Hopscotch: Perth

29 January 2012

Anniversary day! We were going to be on the road all day. We had originally planned to drive to Denmark but it seemed tooooo far away (about 400 km from Perth). Also, we were not confident that Xena would be able to last the whole day strapped to a car seat without getting cranky. So we decided to drive to some of the towns in Avon Valley instead, so that we would have multiple stops and things to see along the way. The plan was to cover the towns of Toodyay, Northam and York.

And off we go!

Xena actually took three naps in the car! She doesn't do that even at home. Refreshed from her naps, she was her happy self, singing and entertaining us along the way, with only small periods of crankiness.

At Toodyay we saw the Coca Cola museum with many many collectible items. We got a Fanta Float at the museum's cafe, and I wondered if we had insulted them by not ordering a Coke float instead...

There was not much to be done at Northam, so we pretty much just drove past it.

Next stop was York, and we were hungry!

We found a Chinese place for lunch.

Viv wondered how such restaurants that primarily cater to tourists make any money at all as there were hardly any tourists. The restaurant owner seemed to have a second job as a freelance designer though as we caught him looking at some sketches and designing a logo on his Macbook after our food had been served.

Xena was chirpy and happy at lunch. Of course, her lunch, like all her meals, consisted of pumped breastmilk.

Viv playing with Xena

I <3 nbsp="" p="" shot.="" this="">

After lunch, we hit the road again. I figured that the drives to these places would probably be more scenic in spring or fall, but we did see sheep and horses on the way.

The people in all the towns were incredibly friendly. I suppose not many tourists stop by so it's a novelty for them.

Once we were back in Perth, Viv suggested that we go back to King's park and check out the Lotterywest Federation Walkway, one of the most popular tourist destinations in King's Park. It's a 620-metre walk over an arched bridge suspended among a canopy of eucalyptus trees. You could walking among the treetops and get spectacular views of the city skyline. Unfortunately for us, the treetop walk section had closed at 5 pm and we were rather late. On the bright side, we would not have enjoyed that walk under the ferocious before-5 pm sun. So we did the rest of the walk, which included an extremely downhill walk, along trees through which the wind was howling. We couldn't go all the way down as the howling wind was scaring Xena.

The place was unbelievable. A beautiful breeze was flowing, the grass was so green and soft, there was a fountain surprising us every few minutes with a new pattern, and most importantly, it overlooked the Swan River and presented a spectacular view.

The beautiful view

Check out the thickness of that tree trunk!

We tried to copy the statues in the pond, but failed miserably!

We sat on the grass and had a tiny family picnic.

And because it was the era of no selfies, we used the auto function of our camera to get this family shot.

Xena was just as happy and chirpy as I was.

We drove back to our hotel's carpark, and after getting out of the car, encountered the most annoying ass of a guy ever. He was just doing rounds of the carpark, revving his engine and making such a loud noise that it was making Xena cry. As he passed us, I glared at him. He saw me, he saw Xena in her stroller, and revved even louder. Then he drove past us, stuck his head out and yelled "AUSSIE!" I don't even know what the heck that was supposed to mean. He kept going round and round, revving his engine making louder and louder sounds, and we could hear him even when we were outside on the street! Suddenly he came out of the carpark and my heart skipped a beat, wondering if he was following us, intending to run us down or something. He entered an open carpark and did his clown act again, and then finally drove off. It took us a while to get the terrified Xena to stop crying. Grrr. Anyway, that was probably the most unpleasant experience we had in Perth.

30 January 2012

Nothing much happened on this day, except that we flew back to Singapore. So the pictures below are all of the airport.