March 2016
Friends from UK and Melbourne, Bill and Diane Bacon (Coltishall, Norfolk, UK) and Pam (Torquay, Melbourne) arrived 18th March 2016 for a 3 week stay with us. We decided to organise and action packed itinerary for them, based around holiday houses located in Scarborough Beach Perth, Busselton and Fremantle.
Helen and Richard met the host of the Penthouse Apartment at
Scarborough Beach, he instructed us on the two keys we required to get in and
out of the building….
After using the lift to transport all our many packages up
to our top floor penthouse suite, ha ha… Richard and Helen set off to Perth T4
to greet and meet our friends, who we haven’t seen for a long, long time!!
After the usual formalities, our friends appeared at the airport gate and we then retrieved their bags and set off to load the car up and travel to our first stay, Scarborough Beach.
The apartment we had booked was very luxurious and had lovely beach and sea views.
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| View from our apartment |
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| Another beautiful sunset |
We did lots of tourist stuff here, namely visiting Kings Park, the open top bus tour of Perth, train, bus and ferry trip to Fremantle and many other walks and strolls around this lovely area. The weather was very kind to us, not too hot!
We even swam in the sea at 8am, a rare happening for Helen and Richard.
The day before we left Scarborough beach saw us having a tiki tour to the northern beaches and calling in to see Jonathan for a short while.
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| Pam, Diane and Bill, Kings Park |
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| Kings Park, the amazing Boab Tree |
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| Bell Tower at the Barrack Street Jetty |
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| Church in centre of Perth |
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| Elizabeth Quay.... didn't find out the significance of this bird |
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| Amazing curved bridge, Elizabeth Quay |
After packing up the ute to its maximum capacity, we took a leisurely drive down to Busselton. The weather turned quite chilly and dull as we parked up in Mandurah for lunch, we chose the facilities of the Dome Café, which to our surprise was very good food at a reasonably price.
Onwards and again south, we drove and arrived at our next holiday home. Once again bedrooms chosen and all unpacked we headed off in the ute to the nearest supermarket to stock up. Our house is situated quite close to town with an easy walk to the Jetty and beaches. Busselton was filling up very quickly with caravans pouring into the Kookaburra Caravan Park not far from us, well it is the Easter weekend!
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| Watershed wine tour |
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| Busselton Jetty walk |
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| Cape Naturliste lighthouse |
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| Diane at Hamelin Bay...water warm as! |
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| Busseton Jetty |
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| You lot spruce up nicely |
Richard had organised a "Wine tour" with a lovely company "Cheers" and Nathan the owner came to pick us up at 10a.m. the next morning. We had a wonderful tour with a number of vineyards visited. The tour took us to the Venison, Cheese and Chocolate factories..... Our lunch was included that was eaten at the "Watershed" vineyard this was worth $40-$50 of anyone's money....amazing food.
Many touristy trips were undertaken, a wonderful tour by a young lady at Cape Leuwin lighthouse especially enjoyed by all of us. We celebrated Helen's birthday that evening at The Goose restaurant by having a sensational meal where the food was quite something.
Sunday saw us off in reasonable time to sample the beach and see the Stingrays at Hamelin Bay, such a beautiful beach and bay. Then off to Cape Leuwin and the view of where the Southern Ocean and Indian Ocean meet... very spectacular. A detour on our way back to Busselton was called for to check on our caravan and for our friends to have a "Sticky Beak"... they had not seen our humble abode until now. At the winery Matt, Mathieu and Ashlee were busy with the massive buckets of red grapes, transporting them from one place to another. We showed our friends some of the work that Richard had done in the building of the Cellar Door, they were very impressed!
Over the next few days we walked to town and the beach for a bit of relaxation, we had the Ranger serviced too. We found an amazing Kiwi café (this happens to us just as we are about to leave a place).
Our next holiday home is a house in South Fremantle its just right, a short walk to Woolworths and Dan Murphys, how good is that!!! We soon found our way to the free bus service and have not had to take the ute out of the garage once. The free buses here are fantastic.
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| Twilight sail Fremantle |
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| On our way, bubbles in hand |
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| Yours truly |
Sunday afternoon was quite a treat we just sat and had a few drinks on the Cappuccino Strip watching the world go by.
Tourist activities we have done are, Twilight Sail, Roundhouse, Western Australia Maritime Museum, Tram ride, Fremantle Prison, Shipwreck Galleries and a beautiful meal at the Fremantle Sailing Club. Our time here in Freo has been very busy there is so much to see and we have loved it here.
A few extra photographs below, enjoy.....
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| Cape Leeuwin lighthouse |
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| Cape Leeuwin lighthouse |
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| Richard and Billy with our van at the vineyard |
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| Pam relaxing |
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| Pam ready for the off |
