Saturday Sept 21.- Mon Sept. 23 Exploring Perth, the Pinnacles and Freemantle

Saturday was sunny and warm so we headed to downtown Perth.  We wandered through a park that was connected with the old court house (an earth cache was here) and chatted to some fellow Canadians who were taking pictures.  She was an exchange teacher from Calgary teaching in Sydney and her husband was taking the year off (from teachng).  We went to Hay St Mall and Murray St. Mall and did some shopping.

Hay Street

Then off to Kings Park, a beautiful park, where 2 caches lead us to a really great viewing tower shaped like a DNA strand and a treetop walk on a bridge that is about 800m long that also looks out over the Swan River and the south side of the city on once side and into the park on the other side. Then over to the University grounds for another earth cache.   And then back to the house where Jane had a scrumptious dinner made for us.

Kings Park

It was the semi-finals for the Aussie Rules championship, and Fremantle (just down the road) was one of the teams, vs. Sydney.  Freo dominated, and they are off to the Grand Finals next week in Melbourne.  One player is from Vancouver! Everything here is now a “purple haze” in support of the team.  First time in their 19-year history that they have reached the finals…a bit better record than the Canucks!

Sunday we headed north about 2 hours to a park that had limestone pinnacles ……you guessed it an earth cache.  Along the way the scenery  was farmland, forest, scrub land, white white sand dunes and beautiful Indian Ocean views. There were many many warning signs about kangaroos, emus and echidnas!  It was windy and rained off and on all the whole day and on the way back to Perth  too.  Andrew and Jane had gone to a wedding today and so we stopped at McDonalds on the way home to use the wifi to get the blog  posted and then headed home to add the pictures. We don’t have any wifi at the house so we have had to go there when we needed to use our own machines

Pinnacles with the Indian Ocean in the background

Rainbow over the sandune

Saturday night and Sunday night the wind has been howling.  The weather reports said the winds reached 100kph overnight. 

Monday we planned to cook dinner for Andrew and Jane…..so after we did a load of wash we went in search  of a nearby the grocery store.  Lori has brought along the spices to make her specialty…..Marla’s Maple Pork…..very yummy, with potatoes and veggies and Tiramisu mousse cake for dessert. 

We then headed to Freemantle, the oldest area of the Perth area.  We found some caches (and didn’t find some) and wandered the streets.  In Freemantle the university of Notre Dame, has acquired  and renovated  a lot of the old buildings…..the campus is 2 or three streets square and it was a pleasant walk despite the wind.

Freemantle

Freemantle

Because of the weather…..the wind, and the on and off rain we didn’t stay out for long, we came back to the house to get dinner ready.  It turned out really well and Andrew and Jane enjoyed it. 

Tuesday will be a get ready for travel home day.  The car needs to go back and we have a bit more shopping to do and of course getting packed.  Our plane leaves at 7:40am on Wednesday morning so we will have to get up and get to the airport by about 5:30.  This will be a marathon trip home……we fly 6 hours to Singapore and spend 6 hours (and find a cache) and then on to Beijing on another 6-hour flight.  We land there at midnight and we leave at noon.  During that 12 hours we want to leave the airport and do a couple of caches, get back about 3 hours before we take off.

 We should be landing in Vancouver at 8am on Thursday morning.  Lori  figures that by the time we leave Andrew and Jane’s house and arrive at our houses it will be well over 40 hours of travel time!!!!!   And that’s if everything is on time!!!

Our Perth home