if you were made of gold. My personal worth was $3.8million. We all thought the Perth Mint was a “mint” place to visit.

After lunch we walked down to Elizabeth Quay to The Bell Tower, which houses a collection of 19 bells from the Church of St Martin-in-the-Fields in London’s Trafalgar Square. The church had replaced its bells in the mid-1980s and they had been brought to WA by an eccentric businessman who loved bell ringing.

We had a chance to ring the bells which was a lot harder than we expected. If you pull too hard the bells wouldn’t actually peal. You had to pull sharply and gently to make a chime. We also looked at the largest swinging bell in the Southern Hemisphere, which had only just been installed, and walked up the bell tower to an observation deck at the top. The walkway around the outside was just open mesh with a glass balustrade and pretty scary.

Jess and I went to the doctor while Katie and Matt wandered around the quay. It turned out that Jessie had Tonsillitis and Scarlet Fever and was given some strong antibiotics.

We caught the train back to Fremantle and had a short rest in the late afternoon. Katie and I went out to grab some food for an evening in our apartment, while Matt went out with some friends he met on one of his backpacking tours. Jess went straight to bed. We were hoping for a good recovery in time for the next day’s trip to Rottnest Island.

Day 3 – Perth

We had a fairly disturbed night as Jessica started vomiting about 10pm and kept it up pretty much all night. By 4am we decided it must be a reaction to her antibiotics so I rang the WA medical help line and discussed it with them. They agreed and gave me the number for a local home visit doctor. By 5am I had arranged for a Doctor to visit and she arrived around 7:30am.

Jess was given an injection in her butt to stop her vomiting and was prescribed some different antibiotics. She was very unsure about getting an injection in her butt and it was quite comical to watch her reaction. I found a chemist that was open and had her back in bed with new medicine and asleep by about 8:30am.

The ferry tickets to Rottnest Island were non-refundable, so in the end we decided Matt and I would go on the morning ferry as booked, while Katie rescheduled the girls’ tickets to 4.40pm, so they could come over later if Jess was up to it.

Matt and I got chatting to some locals on the ferry who told us the best beach to go to, where to hire bikes and where to cycle. The cycle hire place was sold out of bikes for the morning but fortunately we realised that the best swimming beach was only a short walk away. It was a really nice sandy beach with interesting canyons and bowls created out of both sandstone and coral you could swim in. A reasonable amount of fish but nothing really colourful like in the tropics. We went for a walk around the headland, lazed on the beach and swam all afternoon. About 3:30pm we decided to go back and see if there were any bikes available. There were and we got a cheap afternoon rate and set off for a half island circuit of about 15km. It was an easy ride with low undulating hills around the coast line. There were lots of beautiful beaches, headlands, inland lakes and historic building to look at. It was a bit cooler by this time so we really enjoyed the circuit and returned the bikes around 5:15pm.

Jessica had slept most of the day and was feeling a bit better so the girls took a taxi to the ferry terminal and made it onto the ferry. The main reason Jessie wanted to come was to see the quokkas that only live on Rottnest Island. They are cute little kangaroo-like animals about the size of a small fat cat. They are very quiet and just hop around amongst the people. They are quite happy to be stroked although you are not meant to. Matt and I had been worried that they might retire for the evening before Jessie arrived but there were heaps around still for her to pat and coo over.

Matt and I had grabbed a table in the insanely busy Rottnest Island Hotel. It was a very fun place with live music which was heaving. We had a great pub meal before catching the 8pm ferry back to Fremantle. We couldn’t find a cab so had to walk back to our room. Jess was quite worn out by this time so I found an abandoned shopping trolley and pushed her home in that. Matt and Katie refused to walk near us though.

Day 4 – Perth

We did a tour of Fremantle Prison in the morning. We were staying in the Women’s Prison, which is now a hostel, while the much larger Men’s Prison next door is open for tours. We did the convict tour, covering the period from when the prison was built in 1850 until 1886 when convicts stopped being transported to Australia. There were several tours each covering different eras and aspects of the prison.

The tour was really interesting and did talk about the modern era as well. It was quite shocking that this was Western Australia’s main high security prison until 1992 and the cells were exactly the same as provided to convicts in 1850! The cells were very tiny, had no lights or power points, were 7 feet x 4 feet, had a bed, stool, small table and a bucket to use as a toilet. Every morning the first job was to empty the bucket!

Jessie was still not feeling great but she made it through the one-hour tour and then went straight back to bed for the rest of the day. Matt went out for lunch with one of his friends in Fremantle while I went into Perth to pick up our hire car and Katie stayed with Jessica. We had hired a RAV4 which was almost identical to Katie s car.

We all had a rest in the afternoon in preparation for our night out for New Year’s Eve. Matt was heading into Perth for another night out with friends he met back packing, while Jess, Katie and I went to The Bathers Beach House All White Party. Katie and Jess both had white dresses with them and I had bought a white shirt the day before, so it was an easy and fun theme. I drove Jess and Katie down and then drove back and walked down to meet them. We had a drink on the jetty and watched the sun go down before lining up to get into the event. We chatted to the couple in front of us in the queue, who were from Sydney and really nice and then ended up sitting at a table with them all night. Most people were dressed all in white and it was slightly odd seeing everyone in the same colour. There was a band and DJ and we had a nice night dancing and chatting. The food was pretty awesome and drinks free flowing. Jess sparked up considerably - perhaps the champagne helped!

We left about 12:30am and walked home. Jess said we wobbled a bit going home! We were in bed by 1am and Matt made it back by 2:30am. We didn't even hear him come in. A brilliant evening and a good start to 2019.

Day 5 – Perth to Bunbury and Busselton

We all really struggled to get out of bed this morning. We had to be on the road by 9:30am as Katie had booked us on a Dolphin Cruise at noon. We drove about 175km south to Bunbury and made it just in time. The 90-minute cruise was fantastic and very relaxing and we saw hundreds of dolphins! We had a quick lunch and then drove on to Busselton, another 60km south.

Katie had booked a big 2-bed apartment in Busselton, so we dropped our bags and headed straight down to the Busselton Jetty. It is a timber-piled jetty that goes 1841m out to sea and is the longest jetty in the Southern Hemisphere. There is a little train you can catch to the end and we walked back. It was really lovely. Matt and I joined a group of people leaping off the jetty into the sea for a while which was fun. The water was nice and warm.

Our apartment had a nice kitchen so we had a night in and watched The Shawshank Redemption.

Day 6 – Busselton to Margaret River – The wine region

Today we had an easy start and were up and away by 9am. We drove about 40 minutes to the Ngilgi Caves where we did a semi-guided tour. This meant we got shown to the entrance of the cave, taken down the entrance staircase, given a bit of history of the cave and then roamed around at our own speed. All the families with kids tore around at top speed and soon we were left in the cave by ourselves. Matt, Jess and I went through "The Tunnel of Doom". It was a very tight squeeze and I regretted going into it as soon as I started but it was impossible to turn around and go back. I persisted through a very small tunnel downhill head first and then managed to turn around and go feet first over a small suspension bridge over a large chasm with no headroom at all. It was Type 2 Fun - only fun when it was over!

The cave was fantastic though with easy access steps the rest of the way down to 37m below ground level. We spent an hour there wandering around before surfacing for an early lunch in the cafe.

We drove on to the Cape Naturaliste Lighthouse for a tour of the lighthouse and a look at the spectacular cliffs over Sugarloaf Rock. We then drove into the town of Margaret River and arrived about 3:30pm. Jessica doesn't seem to be getting any better so we took her to see the doctor again. They arranged for her to have blood tests in the morning and she also got some different antibiotics. Jessie’s bag was beginning to look like a mini pharmacy by this point. Jessica had a rest in the afternoon while we wandered around the shops. That evening we went out for drinks and dinner at a nice restaurant called Swings in Margaret River.

Day 7 – Margaret River

Today I got up early and went for a run around Margaret River which is a pretty little town. After breakfast I took Jess to get her blood tests at the medical centre. We then put her back in bed so she could spend a restful day in our apartment, while the rest of us went on a Winery Tour for the day. It was probably the best thing for her and she was quite keen to have a day in bed and lots of TV time. Katie, Matt and I were picked up at 10:30am and were at our first winery Knotting Hill by 11:00am. They gave full instructions on tasting, which was quite useful for Matt and then we tried the whole range. Matt and Katie are not as keen on red wine so I was getting triple portions of most of the reds which was a bonus! We ended up buying two cases for delivery when we got home. Next we went on to Rosily Winery which was a tiny organic winery run by two people. We also had a lovely lunch of Bush Tucker including Kangaroo and Crocodile which was nice. We bought some bottles of wine to drink on our trip.

After lunch we went on to Islandbrook Winery which was also nice but things were getting a bit blurry by now. We rounded the afternoon off with visits to a cheese factory and a chocolate factory where I was very restrained and only queued up for free samples three times in each. We bought cheese and chocolate for dinner (thinking clearly by now and remembering we needed to eat). Then it was on to the Churchview Winery and then the Cheeky Monkey Brewery to top us off before we got dropped back at our hotel about 6pm.

Meanwhile Jess had a quiet day in bed watching Netflix. We had texted her photos all day as we progressed but I think they got sillier as the day wore on. We had a healthy dinner of cheese, crackers and chocolate and all fell into bed.

That’s all for this month.

Cheers,

Derek, Katie, Matt, Jessie & Molly