Sunday. Jan. 30.
My Mom’s birth-date. I’m glad I remember this day to say I love her instead of the day of her death which I can never remember.
I had planned to get up at 5 a.m. to see the sun rise over the rock from the look-out in the oval, but the thought of the dingoes and the poisonous snakes and figure it is fool-hardy to go it alone. I am once again covered in bites. Could it be bedbugs? Must research this. Anyway, last night I took two of the antihistamine pills I was given for the same itchy-oozy swellings I had from the Blue Bottle sting. Now I can’t wake-up. As we go for the plane to Adelaide, I have trouble holding my head up. It feels like a dead weight. Also, my tongue seems swollen and I can’t articulate. I am speaking with a lady who was on the bus with us and excuse my slurring. She brings her husband over and, from the questions he asks and the manner in which he asks them, I assume he is a retired doctor! I tell him I am drinking lots of fluids and will not take the antihistamines again. I dose off and on all the way to Perth.
The lunch served on the plane helps to clear my head. We pick up our little car at the airport and I drive while Peter navigates us through the city. It is good to arrive in a strange city on a Sunday as the traffic is light. Margaret Moir’s house is in an older, but beautiful neighbourhood. The stone and brick houses are neat, many with short, stonewall fences. Margaret’s friend, Brian, has the key and he gives us directions to Margaret’s house and to the shopping district. It is lovely, although a little intrusive, to stay in a real house filled with mementoes of a lifetime. Pictures of Bill Gordon are prominent around the house. We cannot thank this gracious lady enough for allowing us to stay here while she is away on a cruise to South Africa.
Monday, Jan. 31.
Today is a “catch your breath” day. I do the laundry, hang it out, we shop for groceries, I make dinner, Peter figures-out the computer and we relax. I phone the kids as well, as we have not been in touch much lately.
Tuesday, Feb. 1.
The laundry from yesterday needs ironing, so that is first on the list. I put together a lunch and we are off to the beach. Scarborough Beach is just down the road about 10 minutes. It is lovely with few people there on a weekday. I have a quick dip in the lovely, warm water of the Indian Ocean. I am reading the Australia travel book in the tent-shelter about how the wind picks-up in the afternoon as the wind picks-up outside. By the time we have eaten lunch and Peter has struggled into his bathing suit (just picture it - Peter sitting with a towel draped over his privates wiggling out of his undies and into his bathing suit - it’s a scene that should have been videoed!), the wind is in full gale. We do go into the water, but swimming is out of the question as the undertow is now quite noticeable. Our tent-shelter is on the verge of being blown away, so we pack up and head home. There is not one cloud in the sky, but sand into everything.
When we get to Margaret’s, Brian is watering a few sections of the grass that the auto-sprinklers don’t hit. He and Peter enjoy cold one together. I think he is missing the camaraderie of “the boys getting together.” We finish the day with another “home-cooked” meal. that can be such a pleasure when you have been traveling for four months.
Wednesday, Feb. 2.
We finally make it into the city. We take the bus from the shopping center and are downtown in 15 minutes. You can see the skyline from Mount Hawthorn, where we are staying. Our first impression is never altered. This is a clean, tidy, walkable city. There is quite a bit of construction going on, so it must be prospering, also.
We take the free CAT bus to the car rental office to check on the location and to confirm that dropping it off early will not be a problem. We have decided to keep it only until Saturday, after I attend my Weight Watcher’s meeting. I am required to weigh-in once a month, and this will be my February meeting. Still on track - but I will admit it is not easy “on-the-road”. There are just too many temptations and not enough exercise. The monthly “accountability” weigh-ins are helpful!
The Mint Museum is around the corner from the car rental, so we drop in for a look. It is quite interesting. The brick we see poured - 99.95 pure - has been melted and poured for seventeen years! The room itself has been “scraped” on the inside and hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of gold were recovered. The clay pots that the gold is melted in last only seven days, then they are collected, crushed, and the gold in them is recovered. It is all very interesting.
We walk down to the Swan River and eat our lunch whilst watching a bunch of over-weight (and a few fit) office workers play football (soccer) on their lunch hour. We walk along the beside the river to the Bell Tower, then up the hill to the shopping area. There are two streets which connect through buildings and lanes and both are pedestrians only. There are buskers and street people, girls in short shorts and mini tops, guys with tattoos, tourists like us gawking at everything new. I pick up a $5 jumper (not a sweater) which will be nice in the hot weather in Vietnam.
We ride the bus home and, after another home-cooked meal, pack our back-packs for a two day trip to Margaret River and some more wine tasting.
Thursday, Feb. 3.
I start the drive out of the city while Peter navigates. This seems to work well. Once we are in the country, it is evident that it has been a dry year in the south west. For miles, the fields are yellow with the dryness. I wonder what the cows can be eating as there is no visible grass. As we come to the coast at Bunbury, we go to the I-site for information. The lady suggests we drive to the lookout for a view of the area. It is up a circular road through an upscale area. The Rotary have built the lookout. It is quite new. We climb the 89-step, spiral staircase to the top. It is a lovely view of the harbour, the beaches in both directions, and the town in general.
Peter takes over the driving and we stop by the sand-duned beach just south of the look-out. There are only two people on the expanse of beach there. Certainly, a lovely place to live.
I read about the jetty in Busselton, so we stop for a look. It is two kilometres long. It is a restoration project which - as told by a couple from England who summer here - unfortunately has been delayed as the first contractor went broke and a new one has had to be found. The weekend is to be the celebration of the “refurbished” jetty, but it won’t be ready. There is a tram that runs the length of the jetty and locals fish from its side. The main event of the weekend is the annual swim the jetty race. It is an almost 4 k swim. They get a thousand participants. Sounds like fun. Anyway, the festivities are taking place despite the construction.
We move on to Margaret River, centre of the south-western wine district. Our Golden Chain accommodations are in a trailer park but are surprisingly comfortable. We have a one-bedroom completely-equipped unit. Unfortunately, we plan to eat out for the one night we are staying. We take a tour out to the Margaret River Resort to view the menu. It is an interesting ride as we see the fully-treed area between the river and the coast. It is as thick as the trees were in the Blue Mountains. This appears to be a rough coast. I view the river as we drive back. It is engulfed by trees on both sides.
After a walk down the main street, we settle for take-out in a little food mall which is catering to people like us who want to eat and not feel ’ripped-off”. I think $30 for Bangers and Mash is just a little excessive. We have a quiet evening in and I outline our plan of attack tomorrow so we can taste wine, chocolate, olives, and beer.
Friday, Feb. 4.
Now Peter is getting bit. Of course, he is suffering “bravely.” Our first stop is at an olive grove. They grow many different varieties but use them for oils. The tasting is terrific at least for me; Peter hasn’t a lot of interest. I buy a little sample of the garlic & chilli infused oil (we will try it in Mexico) and a parmesan cheese infused as a gift for Margaret. We move on to the first wine cellar. We taste the Shiraz and the Cabernet. On to the Chocolate factory. They are making bars of chocolate today. We watch the girls filling the moulds. Seems very repetitive work! On the machine the gauge shows 98.0, so I wonder if that is the temperature of the melted chocolate.
There are dishes of milk chocolate, white chocolate, and dark (75%) chocolate discs that you can scoop out and eat. We get our fill.
We buy a package of truffles for Margaret - we don’t need any!
Peter pulls into a cellar not on my list. It is a lovely place. The lady in the cellar obviously loves her work and we engage in a conversation about wine, countries, and the plight of living in a tourist area. I take a picture of a wonderful picture hanging over the bar which is constructed of hand spun, dyed, woven wool by a local lady when she was in her eighties - now deceased. The wine I like best has a touch of Malbec in it. That’s a surprise.
Our final wine stop is at an outlet, owned by the local wine industry, that sells, at very reduced rates, wines that are at the end of their shelf life and need to be drunk soon. I buy an originally $30 wine for $10. It actually has a cork - something unusual for Australia. We get two six-packs - one Chardonnay and one Shiraz. Each contains six of that type of wine but all are (or may be) from different wineries etc. and have been relabelled to sell off. What a unique concept. I wonder if they do this in the Okanagan.
It is time for lunch, so we drive up a most unlikely road to the Bush Shack Brewery. That’s it - a shack. The beer, though, is quite good. All there bottled beer is sold-out, so we can’t buy any to go. We sit at a picnic table, accompanied by a family of magpies, eat our lunch and drink our beer. It’s been quite a day already.
We decide to take the coast road home. Well, it may be closer to the coast, but you never see it. The high dunes are between us and the beach. We decide that I will drive into the city from Mandurah, cutting across country to the freeway that, by our map, begins about sixty km. south of Perth. In the time I can’t see the coast, I look at the map book and find the route to Margaret’s place from the freeway - a very easy hop. Then I notice a sign to Hwy 2, the freeway, south of Mandurah. We assume the freeway has been extended. We continue into town and I take over as planned, but I get to do the easy bit - the rest of the way at 110 km/hr. Lucky me. As it is Friday, we hit a bit of traffic through one short stretch in the city, but it is clear sailing. We could have saved about an hour of driving if we had known this route yesterday.
Saturday, Feb. 5.
The day of reckoning. We drive to North Beach and find the W.W. meeting. I am still within limit - cheers! - and stay for the meeting as I doubt I will make one in March unless there is a place close to the Los Angeles airport. It is so hard without enough exercise. The walking we do, which is often a lot, just isn’t sustained. Look out San Jose - I will be striding those hills in March and April.
Peter navigates me successfully to the car rental office. We are once again public-transit users. We walk around the neighbourhood, being very touristy, and end-up in a food court where we both choose a Chinese lunch. More wandering. A guy is busking on the mall and playing some wonderful ragtime piano - non-stop. Another guy is in a gold costume with a sign - money moves me. He engages people with his expressive eyes. They put money in his box and get their picture taken with him. He mimics Peter standing as he does with his hands crossed across his chest and his less than smiley face. Peter doesn’t bite, so he quickly moves on to somebody else.
We take the Blue Cat (free bus) and it takes us to the Highgate area, serious café/bar/nightlife area of the city. We get off and walk the street.
This is when I realize how wonderful it is to be in a civilized country. Like New Zealand, Ozzies acknowledge that human beings need to relieve themselves and, therefore, they provide public toilets in every city and town and provide the signage so they are easily found and the cleaning staff so they are almost always presentable. North America could certainly learn from this example. We both need this facility. The young man who is the “guard/cleaner/user-counter” is not responsible for the futility spelt sign on the door. It says, “Only four aloud in at a time”. He quickly spells “allowed” for me, in his broken English. I tell him he should put “Ha! Ha!” on the sign to pretend it is a joke. He laughs with (or at?) me.
Peter realizes that we are close to the bus depot for the regular bus, so we walk the two blocks, over the railway bridge, and we are there. He checks with the driver if the bus goes all the way to Scarborough beach - it does - so we plan to go tomorrow.
Sunday, Feb. 6.
We awaken with the alarm at 7 a.m., but the wind id blowing as was predicted by the weather forecast last night. We will put off our beach trip until tomorrow. Today will be an organization day, ready for out flight on Tuesday night/Wednesday morning. After our first full breakfast in weeks, eggs, bacon, and crumpets, Peter has some reservations etc. to do on the computer and I have all my stuff to go through and organize.
We switch places, and I catch-up on my blog writing and he does his reorganizing. Tonight, we go to the Gourmet Fish restaurant in the local mall. They have been closed for almost a month, so are offering 10% off the menu price for this week. It is a BYO restaurant, but we don’t bring anything, so we settle for water with our meal. A group of seven are drinking when we arrive. The speed with which their dinner is served makes us realize that our long wait is normal. There is one take-out and another couple ahead of us. But, the wait is worth it. My snapper is perfect, and I have one fillet for lunch tomorrow. The chips were perfect - soft inside, crispy outside, and not one bit greasy. We waddle home to a beer and a glass of wine. Tomorrow, hopefully, we will have a quiet day at the beach.
Margaret Moir's beautiful home, between the lines.
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