Australia Holiday - Day 4

On the morning of Day 4, we checked out of our small room in Criterion Hotel.

Teeny room

Elyssa was practically at the door in this photo, so can imagine how small the room was! But what I liked about the hotel was was its central location @ Hay Street. And I liked having a supermarket just next door that had opening hours of 7am to 11pm. We made it a point to drop in every night to see what was on reduced price. Ha ha...the simple pleasures of seeing our favourite coffee milk or ham or yoghurt at almost half the price!  ;-)

Hotel looks nicer from outside

First stop was to picked up our rented car. It was too early for the free bus service (sleepy, sleepy city on a Sunday!) so we ended up walking 20 minutes there.  If I have to walk the streets of KL for 20 minutes, I'm pretty sure I will complain!  But with the nice weather and proper walkways to push Elyssa's stroller, it was a pleasant morning walk.  Coincidentally, there was some sort of run that morning, so there were plenty of people on the main street heading towards run area.

Going for a Run

Should have taken a photo of ourselves too. We were dressed for winter (hey, it was rather cooold!) and these people were in shorts!!

Picked up our Hyundai Sonata (photo taken the next day)

AUD280 for 6 days from Europcar. We toyed with the idea of renting a GPS (AUD10 per day), then ended up getting a Garmin GPS at Harvey Norman for AUD 149 instead.  At least can bring back to M'sia.

We detoured back to the hotel to pick up our luggage, went to Harvey Norman to buy the GPS and then we were off to Margaret River!!!  Aahhhhh......love the blue skies! It was an easy drive and NO TOLL to pay :)

We stopped by at Mandurah town for lunch.

Cicerello's - supposed to be No. 1 Fish n Chips in Western Australia

Portion was huge!

Around AUD 13. Luckily we ordered only 1 set

Verdict?

Ok lar.... nothing to shout about actually. Mr Tomato Sauce hubby wasn't keen on just vinegar on the chips. ;0

Elyssa enjoying her Playground Time 

She had one almost everyday of our entire trip. Playgrounds in Aussie are nice - plenty of equipment, spacious, well maintained and clean.

Wheeee.......

Pelican and sea gulls by the waterfront

Kids playing frisbee

Aaaaahhhhh................ what a life!

We continued our journey after that. 

Random photo of scenery on the way

Unfortunately, it started to rain later :(   It was wet and gloomy when we were at the Busselton Jetty.  So we skipped the train ride.

Did some grocery shopping at Coles then we checked into the lovely Noble Grape B&B in Margaret River.

Booked via Agoda. AUD149 per night

Loved the room!

King Sized Bed + Single bed.

Comfy Armchairs n Flat Screen TV

Even DVDs were provided.

Mini Pantry Area + Toilet

Our Dinner in the Room

Pasta in Carbonara Sauce, Minestrone Soup, Canned Irish Beef Stew, Toasted Bread and Cheese Nachos with Bacon Dip. For dessert, we had fresh strawberries, cashew and macademia nuts.  Yumz!

Watched tv and then Zzzzzzzz.....


--End of Day 4--

Rabbit Food

When I bought carrots yesterday;

Elyssa :  Mummy, You know ah....rabbits don't eat carrots.

Me : Huh?  Then what do they eat?

Elyssa :  Rabbits eat kangaroo food !!! *

 
*Cos at the Caversham Wildlife Park, the kangaroos and rabbits were fed similar-looking dry food pellets

Aiks, I thought visits like that were meant to be educational!  I couldn't help laughing tho!  (ok lar...I explained to her about the food pellets after that)   

Australia Holiday - Day 3

Day 3 - Freemantle, Kings Park (again!) and Bulls Creek Area

Day 3 was a Saturday and the plan was to spend the day at Freemantle. We took the train there (about 30mins only).

Some photos -

Post Office

Just look at the clear blue sky! The weather was lovely - although bright and sunny, it was pretty cold when the wind blew.

Gourmet Food and Spices Shop - Kakulas Sister

Located at the Cappuccino Strip. Plenty to see inside - loose spices, coffee, nuts, organic produce, biscuits etc etc

Baking Shop

I love looking at baking stuff!  But too expensive too buy after $$ conversion

We headed to the Freemantle Market after that -

Some of the Stalls in the Market

Well, after reading all the good reviews about Freemantle market, I was really looking forward to it. I imagined myself spending hours exploring interesting stuff and knick knacks from the different stalls. But somehow, nothing really caught my fancy.  We were done in about an hour!
And I purposely planned my trip in such a way that we were in Freemantle on a Saturday since it was supposed to be the best day for the Freemantle market.  *sigh*

After leaving the market, we spotted a big playground so we let Elyssa burned off some excess energy... 

@ the huge Playground

Elyssa really ENJOYED the playground!!  Weather was perfect too. 

We originally wanted to eat fish & chips for lunch, but it was a nice day so we ended up eating our "back-up" packed lunch there.

Freemantle Beach

Started to get a little hot

I like this photo!  Looks like she's pondering the meaning of life while watching the sea  :-)

Boats next to Kailis Fish Market Cafe

Kailis supposedly sells one of the best fish and chips. But we were still full from our packed lunch so we skipped it.

Had allocated a FULL day just for Freemantle, but we decided to head back early to Kings Park in Perth. We just didn't get enough of the park on the first day!

Photos @ Kings Park - 

Elyssa and I

Old Boab Tree

Erhm...... just fooling around  :-)

Run Girl, Run!

Elyssa relaxing with daddy

I just love this photo

Another photo of the park

I can just sit down and enjoy the scenery for hours. Heck, give me a good book, a picnic basket and a mat, and I can sit in the park the whole day!

Around 5+pm, we left the park to meet up with hubby's ex-colleague (who recently migrated to Perth together with the whole family) for dinner.

Passed by the Swan Bell Tower

We took a ferry from Barrack Street Jetty to South Perth

Could have taken the train, but we figured Elyssa would enjoy the ferry ride.

His ex-colleague cooked up a simple but yummy meal of bak kut teh, grilled chicken and stir fried leeks for us. Aaaah......felt so good! 
Dinner conversation was mainly about migrating to Australia and they strongly suggested that we should consider. Better education system for the kids, better working environment, better quality of life, more stable political environment etc etc.   Hmmm.......not now, but definitely food for thought!

They drove us back to the hotel after that. And showed us there WAS life after 6pm!!!  (cos we earlier commented that the city was dead after dark)

Saturday Night Life

  -- End of Day 3 --

Australia Holiday - Day 2

After breakfast on Day 2, we set off to the Caversham Wildlife Park. Yay....gonna see kangaroos, koala bears and wombats!

Train Ride to Bassandaen

I always like the experience of taking public transport in a new place  :)  

After the short train ride, we took a connecting bus to Whiteman Park and then a courtesy bus to Caversham itself (within Whiteman Park). I was pleasantly surprise that public transport tickets were valid for 2 hours from time of purchase - so can hop on train, bus and even ferry during the time frame. But we wrongly thought we qualified for the AUD 1.60 conccession fare instead of the full AUD 4.00 fare.  Oops!

  

At the entrance of Caversham Wildlife Park

A REAL kangaroo!

I think there were easily 30 kangaroos in the kangaroo enclosure area.

 Elyssa feeding a kangaroo with daddy

Eventually, she was comfortable enough to feed the kangaroo by herself.

We spent a fair bit of time at the kangaroo enclosure.

 Next attraction - koala bear!

Well, technically a marsupial instead of a bear. This fella was fast asleep.

 Me stroking the soft fur of the sleeping koala

 Wake up Mr Koala!

 At least this koala was awake

Looked at some owls and and other small animals, then we stopped for lunch. We packed tuna, cheese and ham sandwiches, yoghurt, crisps and a flask of hot coffee. At first I was wondering where to eat - saw some tables next to a cafe but they were marked "for patrons only". Then walked a few steps down and saw a designated picnic area complete with rows and rows of tables and benches!  Lovely!

After lunch, we continued walking around the wildlife park.

Photo op with a Wombat

Shy Peacock (err...or Rude Peacock showing us his bum??)

Ok, that's more like it

  

At the animal show

 That's a live sheep that's being sheared!

I've always thought that the poor sheep must get really cold after loosing its fur. But the guy explained that sheep automatically produces lanolin oil (the same lanolin in some skincare products) after shearing which keeps it warm. So that botak-ed sheep can go back to the open fields even in winter.

After the animal show, Elyssa had fun feeding rabbits

Llama and Donkey

Me with a goat

I can't believe I actually hugged a goat!!

 Elyssa went around the place looking for "good goats". To her, that means any goat that doesn't move when she strokes it  :-)

Drinking milk. 

Elyssa said : "Just like baby Erin drinking mummy's milk!"

Elyssa with a "good goat" 

Lovely Weather to Run around

We took our time at the park and by the time we left, it was around 3+pm.  Heard some rather interesting conversation (which involves swearing in almost every sentence) in the bus on the way back. Well, one plus point about public transport is we get conversion snippets from day-to-day life of non-tourists.

Anyway, when we arrived at the city centre, we shopped around a bit -  went to the pharmacy, Hubby did his pre-requisite CD shopping while I brought Elyssa with me and happily browsed through practically every aisle in Woolsworth.   Yes, I can get high on grocery shopping. Even using the self-checkout counter was such a thrill  :-)

When it got dark, we took the free Red Cat bus back to the hotel.


--End of Day 2 --
(pace picks up only after Day 3)